X BARRE continues to plague us

Saturday 31st August
Another glorious Lyonnais day dawned and our first task was to relocate our car from  the  5 star garage into the street near Kelly’s Irish bar for ease of loading. We funincular up the hill again and walk down to our illustrious garage where we easily find the black beast and set off for a service station for fuel. Once more we hit  the big X BARRE  road closed. We go round the block and start again with a revised destination and voila we reach our destination and fuel up. Luckily we return to the street and find a park out the front so after depositing the suitcases in the car, via two traboules ( as the first one led to an underground ?? and we nearly lost Flashy) we meander over the bridge to the local market. Plenty of fruit, flowers, cheese, meat and fish so we pick up some supplies for the pique-nique we plan to have en  route to our overnight Chateau stop. We head down the A7 for St Etienne, sit in a car park on the freeway for 5 kms (I guess everyone heads of town for the weekend) and to keep us amused tag a tiny red fiat decorated with ribbons and flowers forming the lead vehicle in a wedding entourage. Horns tooting as only the French can, it at least makes up for the boredom of sitting stationary on a freeway. Amelie tells us to take route A47 to St Etienne but of course in keeping with our current luck the major freeway exit is X BARRE. We, along with streams of other cars are advised to continue straight for 6kms. Oh well, we say. Can't really argue so we drift further south beside the Rhone river before being able to do a legitimate U turn. We are now destined to return from when we came and Amellie really wants us to get back onto the A7 and repeat said journee. Oh no says Lady P I’m not going to fall for that, so she spies a bridge, two in fact that are crossing the Rhone which she thinks will give us some hope of getting to our destination in the West. Voila, much to Flashy's amazement, she is right and through a series of different address entries we snake away through the French countryside toward the Monts du Forez. And then we climb, through the National park on hairpin bends, passing potential Le Tour de France winners, future LeMans drivers and stopping briefly to observe the  twitchers seeking to ‘observe the migration du Col de Barachuchet'. We have 1 refreshing bier as we desperately needed a loo stop and reaching an altitude of 1200 metres  the temperature plummets to 18 degrees. It was an amazing drive, albeit not planned but ultimately far preferable to sitting in a car park on the freeway. We still have no idea why the road to St Etienne was closed but hundreds of others were in the same boat. Finally after an hour longer than anticipated we arrived at Chateau de la Vernede in the valley where our delightful hostess, Laurence, offered us a refreshing chilled rose in the garden.
Le pique-nique you may wonder. Well, as we are in the country and can hear the sounds of barking dogs and gunshots, we decide we have travelled far enough today so we will, partake of our pique- nique in the lovely rambling garden that surrounds us.

Bouchons, bullshit and brilliance

Friday 30th August

Another beautiful summers day in Lyon and a petit dejeuner at a local cafe is a perfect start to our funicular ride up the hill to the Church of our Lady, La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourviere and the Roman Amphitheatre. Just to be on the safe side, Flashman lights a votive candle, says a quick Hail Mary and wanders about this magnificent, gilded mosaic interior. I’m sure the €2 donation will help the poor, struggling Catholic Church maintain the building. Eschewing a glace, crepe or croquet monsieur on the way down we retire to the apartment in preparation for our lunch at Paul Bocuse, ‘Nord Brassiere’. Bocuse is still famous, despite his death 2 years ago as the rock star of Lyonaisse cuisine. Lady P reckons that Flashy should enrol in his cooking school – only €25,000 a year for three years. So while Paul won’t be in the kitchen, his spirit will we think; when the Michelin inspector asked him once, ‘who cooks in your restaurant when you are wandering the world doing TV appearances?’  he replied ‘The same people who cook when I am there!’

