Friday 23rd September

I am writing this on Saturday morning as I was too tired last night to write anything. Yeterday (Friday) was Mark's birthday and he sounded like he was  having a very stressful day trying to get everything done before flying out Friday night Sydney time after a very big day of work and almost no sleep and a busy week on call. We spoke to briefly on Friday morning Sydney time to wish him a happy birthday and we'll look forward to meeting him at the airport in a few hours time. Hopefully he'll have had lots of sleep on the plane and will be able to relax and recover his energies whilst in France.

It is another beautiful day today. We have been very blessed with the weather - mild, sunny days. Very comfortable for sight seeing. I accompanied Carolina to Gare Du L'est this morning and deposited her on the TGV to Frankfurt. We both felt rather emotional. It has been such an adventure together. We've been a very good team. If her new job comes through it may  have been the last time she will have been with us in a work capacity too.

Yesterday we all woke up feeling very tired, and on my part rather flat and grumpy. We did manage to get out of the house by 10 and walked up to Les Halles to tackle the sim recharge task for the iPad - I really want to get some 3G availability for we reach the south of France so we can use it as a GPS to find our house. I had wanted to take Carolina and the children out for a proper French breakfast as I remembered it from my first visit to Paris at age 14. I was entranced by the beautiful milky coffee and hot chocolates served with fresh croissant, baguette, unsalted butter and jams that had been served in the breakfast area of our little hotel. I thought I was in heaven and nothing had ever tasted so good. I haven't found the same thing this time and the breakfast we found yesterday morning was no exemption unfortunately. It was fine, but not mind blowing. The hot chocolate was of the thick, custardy variety that I don't like but that Carolina and Alex did, so that was OK. We will keep searching. Recharge achieved, we walked back down through the back streets of Les Halles and into the Marais to the Jewish Museum which is situated on Rue de Temple, appropriately enough. It is located in a beautiful old building set around a large sunny courtyard. It was very interesting and differently set out to other museums we have seen. They included a collection of photos of current members of Parisian Jewry with brief comments on what being a Jew in Paris meant to them. These photos with their commentaries were interspersed amongst the other areas of the museum which dealt with the history of French Jewry, the Shoah, Jewish festivals etc. The little ones were not very interested but were very well behaved. We had again ventured out without the stroller with less protest this time.

The children were anxious for the morning dose of nutella crepe which we fulfilled en route to San Michel station where we caught the train to Versaille. Eva has eaten little except nutella crepes, salami sandwiches and ice-cream all the time we've been here but seems none the worse for wear. Carolina fell sound asleep in the train and I had to work very hard not to. Once again, this travel business, is hard work. We slowly observed the change in landscape as we left the central Ille de France area, with the gradual change from apartments to houses. The boys commented that they hadn't actually seen a house in France until now.

It was a perfect day to visit Versailles - a first for all of us. It really is quite extraordinary and sickeningly lavish. Eva enjoyed the different colours of the fleur de lys wallpaper and happily found herself a corner in each room to draw. Much to the delight of the Japanese tourists who seem to always enjoy photographing her, particularly when she is covered in nutella or chocolate ice-cream (i.e. more often than not). (Forgot the wipes again). Wonderful to see the David painting of the Coronation of Napoleon and Josephine. I realised again how little I know of French history. The reading list for our return is getting longer everyday.

We loved the gardens and spent some time running around exploring. It was already well after 5pm and hence too late to explore the garden in detail but we enjoyed it nonetheless. As in the Tuillieries and around Notre Dame, there was a wonderful contrast between formal garden and profuse and apparently randomly planted flower gardens of the country garden variety. Very, very pretty.

We arrived back to a glorious evening and walked slowly back along the Seine through the Ille de la Cite and across to Ille Saint Louis. A wonderful jazz band was playing near the bridge as we crossed over to the  'mainland' and we stopped to listen for a few songs. The lead seemed to be American but clearly living in France and their group included an elderly and rather eccentrically dressed lady who danced joyfully along with the music. Sam was transfixed and the boys talked avidly about how they might form their own band for some time afterwards.

