Paris streets, Latin quarter.
Our second trip to Paris was slightly longer than the first – we left the public transport system! We stayed about six hours, after an overnight trip on the legendary, but worn and slightly disappointing Caledonian sleeper from Glasgow to London and a morning trip on the worn, over-priced Eurostar to Paris – and before another overnight train on a comfortable German train to Berlin.
So French! The first view outside the station.
Paris north station.
I won't pretend to say much about Paris, except two things. No, three.
Just to get it out of the way, the food is good. Not amazingly good, but consistently tasty and mostly fresh, even in the crappy places. Unfortunately, due to Australia's weird coffee craze of the past decade or so, I can never find satisfaction in coffee in Europe and Paris was no exception.
Secondly, their parks and weird and, if I were shallower, I would say they reflect a French predilection for appearance over function. They have beautiful formal (if you find formality in nature beautiful, which I don't really!) gardens with lovely, inviting lawns, but you're not allowed to lie on them!. Or even walk on them. But you can walk on the adjoining areas, which are covered in a fine layer of gravelly sand, so not too inviting for lying. Luckily, there was one area they'd graciously allowed humans to defile with their presence, so, with about half the people in the area, we did have time for a rest in the glorious late-summer sunshine.
Keep off the grass! Ah, lovely gravel.
Touching the grass temporarily permitted on this section.
And lastly, the people are lovely! Not in a saccharine way, not universally, but it really beats me where French people, especially Parisians, get the reputation for being rude. I found people helpful when asked, open, ready for a smile. When we stopped a bloke in the street, in the middle of the very touristy Latin Quarter, and asked for a recommendation for a place to eat away from the clichéd tourist places he gave us time and a recommendation that, while the food wasn't stellar, was a place catering to locals, or, when I asked the guy which metro platform for my connection to the train station he walked me a hundred metres to explain the complicated route to get to the right place. So, don't believe the hype!
Not related to much else, but here is a parking area for electrically powered hire cars!
The City Night Line Perseus from Paris to London
