Day Three

This morning my leg feels much better, though still aching. Last night I worked out that I’ve walked 58 miles over the last few days so it’s perhaps not surprising – though it does underline how unfit I am 😦 I give it a test by walking down the stairs to breakfast, It’s not happy about that but I think that as long as I’m careful it will be fine. If not, I just have to get through today and I’m back home tomorrow.

Which makes me realise that this is the last full day of my holiday. It’s managed to rocket by and at the same time feels like I’ve been away for ages. Berlin feels like weeks ago. Definitely a stupid holiday to do, but (Barcelona notwithstanding) I’m really glad I did it.

Today’s plan is as follows: Place de la Concorde, Champs Elysee, Arc de Triomphe. I then have a Catacombs tour booked for the slightly strange time of 16:46. I can afford to take it slow this morning with no need to rush off – so, naturally, I still head out earlier than most people would countenance. The weather is still sunny but has cooled down a bit – the forecast says it will get up to 18 a bit later. I’ll try and avoid using the self-heating hat again!

I head up to Pigalle and onto the Metro. It’s just before 09:00 so all the trains are quite crowded. I let one go and then realise that despite their frequency, it’s going to be much the same for the next hour or so, so I get onto the next one and head for Concorde.

By the time I get to Place de la Concorde, I’m in blazing sunshine.

For some reason, I thought it would be easy to spot the Champs Elysee from here, but the Place de la Concord is huge and, disconcertingly, full of traffic which seems to head in every conceivable direction at once. I was going to head for the centre, but the thought of trying to get through the traffic just to have to work my way back across puts me off. Instead, I work my way around the outside because once I’ve worked it out, it turns out that I’m on the opposite side to where I want to be.

I then start walking up the Champs Elysee, where I can see the Arc de Triomphe in the distance.

At first, the walk is really pleasant. The pavements are wide enough to be able to stay away from the traffic and there are quiet gardens on either side that I meander through quite happily. I’m definitely walking a lot slower today – but I don’t push it as my leg is definitely feeling the strain and I don’t want to do anything silly.

Unfortunately, the closer I get to the Arc de Triomphe, the less pleasant the walk becomes. There are now buildings close on both sides and it’s crammed with name brands ranging from McDonalds to Adidas to Dior (at least the last one is vaguely French!) There are still a few uniquely Parisian buildings, but it feels more like the Kurfurstendamm than anything else. Bleh.

Anyway, the Champs Elysee soon gets completely eclipsed by the edifice at the end.

The Arc de Triomphe is huge and conveniently placed in the middle of a massive roundabout with about 4000 lanes of traffic whizzing past. I sensibly head into the pedestrian tunnel to see about getting access to the top. But the queue is as huge as the Arc de Triomphe, so I decide to skip this – probably just as well to skip all those extra stairs! I come out on the other side and head around to Avenue Kleber to head towards the Trocadero.

The journey to Les Jardins du Trocadero is uneventful. They are quite crowded as this is a great place to get photos of the Eiffel Tower.

So if you want the same photos as everyone else, come here!

There are lots of tourists here and also a large number of people selling crappy plastic Eiffel Towers. I walk past carefully not making contact and one yells “English or Dutch?” Dutch? DUTCH? That’s a new one. Temporarily confused, I reply and get “My family has lived in England for 10 years. Liverpool.” I brace myself for a sales pitch, but he turns to someone who looks more financially solvent. Clearly 9 days of not shaving has its’ advantages.

There are some great buildings here, but I am left with a decision on what to do now.

Quick, move on before the residents of Florida put pants on the statue!

It’s not lunch time yet, so I decide to spend some time doing something that every visitor to Paris does – I go and visit the Aquarium Paris. My reasons are twofold. (1) It’s likely to be cooler; and (2) They’re likely to have lots of seats. I’m half right.

It’s actually a pretty good aquarium, although it is infested with children (not unexpected really). Most are being herded around by increasingly frustrated teachers. Some are great – one teacher is getting really stressed every time her kids try to crowd me away from a display. So I let them go past as I consider the fact that they have a surprisingly large number of jellyfish – and I don’t recall seeing many in other aquariums.

And, by the way, some of artwork is downright creepy:

Of course, not all the school groups could be as well run and in front of the big viewing tank I find a teacher trying to take a picture of her colleague and the children. By the third attempt, it’s clear that the picture wasn’t showing their faces. Not surprising, really as the tank was beautifully backlighting them. (Oh, btw, did you know that French children also say “cheeese” when being photographed?)

(If you’re wondering where they are, they’re not here. This is the photo I smugly took afterwards for use in this blog.)