We meandered through the Marais towards Pl de Vonges where  we found Cafe Hugo, as recommended in Lonely Planet. It is situated on 'the most beautiful square in Paris' according to The Guide and it was indeed very pretty, with a colonnaded arch all around the edge - rather Italian actually. There were a several cafes and restaurants scattered around the edges of the square and we eventually found ours. It was busy but they found us a table out the back (a good judgement on their behalf) and we had a lovely meal. Carolina and I had French Onion Soup which was delicious and Alex and I followed that with Duck and sautéed potatoes of perfect crispness. Carolina ordered an enormous steak. Sam and Eva had plain pasta and bread and cheese respectively and all the children finished the meal off with MORE crepe with nutella.  I enjoyed a Kir Sauvignon - the first since our arrival - I had forgotten what a nice drink it is - white wine with creme de cassis. The menu offered various other combinations of wine plus liquor which I hadn't seen before. We walked home, tired but happy after another big day of stimulating  sights and food.

Thursday 22nd September

We promised the children a focused and brief tour through the Musee Dorsay today. After battling with the stroller in the metro all week, we decided to brave it without today. Eva was Not Happy. I WANT MY STROLLER alternated with CARRY ME  for the entire distance on foot and metro to the museum. We gritted our teeth and stayed firm. Eventually she calmed down with the assistance of an ice cream and brotherly diversions on the steps outside the museum.

She didn't make it easy though. She certainly is a young lady of opinion. It is such a beautiful museum. Again I wished we'd been able to be more leisurely. Eva was so excited to see Degas' little dancer. Carolina, Alex and I were so excited to see all of it. Eva did really well for the rest of the day and it was so much easier without the stroller. Carolina took off on her own in the afternoon to see La Defence and climb the Arc de Triomph. I thought it was time that we did something for Eva so we headed back to Les Halles where we had seen a lovely playground. She and Sam had a great play and were so happy to be outside in the sun. We walked slowly home through the back streets on a beautiful warm evening. After all the exercise, Eva fell asleep within minutes of reaching home and slept for 12 solid hours. I found the makings of a sort of spaghetti bolognese at Monoprix and it was surprisingly good - a bottle of Barilla pasta sauce (Basilico) with a small packet of mince.

Wednesday 21st September

Louvre Day. Deep Breath. Snacks packed. Good supply of coloured pencils, drawing paper, colouring in books, charged iPs (pods, pids, pads etc).

To preserve strength we took the metro to the Louvre station. This has been transformed since I was last there, which was almost 20 years ago. The station exit opens into an underground modern cave filled with the remains of ancient walls and filled with modern shops. Never miss a retail opportunity. We queued for our museum passes in a queue that must have been almost as long as the one we were trying to avoid by buying one. We then proceeded with the crowd through underground passages through more retail opportunities - tantalising Louvre related shops including an entire shop devoted to  the most magnificent art books and toys for children - finally emerging into the Light under the pyramid which is central mission control for processing visitors and distributing them via ancient and modern means into the various wings of the building. All rather magnificent. The queues are reduced by having multiple opportunities for ticket purchasing and weren't too bad at all.

As advised, we focused on the highlights. The audio guide caters quite well to this with various choices of tour or the option of just picking out the (selected) pictures as you find them. Unfortunately information about pictures not included in the guide is all in French and brief at that. Eva switched off very quickly and descended into the drawing and cyberworld, raising her head for a brief nod at the Mona Lisa, with which she seemed distinctly unimpressed after all the hype. The rest of us still got quite a kick out of seeing it. I had forgotten that there are quite a few other Da Vincis. Wonderful to see. Also really enjoyed the big romantic French revolution paintings and our increasingly rushed foray through the Dutch masters. Unfortunately the audio guides ran out of batteries before we did. Irritating.

All utterly exhausting but hopefully something sunk in.

We escaped into the Jardin des Tuileries and collapsed into chairs by the lake with beautiful ice creams from Amarino which are delivered looking like beautiful flowers and taste superb. The gardens are looking more autumnal every day but the cottage garden flowers are still going strong. So pretty.

Somehow, I managed to convince our exhausted team to undertake an ultra quick tour of L'Orangerie before heading off. All were suitably awe inspired by the Monet waterlillies and Alex, Carolina and I wished we could have spent longer in the down stairs area. We rushed through at criminal speed as they were closing. Well worth it. If I'd had the time again, I would have avoided the Louvre altogether - or just headed to the Mona Lisa and spent more time in the smaller galleries.

