May 20 - Paris

Today we arrived in Paris in the middle of the morning, after a seven-hour flight from Toronto.  We caught an airport transfer from the Charles de Gaulle airport to our apartment in the 2^nd Arrondissement.  This district is within walking distance to most of the major sites in Paris.  From our window we can see the Eiffel tower, which is lit up during the evening.

Our view of the Eiffel Tower at night

We flew Air Transait and the seats were not the most comfortable.  The plan was a throwback to the 1980’s where the onboard entertainment was shown on a single screen for all the passengers to watch,  I must admit though that leg room is larger than most planes.  So give a little, take a little.

Terminal 3 for Charles de Gaulle airport is very small.  You could compare it to the terminal in London Ontario.  One baggage rack and a small passport control counter.

We flew over the Northern coast of France on our way into the airport.  The landscape was very flat and the crops were lush and green.

Our trip into Paris from the airport was very enlightening.  The limo that we had booked for our airport transfer was a Mercedes SUV and the ride was very comfortable. I thought that traffic in Rome was bad but Paris is a nightmare in comparison.  It reminded me of an expression Ron Wilson uses about “stuffing 5lb of poop into a 2lb bag.”  It seemed that every traffic circle merged five lanes of traffic into two lanes.  I can sympathize with the limo driver.  

Our apartment is cosy and about the size of an average North American sized hotel room. The owner of the apartment, Vincent is originally from Gaspe Bay.  We meet him when he came over to give us an overview of Paris, where to find good restaurants and other tourist tips.  Vincent destroyed the image of the arrogant Parisian.  He was very friendly and helpful.  He is taking his twin sons, who are Canadian by birth and fifteen years of age, for their first trip to Canada this summer.  

Our studio apartment in Paris

Vincent showed us a web site where we can make reservations at top Paris restaurants at discounted prices.  We used it tonight to go across the street to a restaurant called Clementine and it was wonderful.  You can tell my French is terrible. I tried to speak some simple French and they immediately switched to English.

We both had Duck with Orange sauce.  In honour of Rocky, Marg had a cheese plate for dessert.  She loved the Camebert cheese which the owner had warned her against because of it's strong taste.

Tomorrow, we will try to get a feel for the layout of Paris by taking the Hop on Hop bus around the city.