Tuesday 3 April 2012

Paris and "those" steps

Posted by Rosie

Last Thursday and Friday the boys had a 2 day school trip to Futuroscope near Poitiers and Simon had the brainwave that, if we could organise animals etc, that we could go to Paris whilst they were away. I had never been and we had been talking about it for ages. That was Sunday and within a couple of hours we had a friend organised for animal/house sitting, train tickets booked and a budget hotel reserved. We were off and for 2 days it was our turn to be the tourists.  And tourists we were. We bought Batobus tickets which allowed us to hop on and off the boat buses that travel at regular intervals up and down the Seine and in between we walked ... and we walked ... and we walked. We saw:

Notre Dame
 And we saw:

The Louvre
 We passed:

La Place de la Concorde
 We wandered round the shops and restaurants in:

The Latin Quarter


 And of course we went to:

the Eiffel Tower

We found, much to Simon's pleasure, a proper English pub selling real ale and sat outside enjoying a pint and a coffee in the sunshine. The tourist list also included the Parthenon, The Sorbonne (where my grandmother had been in the twenties), Le Jardin des Plantes and these steps. "Steps?" I hear you ask. Yes, Steps. You see these are the steps that Gil sits on on the film Midnight in Paris before getting whisked back to Paris in the 1920's and I really wanted to find them. On the second day we did ... only to realise that we were actually sat opposite them the day before enjoying that pint and coffee (They are just behind the man half in the photo on the left hand side!). The day before we had walked up from the other direction and no-one had stopped us to ask to have their photo taken. This time we arrived via an alley that we quickly named Dog Poo Alley (I bet there was no dog poo when they did the filming) and were asked by a couple to take their photo on some steps. Only when I turned round to look down the road we had walked up the day before did I realise why they had chosen that spot and those steps for their photo!

An English Pub in Paris
Those Steps

So, steps found, sites done and beer drunk. One successful trip to Paris completed and we were back in time to collect two very tired boys who had had a great time at Futuroscope.


9 comments :

  1. What a great couple of days!

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  2. Looks wonderful and nice photos. Liking that Simon found an English pub lol

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  3. Thank you - Simon was pleased about finding the pub too ;-)

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  4. The Parthenon? Have the French nicked it from Athens, much like the British took the Elgin Marbles? lol Glad you had a lovely time and it's good for you two to get away together for a change!

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  5. Ah, Mandy, you spotted by (not so) deliberate mistake. I knew it was wrong but couldn't think what it should have been. Should have read Pantheon!

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  6. I loved Midnight in Paris so thank you for sharing the "steps"! And for the tour of Paris - one of my favourite cities. Glad you had a lovely time there AND found an English pub!

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  7. It was a rare two days away and much enjoyed.

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  8. Pantheon! I'm glad because I was wondering how come I'd missed seeing a Parthenon when I was in Paris...I don't actually know what the Pantheon is, must go and look that one up!

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