I then had the crazy idea of visiting the yarn shop I had read about which was 'sort of' on the way home, near Les Halles. It was closing at 6.45 and it was close to 6. I couldn't see when I would get there otherwise. We found it easily and it was HEAVEN. See photos. Could have spent hours there. Absolutely beautiful yarns, ribbons, buttons, accessories and patterns all beautifully displayed. I chose a modest amount of yarn for two cardigans for Eva and went to pay. My wallet was missing. I thought I'd been so careful but we think it was pinched on the metro which was horribly crowded. Such a bugger. We tried not to let it get us down too much.

We headed home, after a rather indifferent but nonetheless welcome meal from the Brasserie around the corner and collapsed in a heap. This travel business is tiring.

Tuesday 18th September

This morning, after another not terribly early start we jumped onto our local metro (line 4) and headed north to Montmatre, ostensibly to visit Sacre Coeur. I must admit to some baser motives, Montmatre being the fabric district. When I was 17, I found a wonderful shambolic fabric store selling, amongst other things, some beautiful Provencal fabrics. I bought several metres of two different patterns which have served me as tablecloths ever since. They are now very tired and faded and need replacing. I had hoped by some miracle to stumble on the shop or something like it once again. No such luck. Once again, the natives were restless and we stuck to the itinerary. Anna (Mark's Mum) had spoken of a wonderful cheese shop too but we failed to stumble across it unfortunately. Never enough time.

We did get to Sacre Coeur and enjoyed the marvellous views from the top. We did not enjoy carrying the stroller up and down the stairs and convincing Eva that she had working legs. Eva protested the whole way up, through and out. I had not appreciated the Art Nouveau decorations in the church before. Despite its elaborate wedding cake appearance outside, it is really quite modest inside. Maybe everything  looks quite modest after St Peter's in Rome. In all the museums and churches there are a series of severe Somalian attendants who bark at everyone for wearing hats, talking too loudly, not going through the correct passage, taking photos and other general signs of disrespect. They seem to have limited patience. I'm sure I would too in the circumstances

We then meandered throughout the very pretty and very tourist filled cobbled streets of Montmatre towards the Dali museum. I had never known this was in Paris. We had previously visited the big museum in Figueres and his house in Cadaces in northern Catalonia which were both very impressive. This was a small but also very impressive museum of sculpture and paintings. The children were very taken with them, asking lots of appropriate questions like: 'why does that elephant have such funny legs' and 'that man has a tree growing out of his head'. etc. It was a nice, small, manageable museum. I also hadn't realised that Dali had a preoccupation with Alice in Wonderland although it makes perfect sense when you think about it.

We set off again on foot, down the hill towards the metro again. We were held up by a delighted Carolina who had sighted a small shop that was clearly Columbian. We ventured inside and she bought us all Empanadas and strangely flavoured Columbian soft drinks. The small shop was lined with high shelves, bedecked with Columbian products and, strangely, Milo in the middle of it. Carolina transformed in the presence of her countrymen and women, speaking with an entirely different manner to that which I am used to, and which clearly was appropriate to the circumstances. It was fascinating to watch the transformation. Armed with a bottle of toxic Columbian alcohol and the makings of Columbian hot chocolate and several bags of Columbian sweets, we escaped to the metro again and headed for the Rodin Museum were we were to meet Tasha, Rob and the boys for ice cream. More later. I'm going to bed.

Monday 19th

We are not doing very well at getting out of the house early. After another lovely French breakfast in our apartment we walked down to Notre Dame. There was a queue to enter and plenty of people already wandering inside despite the earlyish hour and the fact that there was a mass in progress. Carolina joined the mass and took communion. Eva was not particularly patient but the boys were suitably awed by the cathedral and at how different it was to the Italian ones we had recently seen. We recovered with coffee and crepe at somewhat hideous expense in a nearby cafe before heading to St Chapelle at the other end of the Ille de la Cite. The queue there was long and apparently not moving at all. I don't remember having to queue for St Chapelle on previous visits and I was rather disappointed. The natives were getting restless and we decided to give up whilst we were ahead and return another day (I hope). The Ille de la Cite is very touristy as evidenced by the crepe price index which was high. (4-4.50 euro/nutella crepe compared to only 3euro in the vicinity of our apartment).