Lyon is regarded as the culinary heaven of France and the patron Saint is of course Paul Bocuse. So as we are ensconced in the Vieux Lyon surrounded by restaurants we expect to be with the angels. Firstly to Bouchons. These were originally simple homes opened to poor workers (probably building the churches) providing simply cooked meals from cheap cuts. The bouchons were run by the women cooks of the house and there are many famous ‘mothers of Lyon. Unfortunately many of the very average bistros brassieres and restaurants have attached the word bouchon to their name and provide a typical three course fixed price meal of very average food. This has led to an association of proper bouchons with plaques and all that fanfare. Lady P's research has found one such proper bouchon. It’s closed! Flashy calls out ‘chef where are you mate and is greeted by the owner having a pastis at the neighbouring bar. Sorry I am closed for renovation. Long story short he recommends his favourite bouchon around the corner and we obtain a reservation  for the next evening. If you like big portions of crappy offal, dry fish and sloppily presented peasant food, then  the bouchon is for you. We were disappointed and quite frankly were wondering if only Lyons 3 star restaurants would meet the standard. So that’s the bouchon bullshit.

    

Now for the brilliance. 

Ironically, almost directly opposite the forgetable bouchon mentioned above, on the left was our lunch venue for today, one of the late Paul Bocuse's  Lyon restaurants, Brassiere Nord. Well you could have knocked us down with a feather! Proper waiters in now ties, a formal dining room full of locals. We were treated to an aperitif. We used our excellent restaurant French to guide us through the menu, avoiding ears, nose and guts, to enjoy a brilliant three course lunch of escargot, quenelles of pike in lobster sauce, a perfectly ripe brie, and a shared poached peach and Lyonaisse praline tart.

Absolutely brilliant for €39. We accompanied the meal with a provincale rose of excellent heritage. The restaurant interior was ‘regal, railway carriage’ of the 1930’s with a stunning mosaic floor. Bespoke napkins and crockery, excellent service beautiful plating and proper portion control just added to the exquisite flavours of the meal. At last Lyonnaise cuisine to write home about, our faith in the French kitchen has been restored. Not to mention the flirtatious waiter who with a subtle wink ( well Flashy missed it ) allowed Lady Penelope to place a clean Nord napkin in her bag. Oui oui monsieur.  

We finished the day with a stroll across the Rhone for two positively pink cocktails in the Dome room bar of the Intercontinental Hotel. A last toast to our bourgeoisie lifestyle in the big cities. Tomorrow we are off to the country, for the start of our French provincial adventure.

A walking tour of Vieux Lyon - acknowledging 2000 years of history.

Thursday 29th August
A not so early start today. After a remarkably long sleep Lady P heads out to a famous and popular local  patisserie for croissants and pastries. We soon have our own petit dejeuner in our apartment. Moving slowly we walk up our local rue Saint Jean to the cathedral, which has only just been totally cleaned inside and out, resulting in a gleaming sandstone gothic building with magnificent stained glass windows.

Here in the square we meet Paul, our walking tour guide who leads us on a 2 hour tour of Lyon. We discover that Lyon was founded by Julius Caesar in 43 BC after he defeated the gauls. The old town eventually moved from the top of the hill to the banks of the Saone during the middle ages for better access to water from the river and  building continued through the Renanaisse period. Interestingly, Italian architects from Venice were responsible for much of the 15 C /16C buildings that make up the World Heritage listed Vieux Lyon area including our not so little 1st floor apartment. We also wander through the traboules – passageways through private residences from one street to another, secret short cuts if you like, which the resistance put to good effect, during the Nazi occupation of Lyon in 1943/44. More angels and demons moments! Back in our neighbourhood we buy a jamon, brie and figues baguette to share for lunch and after more friendly franglaise discussions with the ever so friendly local youngsters we buy a Bourgogne blanc Aligote. We have a pique-nique in our apartment, enjoying the unusual wine with hints of marsanne.

We are going to a highly recommended bouchon tonight and Flashman has been translating the menu. Prior preparation and all that he says. There is some concern when items on the menu translate to head, nose, ear, tail and intestines. Anyway forewarned is best. Food photos and more on Lyon gastronomy tomorrow.