Anyway, she then decides to ignore the numerous signs and use a flash. It still takes her 5 goes to get a photo, by which time the kids are bored, two are having tantrums and her colleagues clearly wishes she’d taken up alligator wrestling. Eventually they wander off – the wrong way. I’ve seen a couple of school groups walking the wrong way around and wonder if they do this deliberately to avoid log jams.

I take a few shots (without flash) to astound you all with my amazing underwater photography (how does he get so close?) before heading back to the blinding sunshine outside.

I had planned to wander around for the next few hours, but my leg, while not complaining, is clearly getting ready to have a serious moan. I decide to grab some lunch and then head back to the hotel for a couple of hours before my descent into the catacombs.

I find a brasserie confusingly called Le Boissiere. As I’m ambling past, I see that they serve Croque Monsieur. I’ve never had one and having seen Marcus make one on Masterchef the Professionals last year, I’m up for the experience. I settle down with a nice glass of Chardonnay. When it arrives, it does not disappoint – it’s like a cheese on toast on steroids. The waitress then tricks me into having a Creme Brulee and I finish the meal with an espresso. (I now have to admit that I never realised that Creme Brulee was served cold!)

It’s a lovely brasserie and the meal is great – but it’s spoiled by one thing: the man fronting it. He is continually running around like a madman. Every time he dashes past with some plates, I’m waiting for him to trip and fall. He is clearly stressed out all the time and he actually spoils the dining experience. His colleagues are considerably more chilled out, but seem to get the same amount of work done.

When I head up to the till to pay, I speak to the waitress and tell her “le petit homme avec le chevaus gris … il droit ralentir”. Having trusted myself to Google translate, I wonder if I’ve just said something awful. But she bursts out laughing and says “I know – but he will not listen.” It’s a shame as the food is great – but this guy just kept me on edge. That doesn’t stop me giving her a decent tip though.

The rest has not done the legs any good and they have registered a formal complaint with the brain. I take a leisurely stroll to the Metro at Victor Hugo and return to the hotel where I stretch out for a couple of hours.

By then, my nerves at the thought of being late are starting to aggravate me, so I head back to the Metro and make the long journey to the south of the Seine, finishing at a strangely named station (Denfert-Rochereau). The Catacombs are clearly sign-posted and I can see a queue outside. That’s ok because I have a “jump the queue” ticket … and so, it turns out, does everyone else in what we now call a line rather than a queue. Because those are the only tickets that you can buy.

The inevitable security scan is just inside the building. This has happened everywhere else in Paris – which is why it comes as such a total shock to everyone else in the “line”. After the resultant delays and grumbling we get in and are given our audio guides. They tell us to hold them to our ear rather than use headphones. I can see what’s going to happen here as one woman walks around with it on full volume so that both she and her friend can hear it. And, naturally, they are never playing the right bit for where they are.

The Catacombs are a fascinating bit of history and a little intimidating.

The Catacombs contain the remains of thousands of people, so there is a natural reverence and respect. Or so you would think. The woman broadcasting her audio guide at full volume doesn’t help the ambience. Nor does the delightful group of three American women in front of me all of whom have their personal volume controls stuck at “fog-horn”. They have their first issue as they descend the spiral staircase as one of them “always has to see the horizon”. “That’s OK,” her friend declaims, “It’s impossible to trip going downstairs.” My snort of derision is clearly louder than I anticipated and they go quiet until we get to the bottom. There they play a thoroughly entertaining game of jumping out at each other, seeing who can make the loudest shriek followed by all three cackling like the hyenas from the Lion King.

One of them, after the fifteenth repetition of this comedic tour-de-force, then comes out with “it’s better to ask forgiveness than ask permission.” This is a phrase I particularly loathe as it tends to be used by the sort of arrogant bastard who knows they’re about to do the wrong thing and then does it anyway. I start to look for extremely deep pits to accidentally inter them in.

I can’t find a pit deep enough, and manage to get ahead but can still hear their voices echoing away behind me as the magnitude of the ossuary is completely lost on them. Partly this is because they were too mean to pay for the audio guide, so they cover for it by making a series of increasingly dumbarse statements. This includes an argument about skulls where one is adamant that hers is different. Yes dear, yours looks decidedly less evolved.

Luckily they get bored – turns out that there aren’t any rides down here – and with a final “I don’t want to look at every goddamn skull!” they head for the exit.

Unfortunately, not fast enough and I end up behind them on the stairs which all three are insisting on counting out loud. (By the way, in case you think they were teenagers, two are in their 50s!)

When we get outside, they have no idea which way to go, so I slip away to avoid being saddled with them any longer.