To our delight we had bumped into our Sydney friends Tash and Rob Cheval and their three boys Oscar (in Sam's class), Hugo and Louis in the Pompidou the day before. The big topic of conversation had been a huge toy shop the boys had visited. Our children were desperate to follow suit. I googled 'biggest toy shop in Paris' that evening and found a likely candidate near Printemp and the other Grand Magazin and as I knew there would be no peace until we went, there we headed after our high brow, churchy morning. Consuming our bread rolls on the way, we alighted at Madeleine and after some effort found a very closed toy shop. Sigh. Very disappointing. I thought we might compensate by visiting the toy departments in one of the big shops. Carolina and I were rather keen to see at least one of them anyway. It is a beautiful area around the big shops. We stumbled upon Fourchon which was, of course a delight. The chocolate, the cakes, the Macarons, the madelines.

Printemp was quite overwhelming. We started in the perfume area, where I spent an intensive 5 minutes choosing my perfume for the next 10 years or so. I like to put time and thought into these decisions. (My previous bottle has been going for rather longer than that and is just running out). (I bought Opium, which I love, if you are at all interested). We the ascended up the floors, lodging ourselves for some time in the fascinating homewares department which was full of delicious, beautiful and almost entirely useless and uncessessary things of great delight. We refrained. Carolina escaped into the women's area briefly and returned scathed but essentially unharmed. The children and I located the toys and despite Eva's expressed NEED to buy something, escaped again in tact. The boys weren't actually very interested. We escaped to the basement, bypassing the designer labels which did make brief but marvellous viewing. Down the bottom we discovered some reasonably priced and very lovely scarves and indulged modestly.

We escaped into the streets and walked home via Les Halles where I managed to locate a sim for my iPad, which I am, as I write, completely unable to recharge because the phone message on the phone recharging number is in rapid french and rather than transferring you to an operator when you fail to provide the required response like in OZ, it just hangs up on you. The website is untranslatable, even with google translator and hence I am stuck until the morning when I shall venture out to the shop again. What a pain. I have great sympathy now for non-english speakers attempting to negotiate their way through those dreadful phone messages that say, please state your problem in simple terms. Hard enough in the native language to understand what they want.

The boys were after some peculiar piece of dongle-ware for connecting some device to another and Alex had googled it and believed himself to have located it in a shop called FNAC which we then located in Les Halles. It turned out to be the biggest book/DVD/phone/IT shop I have EVER seen. We remained stuck for some time, transfixed by its enormity.

We eventually escaped and staggered back to the apartment for a bread and cheese supper before collapsing terribly early. We must have walked many many kilometres.