Society, stunning Architecture and.........roadworks

Wednesday 28 August
We decided to christen our GPS Amelie. She has a nice English accent and mispronounces most of the French words but she did a good job getting us from Paris to Lyon. But I never trust them completely. At 0730 this morning Flashy is sent on a mission for croissants but finds all shops closed. Instead we settle for a cup of coffee at home then head off to retrieve our car  from the street and take it to Anne's lock up garage on the top of the hill above us in a 5 Star Hotel Carpark.  We start off ok with Lady Penelope driving and Amelie talking sweetly. However, within minutes, the - apparently only road up the hill to our garage is blocked for roadworks. Calls by Amelie to “make a u turn when possible,” when we are on a long one way road are, to say the least, not helpful. Luckily Lady P's sense of direction and Flashy's paper map eventually see us at the entrance to a garage, in which Anne has purchased lock up (number 178). We manage to defeat the security, back into a very tight space and lock up the car. Emerging from the bowels of the garage into daylight, we walk down the road we should have come up and search for food. It's 0930 by now and still not much open so, ever resourceful, we purchase bacon, eggs, mushrooms, tomato and a baguette traditione and take it all back to our apartment for a ‘Full English.’ After some time researching, we book a Paul Bocusse brassiere for Friday lunch and slowly emerge into the cobbled streets of the old town to begin another day of campaigning.
We feel the need to up the steps today as yesterday we only just managed to hit our 10,000 target so we set of for some culture, both society and architecture heading for the Musee des  Confluences.

As the sun was at its highest and hottest, as luck would have it a small  river taxi which travels very infrequently just across the bridge from us to Confluence, pulled into the quai just as weapproached. Lady P ran to alert the Captain and so for €4 we were able to travel in relative coolness to Confluence. This amazing building at the tip of the meeting of the two rivers , the Saone and the Rhone, is a modern addition to what was once a busy Port in Lyon. Fascinating both inside and out with an amazing glass structure it is in direct contrast to Vieux Lyon where we are staying. Lady P embraced all the amazing exhibits including a lot of aboriginal artwork representing the development of societies through the ages and the displays were very inspiring and particularly appealing to the younger audience. It gave a whole new meaning to the ‘school museum excursions’ of the 1960’s. Returning to the centre of town again via the local tram and metro provided even more excitement as we ventured underground so when we successfully emerged 15 mins later in the intended location another celebratory drink was in order. We returned home to shower (and GnT of course) before a late supper and a relatively early night.

Farewell Paris, Bonjour Lyon

Tuesday 27th August 
Today we are going to drive from Paris to Beaune for lunch, and then into Lyon, where we will stay for 4 nights. Parisians are now back for their summer holidays, and the taxi we ride in through the thick traffic to pick up the Peugeot 2008 SUV, fills us with excitement (?intrepidation) at the prospect of driving out of Paris. Our brand new car is ours within minutes but it needs petrol. Flashy takes the PIC left hand seat  and proceeds to do an aggressive u turn to reach the petrol station, nearly killing two young gentlemen on motorbikes. Never mind, they wave at him with both hands, nice chaps. We are now fuelled up, water for hydration and GPS set to English. Lady P is ‘navigating’ and off we head to Beaune. No scary moments worth recording- unless remembering to change gear counts - and a  coffee stop later we enter the walled Burgundian town of Beaune where we meet Robert and Anna, friends from Cairns who have been cruising on their canal boat for the past 4 months, for a delightful lunch in a little bistro enjoying a haute du Beaune chardonnay.

A stroll around Beaune to walk of lunch before Lady P takes the LHS and we cruise without an incident or argument into Lyon; park outside Kelly's Irish bar and call our host Anne. We are staying in a 16th century stone apartment in the old walled city of Lyon, Rieux  de Lyon. This is pretty special. Anne takes us to our apartment through a secret passage (traboule) overlooking Rue St Jean. After settling in she gives us the code to go through other secret passages that actually go through people’s homes to get from one part of the city to the other. Blimey, you could be in an Angels and Demons movie. We are in wonderful accommodation in a World Heritage precinct. We go out for a walk along cobbled streets for dinner, surprised to see an Uber Eats via bicycle pass by but I guess there are 30 somethings here as well, before adjourning to our pied de terre.

