Oh Canada

Cam skating with Parker in Oakville on Canada Day. Thanks for the pics Erik!

Andy, out.

City of Lights

Bear with me here...

I'm getting harder to impress. I think that happens to everyone eventually, you know what you like and expectations built up over time never help either. In our case, given how amazing our life has been these last five years, it's well past being true and is now officially cannon, impress me, I dare you. We've been to enough cities now to confirm that mostly, if you only have a few days to explore them you'll come away probably happy, glad you went, but slightly jaded-ly thinking 'okay another big city, some nice unique landmarks, yadda yadda yadda'. How can any place make a lasting impression in such a short time? And if your expecations are high, and Hollywood-literature-fantasy-pastmemory-enhanced, can your trip end in anything but a shrug of... meh?Jo and I were lucky to go to Paris last year, but for me that was the second time. I visited Paris as part of my European whirl-wind tour in 1986. I'd just left my school mates, Steve, Chris, Paul and Luica in the Netherlands, planning on travelling to Paris and staying 2-3 days before heading on down to Madrid. I took the train from Amsterdam to Paris and arrived at Paris Nord railway station. Not sure how to get to the Metro and insert myself into downtown Paris I went to the Information Desk and, using my phrase book, tried to ask for directions. My memory is almost photographic on this, the guy just said 'No' to everything I said and wouldn't help me. Being a patient and understanding visitor to his country I said 'Ok, f*** you, I'll go spend my money in Madrid". I didn't even need to buy a ticket as I had a EuRail pass, problem solved. "No more Frenchies for me, they are as rude as everyone says, cheese-eating-surrender-monkeys can drown in a nice Chablis for all I care". So with four and a half months in Europe I spent about two hours in Paris, and I was happy with that.Jo and I had a great time last year, but it was really just a day and a half visit and Jo had to deal with minor jet lag. There were lots of things we didn't do because we hoped to come back with the kids. Now, with us living only 2 hours away by plane, we hit Paris in force and I held my breath a little, would we enjoy the city as a family?

You betcha! I told the kids that the objective in Paris was simple, 'eat', and eat we did. Abbie took to the street-side crepes, cooked through a window overlooking the street. She had at least one a day on top of a diet of fresh icecream, awesome cakes from Gerard Murlot and bowls of french onion soup. The street we stayed on was full of great restaurants, curious little shops and 4-5 bakeries. The island itself, Ile de Saint Louis, is one of two in the Seine, the other Ile de Citie is larger and has Notre Dame as it's focal point. Saint Louis is more residential and apparently home to stars and celebs. Our guide on a bike tour told us Johnny Depp lived nearby so the girls spent the weekend looking for him and doing a great job of playing up the emo stalker angle :-).The location was amazing and that meant that we could walk to much of the city fairly easily. The only time we really had to hit the metro was to go to the Eiffel Tower as it's at the other end of town. Jo had seen a lot of positive reviews for a bike tour company, Fat Tire Bikes, and we had booked both a Paris evening tour for Friday and the Versailles full-day tour for Sunday. We had a great time on both tours. Riding through the Paris traffic in a big group of 20 or so bikes was lots of fun. The guides calls of 'dominate the streets' had us cutting cars off and generally riding fairly aggressively. The tour took us all over the left bank, over to the Louvre and then to a dock where we left our bikes and had a great boat tour up and down the river while enjoying a few glasses of red and chatting with our fellow tourists. The Eiffel Tour was all lit up, looking great, and we had an amazing sunset on the river (most of our photos came out very nicely). All in all the bike tour was great value for money and an excellent way to get everyone oriented with the city while having fun and not getting too tired out.I was surprised that the kids allowed us to visit the Louvre and enjoy it. I guess they're getting to the age where these types of things aren't boring anymore. We saw the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory (my fav) and of course That Painting by Leo. The presentation of the Mona Lisa is quite ridiculous, you stand about 4 meters away and it's covered by at least two panels of highly reflective glass. In the end you might as well buy a postcard of it for all the good viewing it in the 'flesh' does you, a complete waste of time imho, but I guess you have to say you've seen it live.The Versailles bike tour involved meeting up and getting our bikes, then taking a 30 minute train ride out of the city. Getting onto and off the train was a challenge with our five bikes but we made it without to much hassle. Once in the town outside the palace grounds we hit the local market and bought all the supplies we'd need for a picnic lunch. Rare roast beef, a rotisserie chicken, fresh baguettes, cheese, wine, cakes, the works. We rode around the huge gardens of the palace grounds, saw Marie Antoinettes fake peasant village (created so she could play poor people games and dye her sheep blue) and cycled all the way around the massive water feature, stopping directly opposite the palace itself (about 2k's distant) to have lunch on the grass. After that we toured inside the palace on foot and one gold decorated room with master works painted on the ceilings started to merge with every other outrageously decorated room. The Hall of Mirrors is supposed to leave you breathless but I think after Rome (the Vatican especially) and the Louvre it's easy to become blase about all the opulence. That was a long day, but again I think the cycling made it work really well and we all had a great time.Jo and are considering going back to Paris in the winter, maybe before Christmas, it'll depend on cash flow of course. But if we don't at least we had that great long weekend, one that I think is probably the best we've had on holiday as a family. Thanks Paris, I misjudged you years ago and you've shown me the error of my ways :-).

Andy, out.