There’s only one thing left to do today: the Bouillon Pigale. Tonight, I have mackerel pate, basque sausage and rum baba. And Chardonnay, of course. As it’s my last day, I finish off with coffee and brandy.

This is the least impressive meal that I’ve had here, but still delicious. I leave a hefty tip, and head back to the hotel.

Day Four

I have a relatively crappy night sleep which includes about an hour and a half of being wide awake. It looks like my normal sleep patterns are resuming! This does mean that I finish Emile and get started on The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne.

I set my alarm for 06:00. My train is at the rather strange time of 09:12, so I want to get to Gare du Nord by 08:00 – partially because friends have told me that the Eurostar can be a bit tricky to find. I sort myself out, pack and check my watch – still only 06:15. Wait – bloody watch has stopped, and it’s actually 06:50! I reset my watch, only for it to play the same trick during breakfast.

Breakfast is the same as before – simple but very good. I settle the bill and thank the proprietor. It’s not a flash hotel, but it was what I needed – and they recommended the Bouillon Pigale!

I head off for the walk to Gare du Nord. It’s a nice walk through sunny Paris streets, retracing my steps from three days ago. I get to the station just before 08:00 and start the hunt for Eurostar. By chance rather than design, I’ve walked in right beside the lift to the first floor which is clearly labelled Eurostar. I head upstairs and join the queue. And what a queue it is.

In part this is because we have to go through the following before they will let us get into the departure area:

1. Ticket Check
   
2. French Passport Control
   
3. English Passport Control
   
4. Customs

This gives ample opportunity for things to fuck up – and they do. The ticket check is relatively straight-forwards. There are two choices: the automated gate, or the actual live person armed with a scanner. I choose the latter and skip past lots of people who are struggling with the simplicity of the automated gate.

French passport control has two lines – one for the biometric passport and one for the normal one. Is mine biometric? How can I tell? I show it to a random staff member who tells me it is. Excellent. I join the queue behind a guy laden down with bags, whose (as it transpires) grandparents are in the queue ahead of him. We all learn this as the queue judders to a halt because grandpa can’t get through. Helpful advice is shouted in French (at least, I assume it’s helpful). It’s just a shame that grandpa doesn’t speak French. The guy in front of me yells “Grandpa, take your glasses off.” Excellent advice. Shame that grandpa is also somewhat deaf so it ends up with several of us bellowing “TAKE YOUR GLASSES OFF”.

We finally move on, and as I walk up to the scanner all the lights go red. Which I assume is a bad thing. It is now 08:15 and the staff have worked out that some of the people in the queue should be on the 08:31. Seemingly, they decided to ignore the advice on the tickets to arrive 45-60 minutes early and are now in danger of missing their train. They are ushered to the front of the queue.

Finally they are sorted out and my gate goes green and I put my passport in – which the machine does not like. The long suffering bloke stood by the machine grabs it and presses it down firmly. This seems to work and I head into the gate where I stare at a screen until my unsightly, unshaven mug appears. To my surprise I get through.

Now we have English passport control, which uses slightly different machines that do exactly the same thing. I know this is clearly some dumbarse requirement made necessary by Brexit, but REALLY? The two machines are about 40ft apart. Surely someone could be sensible? Clearly not!

Customs next. We’re told to remove everything metal from our pockets and put it in a bag — no trays provided here. I grab wallet, malfunctioning watch, phone, Fitbit and am stuffing them into a bag when a French woman tries to elbow me out of the way as she is clearly too important to wait for 10 seconds. Needless to say, she fails and does not appreciate it when I tell her to “bloody well calm down”. My mood is not helped by the fact that I’m having the same reaction here that I’ve had in the airports and am sweating like I’m in a sauna.

I put my bags on the conveyor belt and stride away from Madame Impaciente and towards the metal detector. I remember my belt at the last minute and hand it to the woman at the gate with an apology. She asks if I have any other metal on me and I point to my boots. Expecting the alarms to be set off I walk through. Nothing happens. She shrugs and laughs and now I worry about how good their damn metal detectors are.

I head into the departure lounge, where I settle down and start to write all this up. At about 08:35 they announce that boarding for the 09:12 is about to begin. I join what could charitably be described as a queue but would more accurately be a shambles. I look up at the sign which states that boarding will start 20-30 minutes prior to departure. There’s clearly going to be a wait – and so there is. They eventually open the doors a half hour late, with the 08:30 still not having departed. There are a couple of families having problems with their children – not surprising really. I feel sorry for the woman behind as she is trying to stop her son and daughter fighting while her husband does something best described as “chewing the cud”.