Lady Penelope celebrates in style

Monday 26th August 
So the step count came to a grinding halt today which is to say, we barely cracked the daily goal of 10,000 steps. But there were more serious things to consider as it was Lady Penelope’s birthday. From the outset of the planning this was the focus of our departure dates as Paris seemed  like the perfect destination for a party. Little did we know it, but others felt similarly and so a wonderful day of celebrations  began. Whilst guests from afar rose in the dark to travel by car, boat and plane via Calais and Amsterdam respectively we slowly prepared for our day of gastronomy which of course required us to travel across to the 16the armed with a change of attire to suit the days events.
Our first destination was Elysee St Honore, a delightful restaurant on the right bank not far from the Arc de Triumphe. Here we met up with Laura Jane Ogilvy and her youngest son Orlando, who had driven from London to celebrate the occasion over a long lunch. The Tattinger champagne flowed, there was barely a breath drawn as the two ladies quickly caught up on the news of the last seven years, which was when they had previously met. The friendship goes back 46 years when Lady P arrived as a nanny for the Ogilvy family and Laura Jane, as the oldest sibling relished the company of the ‘big sister’ companion. So there was plenty of reminiscing, some wonderful food and Flashy and Orlando discussed the more intellectual topics such as Brexit , fast cars and the event management industry which is the university course Orlando is currently completing.

All of this was of course undertaken in the quintessential setting of a Parisian pavement on another simply stunning Paris day where the temperature reached 33degs. In mid afternoon the next special guest from afar arrived, another long time family friend, Sheryn Foord, originally from Adelaide but currently travelling in England to follow the Ashes test cricket. When dinner in Paris was suggested  there was no hesitation and so midway through the afternoon, Sheryn joined us all for more champagne.  Lunch finally wrapped up around 5pm and we farewelled the English connection who returned to London, and we slowly sauntered off along the  boulevards until we reached the Avenue de la Grande Armee , where we sought a cooling refreshment in the form of a Heineken beer for Flashy and two tall gin and tonic for the ladies. We retired to the air conditioned  comfort of Sheryn’s boutique hotel which was just nearby and showered and changed into our dinner attire. A short walk to Le Pergolese where you guessed it another bottle of Tattinger awaited. We decided on the seven course degustation, after all we were celebrating and we are in Paris. Duck Foie gras with rhubarb and strawberry compote, followed by stuffed lapin (that's rabbit for those who didn’t study french) numerous amuse bouche in between and a palate cleansing peach and ginger foam. And finally there was the desert platter with a quenelle of strawberry and capsicum sorbet. The menu was accompanied by the sommeliers selection, a Paydoc marsanne, a Burgundy chardonnay, and a Bordeaux cabernet sauvignon merlot.

We rolled out of the restaurant, sauntered along the Paris side streets back to Sheryn's hotel and then departed by taxi through the streets of a still very warm Paris night and home to our delightful apartment.
Our Parisian boutique apartement
Claude’s petite apartment in the 14th arrondissement was just perfect for our 5 day sojourn in Paris. More like a bed sit but with a full kitchen, large bathroom and plenty of steaming hot water for those much needed showers at the end of our marathon walking days. The furnishings were mixed but modern and although the bed was of a low style it was no problem for the youthful Lady P. The walls were adorned with prints of old Paris images and a view of Le Tour Eiffel appeared out the ‘window’ of the toilet. It was located on Boulevard St Jaques in  fairly affluent part of town near a hospital. As a result it was incredibly quiet and we often wondered if anyone even lived there. A perfect sojourn for our stay.

A Sunday champagne stroll followed by a Fosters

Sunday 25 August
Determined to keep our step count down to 15,000 today, We head up our beautiful boulevard to Metro into Saint Germain des Pres to check out Beau Passage on Graeme’s recommendation. This is a very smart, up market laneway with restaurants, speciality shops and brilliant art work. It is quite small compared to other areas but clearly a local meeting spot. After a walk around we settle on Cafe Mersea, a collaboration, we are informed, of Italian and French cuisine and only seafood. Deux coupe de Champagne starts the day nicely and share plates of zucchini gazpacho; rillets of mackerel and another of trout with fresh salad greens; sardines on Spanish spiced pasatta on sourdough; and an amazing salmon tartar. Oh, yes the ever present and delicious baguette slices. A fantastic meal in a locals bistro.

