Paris in the summertime

We are in wonderful, wonderful Paris. Crazy, beautiful, hectic, grand and intimate.

Such a contrast from yesterday, which we spent visiting Giverny en route to Paris. Giverny is most famous for Claude Monet, the impressionist artist. We visited his home and garden and of course, the lily ponds which were immortilised in those enormous paintings.

Today was our first full day in Paris, and it was a scorcher. We walked our asses off starting with a long stroll to the Seine, stopping for coffee at one of the millions of corner cafes around the city. Mind you, its damn expensive just for cafe creme! (coffee and milk) but you sit facing the street and watch life passing you by, so its worth it!

And I have so far been proved wrong by the preconception that Parisians are unfriendly to those who dont speak the lingo. Not only was the guy who checked us into our hotel very helpful and full of laughs, but I found myself engaged in a broken English conversation with a guy called Jimmy who was sitting next to me in the cafe. Mind you he would probably have started talking to a poodle if it was seated next to him. He looked like an ultra stylish forty-something ex-rocker who had smoked too much weed and had forgotten most of the 1980s and 1990s. In between cigarettes he insisted that I visit Cathedral Notre Dame, eat a Greek sandwich (huh?) and go to Starbucks of all places! Anyway it was fun to chat to a local.

Today we had lunch under the eiffiel tower and dinner across from the Cathedral Notre Dame, we walked through the Latin Quarter, along the Champs Elysees, ate crepes and marvelled at the beautiful apartment buildings with the wrought iron railings and shutters. Oh yes, and a bird shat on me for the third time in Europe! That's one in Hungary, one in Amsterdam and one in Paris! Au revoir until the next time!