By now there have been several calls for the 10:30 train – clearly something is amiss. But finally the lone woman at the gate opens it and yells “I have to see your tickets”. This is somewhat like Canute trying to hold the tide back and I feel sorry for her as I wander past and wave my phone in her direction. (Not for a photo, you wally, my ticket is on the phone.) I head down the ramp to find that my carriage is the closest one – nice!

I get on and find my seat. It turns out that I’m lucky as large numbers of people have problems finding their seats. Eurostar, it transpires, has used an arcane and complex approach called “numerical order” which apparently no-one understands. The long-suffering attendant spends a lot of time directing people who do not seem to grasp this fairly basic concept. This includes the family who were stood behind me who walk in, take their seats and then ask where their seats are. Both the attendant and I point at the seats they are already sat in and he raises his eyebrows at me as he walks off. Maybe shame keeps them so blessedly quiet.

It’s now 09:19 and we’re officially late – though the app smugly informs me that we are “on time”. Hah! Eventually a train leaves at 09:26 – but not this one: the 08:31.

It occurs to me (not for the first time this holiday) that everything would have been materially easier for the staff if someone bothered to tell us what the fuck is going on. At 09:34 we are told that a corpse has been discovered on the tracks between here and Calais and they do not know how long the delay will be. Merde. But at least we know!

The shame-filled silence across the aisle lasts until 09:45. Mum (I’m guessing here) has attached some music to a bit of video from their holiday. It hasn’t come out right, so she wants to remove the soundtrack. She gives it to her son (I’m still guessing), clearly telling him not to delete the video. Which he immediately does.

Mum gets upset. Dad (a very laid back Irish fellow) helpfully interjects “there’s no need to cry about it”. That helps hugely and makes her cry. Eventually (after much wailing, gnashing of teeth and general angst) Dad smugly points out she can just recover it from the Deleted Items folder. Despite this solution, Mum won’t let it go and starts down a clearly well-trodden path about her sons (presumably) lack of respect. The bickering keeps them happy for about 10 minutes, until they relapse back into their own worlds – 3 on their phones, Dad on his laptop.

At 09:55 we get the announcement that we are about to depart. Son has now recovered Mum’s video and added music to it. So she tests it. And tests it. And tests it. And test it again. Mum is keenly aware that this repetitively annoying music may have some deleterious affect on their travelling companions and so she starts to nervously ask how she turns the sound off. I begin to think that she is not qualified to be operating this clearly advanced and dangerous technology.

They then go back to their individual electronic worlds until breakfast arrives. Second breakfast – how very hobbit of me! The tiny croissant and poor quality coffee make it clear that the French are not running the catering. My current entertainment (“The Family Opposite” – soon to be an 8 part series on Netflix) all want to play on their own phones/laptops but cannot resist talking to each other, when none of them actually want to be disturbed. This results in a fascinating argument between Mum and Dad about whether Son should be revising this weekend. Mum think he should. Dad disagrees – and I get the feeling that Dad does this a lot. Daughter hides behind the low-tech book she has dug out from somewhere and Son goes back to his phone. The whispered argument continues until Dad stops it by taking out his own phone and ignores Mum. I’m actually starting to feel quite sorry for her.

We arrive just over an hour late at 11:35.. Now to brave the tube and the final train to Slough. But wait, what joy is this? Yes, once again I visit the delights of St Pancras INTERNATIONAL. Now I know what it feels like to be one of the elite group of travellers vouchsafed the many and glorious delights of the INTERNATIONAL arrivals platform. Bizarrely, it feels like the way I imagine sheep feel as they head into the abattoir. We head for the signs saying Border Force and we all start grabbing passports and tickets. I’m fairly convinced that being stopped is unusual and I’m right. There are a few people scanning the crowd with a look akin to the one I get while waiting for paint to dry. One is clearly very serious and has an excellent resting bitch face. I can tell that he thinks he is the new Idris Elba. They all ignore me and I enter the Emporium of the Vastly Wealthy.

I ignore the temptation to descend into further debt and head for the underground where I join the immense queue for tickets. I know I’ve paid, but fuck it, I want to get home. So I use my credit card to get through onto the Tube and save myself about twenty minutes. The Spiral Line is as inspirational as ever – it’s oddly jarring to be able to actually understand all the announcements! Off at Paddington, just in time for the train to SLough.

And that’s it! All over again. It’s been an amazing holiday and I’m walking home from the station with a suitcase full of dirty clothes and some amazing memories. I’m glad I’ve got nearly 2 weeks before I go back to work!

Once again, thanks for putting up with my inane drivel. My next holiday is in about 5 weeks time, so you might get another few chapters later in the year!