As is now becoming quite common, all the restaurant and bar staff at the bistro/ cafe level seem to be staffed by young students, not the older stuffy French waiter. These  young guns switch from French to English seamlessly and all with a smile. Sustained at last we decide to walk into Saint Germain des Pres main square for a look. It's now 29 degrees, and while walking on the shady side of the street, we notice a gigantic local bus attempting to turn into a narrow street from and equally narrow street. Stuck. Some naughty person has parked their little black Merc right on the corner. Of course there is a traffic jam, with no hope or the bus reversing. So naturally, the bus driver blows his horn. Many times. The driver is nowhere to be seen. Soon the gendarmes arrive and start taking notes and slipping into the cafe for a coffee. Lady P remarks that if she was the driver, she'd not make an appearance! We give them five minutes to see if a tow truck arrives or if the three very large gendarmes decide to pick the little car up by hand. Ah, too hot to stand around, so we head off wondering. After a couple of touristy photos, we Metro to Montparnasse for some supplies. First stop though is Odessa Cafe. Here the patrons on the street tables (us), are treated to a fine water mist from the ceiling to keep us cool. We order another two Champagnes. And the cheeky waiter’s reply was “Oh, how bourgeois!” We were the oldest couple at the tables, so obviously he thought we were retired university professors. More like Ukrainian gun dealers, says Flashy. Anyway, Another excellent Champagne on a hot day. Lady P notices some sort of action in the middle of the boulevard and it turns out to be a series is artists’ stalls. She takes pity on the hot and melting artists and admires a pair of earings. Flashy notes that she only has 99 pair at home so buys her a lovely new pair for her birthday. After a brief visit to Monoprix, We Metro back to Denfert Rochereau and emerge into a completely crowded and blocked off square, with tanks, armoured personnel carrier  soldiers and heavily armed police. Some in the crowd stir nervously but Flashy immediately recognised that the army uniforms were US WW2 and the tanks the same vintage. “They are reenactors celebrating the liberation of Paris in 1944.” Correct of course. It pays to know your history, eh?

Now, just around the corner we spot an Australian flag. On closer inspection we also notice a big concrete kangaroo and find ourselves hot and thirsty at ‘Cafe Oz'. Kitsch, but when in Rome... Ah, a pint of Fosters and an Aperol Spritz for hydration and we can face the short walk down our shady Boulevard Saint Jacques and home to a shower and a GnT. Refreshed again we walk around the corner to a little bistro for a cocktail and a simple meal of swordfish and chicken, washed down by a chardonnay  and a Burgundy pinot. Step count today: 12,500 step count to date in Paris: 81,563. No wonder we've been thirsty.

Couth, Culture and another 20,000 steps!

Saturday 24th August
Saturday today, and a few more people are out and about. We decide to give our feet a bit of a rest and metro across to the right bank in search of Marche d'Aligre, one of the busiest markets in Paris. The metro remains clean, cool and efficient and we merge at Bel air ready to walk another undiscovered Paris surprise, La Promenade Plantee in the company of the locals, running, walking and relaxing – not another tourist in sight.

This abandoned and beautifully converted rail line, is a sculptured green oasis amid the older architecture of residential Paris in the 12the, that rises each side of the elevated walk. After some compass work and use of a proper paper map, Flashy establishes where we are. Lady P had it nailed 5 mins before on her mobile phone. Not one to change easily is Flashman. After a brief walk on what is now a quite hot Paris day, we sit in a bar on the edge of the market drinking beer and listening to the live street jazz from 5 retired gents. Why are all jazz musicians older than 50? The market was not super busy and just like a market anywhere. So we purchase our picnic lunch – terrine of rabbit, baguette traditionale,  mild and medium goat’s cheese and a tasty hard cheese from somewhere in the Loire. After some fine haggling from Lady P, we had a bullock heart tomato, a straw hat for Flashy, an unusual white peach and a bottle of Corsican rose. Into the backpack and Flashy the mule follows Lady P to Place des Vosges, Paris’ oldest square and one of the very few where you can actually sit on the grass.

