To account for the autumn internationals window, the club rugby in Europe has a hiatus at the start of November every year. This meant Iain had a week off work and we were able to take off and enjoy some time away from Pau. We decided to fly up to Paris for a few days. Although I'd been there three times already with Suzy and lots of Mussey kids, those trips were never relaxing and there were some things I still really wanted to see and Iain had never been before. Plus the All Blacks were going to be in town so we were able to catch up with some kiwis who were either travelling with the team or covering the tour.
It was the first time in - ever ?! - that we only needed to get one flight to our final destination. The joy of a quick 50min flight and we were there was so unusual. Also, we weren't on some hideous red-eye. 11am departure thank you very much. Easy.
Our first port of call after arriving and checking into our hotel, was a late lunch at Chambelland, a 100% gluten free patisserie very close to where we were staying. (I actually booked our hotel between Bastille and Republique based on its proximity to this place!) Expensive, yes, but a truly wonderful range of food for me to indulge in.
Later on that evening we met up with our really good kiwi friend, Jeff, who was over in Europe covering the ABs tour for Sky. While William caught up on some much needed sleep, Iain went and met him for a few late afternoon pints up at the Place de la République and William and I wandered up (past the Bataclan theatre) a bit later to meet up with them. We stumbled upon a great we bar/restaurant called L'Adresse where we spent the rest of the evening eating, drinking and catching up. It was absolutely brilliant to see him, hear all about life back in NZ and also talk about his travels through Europe.
On Thursday, I fulfilled a teenage ambition. To visit Père Lachaise cemetery and pay my respects to the notorious frontman of The Doors: Mr James Douglas Morrison. I've been a Doors fan since about 1993 when Gail McCrink and I were introduced to them by some daft boys that we were hanging about with at the time. My tape recording of "The Best of..." practically lived in my hi-fi throughout the early '90s and I must've watched the Oliver Stone biopic starring Val Kilmer on an almost weekly basis. I had enormous posters of Jim in my bedroom and Gail and I would often fantasise about going to visit him. And here I was almost 25 years later about to do just that.
The cemetery itself is absolutely enormous, covering a huge part of central Paris. Due to its size, you could spend hours upon hours wandering the graves, tombstones and crypts of the great and the good. There are maps everywhere to stop you getting lost, and its no wonder: not only is it vast, but it's also densely packed, and much of it doesn't follow the usual grid-lined layout of a typical cemetery so you can easily end up walking in circles. Anyway, we were here to see one guy so off we went in search of the Lizard King.
It was quite a surreal experience actually, finally, seeing it. So many times I'd seen footage of the grave but I didn't realise that the bust of Jim was no longer there (it was stolen in 1988) and different people have gifted stones and plaques to commemorate him over the years. It was, by far, the grave with the most tributes and only once I got there, I thought to myself, "I didn't even bring him anything." I was a bit annoyed at myself but I was probably just too overwhelmed that I was actually going to see him after all these years.
You can see that the grave is fenced off but in addition to this it also, amazingly, still requires constant security. In the photos below (bottom right) you can actually see one of the guards. I got chatting to her and she said that people just want to come here and drink and do drugs. So mad that almost fifty years since his death and he still has such an impact on people.
Like I said before, Père Lachaise is full of the great and the good, so we were happy to wonder around for another couple of hours after we'd been to visit Jim. Some of the tombs and crypts are enormous and there is also a whole section dedicated to various groups who lost their lives during WWII. These, in particular, were very moving.
Later on Thursday, we headed into town to meet up with Jeff again and do some more sightseeing. Here we are at Notre Dame:
Here's the Seine at sunset just as the Eiffel Tower was illuminated:
And of course William was there too. He didn't seem to be as astonished at the size of it though. He actually looks pretty annoyed. Jeff was staying on the South Bank in the 6th Arr. so we headed to his neck of the woods for dinner and a few more beers. Just great to hang out and talk nonsense.
On Friday morning we were heading over to the other side of Paris so it was time to make like the locals and take the Metro. I love getting public transport when we're travelling. It just makes the whole thing feel like such an adventure. After visiting the Arc du Triomphe, we headed down to the All Blacks hotel to meet some of Iain's old colleagues. It was lovely catching up with them too and sharing stories about our big move to France. William also got a chance to see his Uncle Waisake! The last time he'd seen him was at the Cooper's house just before we left NZ for Fiji. You can read about that here.
For lunch we went to another GF patisserie, Helmut Newcake. And do you know what? I actually cried with happiness. And another woman in the shop said that she had cried in there too! I think it was just the sheer realisation that after five months living in France, this was my first, shop bought, freshly made baguette. Yes, the FIRST IN FIVE MONTHS. Over the years, all the truly shite aspects of living with coeliac disease has just become the norm; clarifying with people that things are gf, asking about ingredients, checking food labels, hovering to identify or prevent cross-contamination, explaining your diagnosis... And suddenly, in this shop, none of that was required any more and I realised, again, how much a crappy thing coeliac disease actually is. Hopefully, one day, there will be a cure. In the meantime, I'll just continue to pay through the nose for stuff that isn't just quite as good as the stuff with gluten in it.
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering through the streets of Paris and letting William run about nuts. Here he is in the Tuileries Gardens and later on, once he was too tired to walk, on the Pont de Arts (minus the locks which have all been removed).
We finished our afternoon wander with a cheeky mulled wine in Square Jean XXIII just behind Notre Dame. Perfect. More dinner out with Jeff on Friday night, but this time over in our neck of the woods. What a great few days in the capital.
LM :)
No comments:
Post a Comment