A bit more of Paris...

After sorting through the photos on the portable hard drive to write my last post, I thought that I would write a bit more about our few days in Paris last April. DH had done all the organising and accommodation bookings for most of that big 7 week holiday, but used a package offered by Flight Centre for flights. The package took care of our flights to London with accommodation for a few days and our homeward bound flight was to be from Paris. This of course dovetailed perfectly with our plans to travel to Villers Bretonneux  for ANZAC day.

Our hotel in Paris that was part of the Flight Centre package, was beautiful and best of all, the staff were so friendly and helpful. They also spoke excellent English and other than 'Merci', DH didn't really need his schoolboy French  :-)
From the hotel, we only had to stroll a very short distance up to the corner...on this corner was a shop...for the first day or so, this store was closed and shuttered...we thought it must have closed down. But on the second day we arrived back to the area in the late afternoon, and saw the shop was open and the windows were filled with the most amazing food...and heaps of people were in the shop!

The Boulangerie on the corner

 Not only French pastries etc, but lovely salads, quiches and baguettes filled with the most yummy looking ingredients! We did buy some food from here, both savoury and some not so healthy...but we were in Paris after all! lol

Just a few steps away from this shop was a set of stairs leading down to a railway station ; it was so convenient to our hotel.

But for one tourist attraction we didn't need to use public transport...
Walk a few hundred metres from that bakery and we were at the Arc de triomphe...how impressive was that! So now, 'come take a stroll' with DH and I up to that Arc...

If you looked up the 'address' of the Arc, it would say 'Place Charles De Gaulle....

Renovations???....

Beautiful and detailed sculptures...

I have a fascination with the traffic on the 'roundabout' (Place Charles de Gaulle) which circles the Arc de triomphe...it looks absolutely chaotic as several lines of traffic drive around, with motorists weaving in and out the lines of traffic...'heart in the mouth' stuff! lol

When we were here with an organised tour in 2008, DH took lots of photos of the 'inside' of the arch, showing all the campaigns of  Napoleon...this time, he took a few pics of the 'outside'. 

 The 'eternal flame', surrounded by floral tributes for the fallen...

A large flag flying here...

Looking from the Arc de triomphe along the Champs Elysees

 Some of that traffic that I described...

Transport at a slower pace...wonder what's it's like to pedal that around the Arc de Triomphe...

There are pedestrian tunnels under the arch and the road. The entry to where you can climb lots of stairs to the top of the Arc de triomphe, is in this subway...but the queues that afternoon were incredibly long, so we passed on that. So off we set to stroll down the Champs Elysees...

 See the Maccas? (McDonald's)

We saw this sort of 'invitation' in a few places in Paris...prestige cars you could rent for a drive...tempting? Not really...remember that traffic! lol

 DH popped in to the Citroen store...

We were so fortunate to be 'in the right place at the right time'...I love mounted police horses...and this one posed for a photo :-)

Our next stop on this afternoon of sightseeing was the Eiffel Tower...but that can wait until another time when I will merge our 2 visits (on either side) to this icon. In 2008, we went up in the lift, as being on a group tour, the tickets were organised and there was the minimum of queuing.