We surreptitiously pour our wine into our picnic glasses with a careful eye out for the patrolling gendarmes (who appear just as we are leaving), as drinking in the parks is now largely forbidden. Bloody nanny state and in France too! Can you believe it? Note not a gypsy in sight.
Sustained by our delicious picnic we walk a short distance to the Picasso museum. Passing through the museum's security, Lady P says ‘hey Flashy, what about the picnic knife?’ As our back pack is bulging with a half drunk bottle of rose and leftover smelly cheese, Flashy's : ‘it’s only a picnic, mate to the security guard, just illicits a Gaelic shrug and ‘entree’. The museum has lots, but and I mean lots of paintings, drawings and sculptures by Picasso and Calder, which are impressive and I suppose great if you like Picasso. At least it was lovely and cool. Enough culture we think, so we head of to meander Le  Marias and in a short walk we are at the top end of Rue des Rosiers, the Jewish quarter, where we are determined to have champagne, eclair and glacier. Mission accomplished. We are surrounded by bagel and falafel shops, very expensive fashion boutiques, hipster vintage clothing shops and throbbing bars and restaurants. The Marais is alive and full of people and we spy some – but not a lot- of Parisian fashion in the streets. There are also no dogs and it seems the ‘thirty somethings’ are multiplying. A hydration stop in a very busy and bustling square sees Lady P get what is so trending here at the moment – the ubiquitous Aperol Spritz. Now out of steam we metro home to a hot shower and a cold GnT.

Summertime in Paris, but where are the Parisians?

Friday 23  August
Awake at 0300 up  at 0700 for home brewed coffee, boiled egg and pan toasted baguette consumed while we watch the window cleaners outside repelling down our apartment block. So, a slow start today as we plan a visit to  Montparnasse Market and the lovely area of Montparnasse. It's another stunning day in Paris with clear blue skies, crisp dry air and the promise of a 29 degree afternoon. While we were walking along Boulevard Saint Jaques a nun came up to us and said hello in French. Obviously she recognized Flashy as a lapsed Catholic and perhaps Lady P looked like a chic Frenchy , so we discussed how nice it was to be in Paris in August while most of the Parisians were on holidays.  We have had no problems finding restaurants, bars and shops open but the lack of traffic and the silence in the neighbourhoods is both soothing and disquieting at the same time. Anyway on to Montparnasse we walk, only to find the market shut. Not to worry a cafe au lait and cafe noir works for us. Next we went to the top of Montparnasse  Tower and at 56 stories you get a perfect 360 degree view of Paris. This relatively undiscovered rooftop mean't no queues and for only €20 each was our contribution to the tourist economy.

Once again at street level, Flashy finally figures that in the northern hemisphere, half way between the 12 on you watch and the sun is south not North. He is now dangerously back in navigator mode. It's now 1 pm and we need lunch. Lady P leads us to an old favourite of hers from seven years ago and luckily we join about 20 locals at restaurant Au Pied du Fouet  crammed into a space that would not be allowed in Australia. A complimentary rose at the bar while our upstairs table by the window is cleared. Now those stairs- Flashy made it up on hands and knees and had to crouch to sit as the ceiling was so low, but the food was magnificent an so traditionally French. A vegetable terrine with prunes and a marinated mackerel  entree was followed by confit  of duck, a cheese plate and tart tartine to finish. The bottle of Bordeaux red was pretty good as well. I forgot to  mention that we caught the barman ‘making’ the rose wine by mixing a sauv blanc with cassis.  Not even a shrug when Flashy says oi  mate! He just says ‘French technique monsieur’ Anyway it tasted great. I might just give it a go when I get back. A brilliant lunch with neighbourhood locals and all for €61.

A monstrous walk was needed, so we headed for Galleries Lafayette, although this time partly by Metro. A successful day of shopping. Even Flashy got into the swing buying a couple of polo shirts. Lady P then marches up the street for her meeting with her personal perfume consultant and retrieves a bottle of her special Fragonard parfum and convinces Flashy to get a bottle of gentleman's scent. I think it used to be called aftershave. We meander down Avenue L'Opera to the River Seine and by now we were pretty stuffed, so a cooling beverage was called for and only just delivered before the five minute rule was about to be applied. Now hydrated, We walked to Ile Saint Louis, passing another of Paris' fine monuments, Notre Dame, still resplendent and majestic even though she was partially clad in scaffolding.

