It was with a little sadness that we departed Paris today. We very much enjoyed our four days here, particularly having the time and opportunity to wander around a number of the different neighbourhoods. This was our preference to seeing some of the big sights again. We could have gone to the Louvre for example, and indeed this weekend is Journées du Patrimoine (Heritage Days), so some museums and the like are free. However, there were crowds lining up and we quite readily flagged it. We have thoroughly enjoyed exploring the older arrondissements (districts), like the Marais (3rd Arrondissement), in particular.
Some Observations:
Upon arrival in Paris and emerging from the depths of the Paris underground metro system, some cultural differences with San Francisco and also NZ were clear:
- The standard of dress is much higher than NZ or San Francisco. There's a lot more care taken in choosing shoes, trousers and top, and further in make-up. Even if somebody is casually dressed, it is often very carefully casual!
- Seats in the cafes are mostly turned to face outwards towards the street. Often every row of seating is aligned to face outwards rather than in groups towards the tables. The result aids social interaction between those seated and those passing by on the footpath or the street. It's very convivial.
- The number of people who smoke cigarettes is at first a little overwhelming. While we often smelt marijuana while walking in San Francisco and Berkeley, we less often saw anyone actually smoking. By contrast, in France, it seems like more than half the people seated at a cafe are smoking, or while chatting to someone on the footpath. The smell of smoke is pervasive and the roadside gutters are riddled with cigarette butts. It's very in-your-face!
Our departure from Paris on Monday morning was an early one. We left the apartment soon after 7am, picked up a baguette at the bakery nearby and jumped onto the Metro, arriving at Gare de Lyon station by 7.45am. The train we had booked was fairly full but we'd booked early enough to reserve two seats on the upper level. We settled in for the five hour trip to Perpignan and planned to enjoy a good rest from our four days of enthused walking around Paris. It didn't take long to realise that our seats were in the section facing the wrong way, i.e. we'd be spending the next five hours going backwards! Hah. It didn't really matter because I ended up sleeping for perhaps half the journey and reading most of the rest of it. John was listening to a comic cricket podcast while taking the odd photo out the window. Hence the trip went remarkably quickly. We made up our standard baguette sandwiches along the way.
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| Landscape on the way to Valence |
We left behind temperatures of around 27-28 degrees and medium humidity in Paris, arriving in Perpignan in the early afternoon to a very hot sun, about 30 degrees and lower humidity. It felt a lot hotter than Paris. It was only a 40-minute wait until the next scheduled 1 Euro bus to Ceret. It was very exciting to be on the last leg of our trip.
Off the bus and a five minute walk saw us stop outside the door to our building. Great stuff, but not before John had spied something momentous on the way - a coffee roaster has opened up in town!
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| A new coffee roaster |
It was wonderful, after lugging our bags up the three flights of stairs, to open the door to our apartment and immediately feel its ambience. We truly do enjoy it. After throwing open the shutters, turning on the air conditioning and quickly unpacking our bags, the next few months were certainly looking very appealing.
We began with a stock up on a few fresh goods from the local supermarket, but soon afterwards made our way to Le Comptoir, our local cafe. Ordering a pastis and a glass of rose seemed the perfect fit for the occasion. It wasn't long before a number of our friends wandered along, some on a stroll and others for their regular pre-dinner tipple. It was really lovely catching up with them, and an enjoyable few hours rushed by until we needed to retreat home and piece together some bits for a late meal.
We have had home-exchange guests using our apartment for the past week - they departed just a few days before we arrived. Unfortunately we couldn't overlap for a day, as initially planned, but they left a generous note, clearly loved the place and are very keen to return again next year. It's likely we will catch up with them well before then, because we often use their exchange bach in Hanmer Springs and they live not far away in Christchurch.
We slept like logs.