Sunday 18th

Monday 19th September The children are asleep and it is time to tie up the loose ends. The housekeeping of travel is really quite time consuming - sorting the photos, checking and responding to email, planning the next day's activities (which never seem to follow the plan), doing the washing, tidying up - some things don't change wherever you are. Our circadian rhythms are still a little out of whack. We seem to be moving into a rather meditteranean living  pattern with late nights and late rising. We have spent the past two days exploring our locality. Yesterday morning some members of the team ventured out to find the all important first breakfast of croissants and baguette, only to find the one around the corner closed and, in fact most things closed. After a lengthy walk we finally spied what we were after and returned triumphant to a truly glorious breakfast (luckily we had bought our jar of Bon Maman raspberry jam the night before). The morning was crisp - what a delight to be cool after Rome. It is such a delight to explore a  neighbourhood for the first time. Being a Sunday, many shops were closed and shuttered and did not reveal themselves until this morning's excursion for breakfast materials. We seem to be surrounded by a mixture of high class shops, adult sex shops and peep-shows (Alex was very disapproving and insisted that we don't pass that way again), members of the rag trade - this evening as we returned to the apartment they were sweeping  the cut offs out of their shops and into the street, top end furniture shops with exquisite modern furniture and lots of little restaurants and cafes. We've noticed quite a few sushi restaurants and kebab shops mixed in with the Brasseries and Cafes, Creperies and patisseries. Yesterday was cloudy and cool with occasional drizzle. We revelled in it. After leaving the apartment we headed  in the general direction of Notre Dame and bumped into the Georges Pompidou centre on the way. The children were delighted by the external elevators (which Eva has renamed 'Alligators') and hence, in we went. There were no queues and we were able to proceed through with great ease and delight. Unfortunately the Edvard Munch exhibition doesn't open until Wednesday but we were able to see a rather wonderful and at times confronting temporary exhibition of collaborations between Indian and French artists.  After proudly and piously eating our packed lunch of cut up baguette with suitably french fillings, we proceeded to the permanent exhibition  which the children, on the whole, really embraced much to my delight. It is an astonishingly rich gallery. Eva drew throughout the visit, filling more than one notebook with colourful drawings that did not look at all out of place in the gallery. Several people stopped to admire them! The boys now want sketchbooks too. It is surprisingly hard to find a plain sketchbook. The cheap school notebooks are of course all what we would call 'graph paper'. Not that she seems to mind. I shall have to store them all afterwards as Eva's 'Paris Ouevre'. One of the other delights of the Pompidou was the gift shops - full of such beautiful design and imagination. (though if you are after something as mundane and an emergency pack of coloured pens or pencils it is less useful). Both Carolina and I succumbed to rather gorgeous glass rings and I to another colourful watch to complement my recently purchased Egyptian themed MOMA one. Fun to wear. The children were very keen to 'do' the Eiffel tower. I stupidly thought we might 'quickly' sneak in a visit before dinner. by the time we had negotiated the metro, RER and a decent walk in-between it was after 7pm by the time we got there,  with dark clouds threatening, spitting rain and a healthy wind. The queue was considerable if not extreme and it was tempting to turn back but I couldn't bear the thought of getting there again and experience tells me that saying that you'll come back and see it another day usually means that you don't. So we did it. Sam, Alex and Carolina were keen  to climb to the very top. I wasn't and the queues for the very top were even longer. As I suspected, once we reached the middle level and everyone had been outside in the rain and wind and cold for  minutes, they were all very happy  to come down again and very happy not to be going any higher. The view was spectacular of course and the children  were very excited to have been there although that excitement wore off very quickly once were stuck in a long queue, packed like sardines into an elevator and thrust into the elements. I felt rather sorry for the grumpy, tired elevator  operators and ticket sellers who had to deal with grumpy, rude and tired tourists all day long. Ascending the tower does have an air of the pilgrimage about it. After this visit I think I will preserve its magic from a distance rather than climb it again. By the time we returned home it was well after 9 and too late to find anything open locally for dinner. Luckily we had plenty left over in the fridge from the day before an enjoyed an ad hoc supper of eggs, bread, cheese, salami and fruit, classic of the German 'Abendbrot' tradition which seems to make a great deal of sense. The children enjoyed their first crepe with nutella and St Michel yesterday. They were greatly approved of.

Saturday 17th, Paris

Just a quick note tonight to say that we've arrived in Paris after an uneventful journey. It is wet and blissfully cool but not cold and our flat is beautiful - large, with three lovely bedrooms, a well appointed kitchen, good views and beautifully decorated. And good wifi!

Carolina and I have been out for a brief explore and found Monoprix just around the corner which has gorgeous children's clothes and a supermarket upstairs. We found supplies for a late supper - bread, cheese, pate, salami and unsalted butter and a little fruit. They had four different varieties of apple juice - i.e. made from 4 different varieties of apple. We bought 'green'. It was very good. I bought Eva a blue and white striped top which she has declared is not pretty and won't wear. Predictable. This is the child who insisted on wearing inside out hot pink leggings with a green flowery t-shirt and one of each of her two pairs of shoes. And who calls her new stuffed toy - a small puppy - 'Shrek'. Which accompanies her other stuffed toy - a small leopard named "pig". Go figure. The metro station is about 2 minutes from the front door and a brief look at the map we bought at the supermarket indicates that we are within walking distance of lots of good things - the Louvre, Georges Pompidou, Les Halle, Jardin des Tuilieries, Notre Dame etc. Can't wait til morning to have a good explore (after finding the nearest Patisserie of course).

Alex has already located a computer games shop in the Chatelet-Les Halles metro station which he is desperate to visit. Both are having a blissful time with their new DS pokemon games which I am very close to throwing in the Seine.

We were sad to leave Rome today. Too many things left unseen and unfortunately, not enough time to see Ostia, where Mark lived briefly many years ago. We managed a quick walk this morning before checking out of the apartment, and found a marvellous speciality food store. The children were attracted by the multiple varieties of lollies and Carolina and I, by the multiple varieties of pretty much everything else. An entire wall was devoted to different varieties of salt! Including, I might add, pink Murrary River salt from South Australia. It was also possible to buy vegemite, Bundaburg Ginger Bear and Riverland dried fruit.

Photos tomorrow.