Lady P purchased  a stunning necklace and earnings in a delightful artisan shop and to celebrate, we walked back over the Pont de Salle to the left bank where hundreds of thirty somethings were quietly drinking, snogging and dancing salsa. A tribal thing we guess or a Friday finish work party because it’s summer kinda thing. A champagne slowly taken while people watching is a wind down to a 20km walking day. Not finished yet. We walk to the nearest Metro and train it home for a gin and tonic, hot shower and some feet up planning for tomorrow.

Observations, unusually early for Flashy. Some things in Paris are missing from our last trip.
Off course the steaming piles of dog shit in the streets have been gone for years, but there is no rubbish or litter anywhere. Perhaps little pixies come out at midnight but well done Paris.
Missing also is the pollution, well at least this August. Perhaps it has something to do with the missing locals on summer holidays and the proliferation of electric scooters and electric bikes. Green ones, red ones, orange ones, bloody things are everywhere, zipping in and out of the traffic at terrifying speed. And missing helmets as well. Clean air. Well done Paris.
I suspect that Parisians atrocious attitude to ‘Englese’  has softened decades ago but it’s sure missing now. Lady P accosted the young and not so young, men women and boys, black white and brindled with a mix of Australian, French and mostly Franglaise only to be responded to with a smile and helpful advice – in perfect English. One kind chap even made a call on her mobile in French to leave a message about our limo no show. Friendly Parisians – well done Paris.
Other changes we noticed and perhaps because it is summer and warm, included the drinking of beer over wine. We have of course been hanging out with mostly 30 somethings and hipsters. But at bars, restaurants and on the banks of the Seine, there were people drinking pints of various European beers. And the drinkers are all dressed down considerably. Flashy had to look very carefully to spy a well dressed woman in 3 inch heels  pencil designer skirt, silky sleeveless top and Dior accessories, but his powers of observation were surely tested. Perhaps it’s summer.
One final observation although we have deliberately avoided the real tourist traps, missing are the usually ubiquitous gypsies. Hooray, well done Paris.

And where are all the Parisians? Streets are deserted and we feel like we have Paris all to ourselves, Thank you Paris. 

Paris, we've arrived. Merci beaucoup pour le ensoleillement

Wednesday – Thursday 21- 22 August
An on time Uber pickup saw us at the Cairns International airport two hours before departure and into a deserted departure hall and likewise no one in immigration and border protection. For the second time in as many years, Flashy's passport failed the electronic read and he had to go and see the scary Border Protection police for what is known as manual processing. Then into baggage screening where for some
reason the attractive French woman was chosen for the full body scan. Very intimidating but we cruise through to the business lounge for a Champagne prior to boarding. Now, there is something nice about boarding an International flight and turning left rather than turning right to zoo class. An uneventful flight to Hong Kong where we endured a four hour transit by visiting three of the four Cathay business
lounges to see what might be the best option on our eight hour return transit, before boarding for another 12 hours to Paris. Cathay business? OK but not exceptional. Comfortable flat beds but average food, beverage and service. At Charles de Gaulle there is no sign of our limo, so after an hour we call it a no show and get a taxi to our Paris apartment. More on this great little find later. In order to beat jet lag, we quickly change into casual summer kit and march off on foot into glorious summer weather for a 13km – sort of circular exploration of our extended neighbourhood.

First stop was to establish a FHQ (field HQ), where we had a petite dejuner before continuing.Having located the Moufftard market, we purchased a baguette, found some nice soap and the all important ice cube trays for out fridge. There
was some discussion between Flashman and Lady Penelope as to the direction of North and the position of the Seine. Extremely important if you don't want to walk around in circles. However, we enjoyed a leisurely walk, sighting but not visiting the Eiffel Tour and Notre Dame and visiting and tasting at Restaurant Bar Mouffatard and Le Village Ronsard Cafe and bar on Boulevard Saint Germain for Aperol
spritz, beer and a Bordeaux red to assist digestion of a charcuterie platter. Finally back at the apartment at 4pm and attempting to push through happy hour at the FHQ so we can crash around 9pm. Now, all that will surely cure jet lag. If we are alive tomorrow we will continue the blog.

Ten days and counting.......

And now we've collected the E tickets so its starting to get real. 

Let  the party begin. 

More from the airport lounge when we've finished work and have champagne in hand. Cheers