Paris.

Thursday 12 July. Smooth train trip from Vermenton to Gare Paris Bercy, which is the station for “auto-cars” (diesel-powered rail-car units) while the electric trains go to Gare de Lyon. We wheeled our luggage straight out to the street where taxis were waiting, bid goodbye to Terry and Ann and directed the cab to our hotel, the Louvre Rivoli close to the Chatelet Metro. The room overlooked a quiet street from the 5^th floor and had been renovated but was rather small and dominated by an enormous black wardrobe close to one side of the bed, no door handles and very hard to open. A triumph of style over practicality – as was the bathroom to a lesser extent. The lobby was still being renovated and the charges for internet access were outrageous: €10 for an hour. The central location was great however.

We went walking in the afternoon, checked out a couple of possible restaurants in the Rue St Marc for dinner and returned to the hotel via an indirect route. There were intermittent showers and it seemed to rain every time we stepped outside. We had dinner at Clementine, which had been recommended by some friends and which we also enjoyed.

Friday 13 July. The morning was fine and the forecast was for a hot day. After breakfast at a nearby café Judy went shopping and Denis stayed in to work off-line on photo annotations and blog updates. We walked over the Pont Neuf to the Left Bank, stopping on the Ile de la Cite for lunch, during which a guy parked a cute vintage Simca Cinq nearby in a motorbike park. This attracted a lot of attention from passing pedestrians and tourists. On the Left Bank we shopped for some family presents and eventually returned to the hotel to freshen up and relax.

We went for dinner at a small restaurant we had spotted down near the Forum des Halles called Chez Max. This was up some narrow and grubby stairs and was almost empty when we arrived so we were not sure what we were in for. However some more customers soon arrived, in particular a noisy group including a guy in an All Black shirt who looked like he could have been a rugby player. They were celebrating a birthday so there were lots of kisses all round, photos and a birthday cake with a sparkler while everyone in the restaurant sang “Bon Anniversaire”. The food was actually quite good and we would recommend it if you like old family style places.

After dinner we took the Metro to the Place de la Bastille where a “bal populaire” was in progress. This consisted of a large stage with the usual video screens, lots of noise and about 100,000 people jammed into the square. There were a large proportion of non-whites and the best of the music was African-rock. There were groups of cops stationed around the square but the crowd seemed peaceful enough and enjoying the warm night. After midnight the show ended and we walked back to the hotel through the crowded streets. As we passed a fire station in the Marais district we saw a huge queue of people trying to get into one of the Sapeurs Pompiers balls which we had heard were very popular. We eventually got to bed about 1:00am.

Saturday 14 July, Bastille Day. We got up fairly early and headed down to the Metro to get out to the Champs Elysees for the big parade. When we emerged from the Metro about 1km down from the Arc de Triomphe there was already a large crowd lining the street and platoons of soldiers lined up down the far side. We bought some bread rolls and coffee and went through the security checks to get to the roadside - then had to wait for over an hour before things started to happen, and we were glad of the shade of the big plane trees. First there was a series of inspections of the troops by the military top brass, then the new president Sarkozy was driven slowly past surrounded by the Republican Guard and band in traditional Napoleonic uniforms with silver helmets, red plumes and gold braid, mounted on chestnut horses.

The troops then formed up into columns with the regimental banners in front and marched off down in the direction the Place de la Concorde where the

reviewing stand with all the VIPs was located. (Of course, we could not see this part. You probably needed to have been waiting all night for a spot there.) Then there was a parade of military hardware with the officers standing at attention in their armored cars and tanks, followed by all kinds of equipment such as armored bulldozers, water tankers, generator trucks, radar trucks etc. The biggest cheer however was for the Sapeurs Pompiers in their fire engines and silver helmets at the tail end of the parade. Another high point was the fly-past: an aerobatic team trailing red, white and blue smoke, Mirage fighters flying in close formation with flight refueling planes, reconnaissance aircraft, freighters and helicopters. At one stage we spotted a guy in uniform on what appeared to be a military (or maybe the new Mk 2) version of a Segway, with large alloy wheels and tyres zipping down the road with a video camera attached to it.

The photos of the parade have some interesting juxtapositions with the movie posters: Sarkozy/Simpsons, Police contingent/Hot Fuzz.

After the parade we walked down the Champs Elysees hoping to get as far as Concorde, but the security barriers prevented this so we headed east and wound up at the Printemps store where we first went to the roof-top café for some refreshment and then did a little shopping for presents. We took the Metro to the hotel for a rest before dining at an Italian restaurant and catching the Metro back to Concorde to see the fireworks. Again we had a wait of over an hour but it was a beautiful night and we had a good vantage point by the bridge. The start of the display was signaled by the flashing lights on the Eiffel Tower; soon after the fireworks began, running for about 30 minutes. The Eiffel Tower lights were turned off after the first few minutes and then a few minutes before the end they were turned on again. It was a very good display but as we were some distance away we couldn’t hear the music which was supposed to accompany it. We walked back to the hotel along the banks of the Seine and got to bed about midnight.

Sunday 15 July. In the morning we took our laundry to the place in the Marais district near the Bretonnerie we had used before and had breakfast at a nearby café while it was washing. Everything very quiet around there after two nights of partying! We returned to the hotel and found, as we expected, that the nearby streets had been cordoned off in preparation for the official launch of the “Velib” free (less than 30 mins) /cheap (for short periods) bicycle project in Paris. We found a good viewing spot next to the stage where the speeches would be made and close to the row of bikes in their high-tech stands. The place was crawling with security guards, police and news media. Eventually the Mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, arrived, walking over from the nearby Hotel de Ville. He was admitted through the security fence quite near us and started to greet and shake hands with members of the public as politicians are wont to do. He was a rather short, dapper fellow in a white sports coat and dark slacks. When he got near us Judy put out her hand and it was duly shaken – pity she missed most of what he said to her, and unfortunately I was not quick enough to capture the moment on camera! Soon the speeches started and eventually, after they’d gone on for some time, the Mayor threw a switch and activated the 750 bike stations with their 10,600 bikes. There will be a further 10,000 bikes by the end of the year. The first “members of the public” then attempted to use the system which seemed to take a long time even with expert assistance although we couldn’t see what was going on due to the media mob. Eventually a couple of people cycled away although we were disappointed the Mayor was not one of them. By the evening the bike racks were empty and the streets were full of happy cyclists.

In the meantime, we took a Metro out to Chateau Vincennes, to get to a large park on the eastern outskirts of Paris: le Parc Floral de Paris, where a jazz concert was to be held. This was very pleasant on a hot sunny afternoon and after a light lunch at one of the cafes we lay on the grass along with hundreds of Parisians and their families enjoying some lively music. In the late afternoon we took the Metro back to the hotel and then walked out for dinner at “Au Pied du Cochon”, a restaurant near the Forum des Halles, which was quite good and has some unusual dishes on the menu, including all parts of the cochon (pig) served in different ways. On the way we called into a WorldCom shop to access the Internet, check our email and update the blog. The place was full of people shouting into telephones in unrecognizable languages and to get to the computers we had to climb a set of stairs steep and narrow even by Paris standards!