(This is part 2 of 3; part 1 is here, part 3 is here)

There’s a lot in Paris to be seen besides museums. Unfortunately, most of these things are outdoors and can best be visited with a bit of sunshine and a pleasant spring temperature. As we had neither of these on our short trip, we had to spend a lot more time inside the shops on the boulevard des Champs Elysées than we normally would have. We had to admire the view of the Eiffel tower from underneath it. And we had to extrapolate what it’s like to spend a day in the park from sitting on a bench in the tuileries for 10 minutes in the only rays of sunlight that we did get.

There is however another very important indoors activity to be done in Paris, as in every part of France: eating! At lunchtime, heavy rains were usually poring down on us, making it impossible to sit down in a park with nothing more than a baguette and some Coulommiers or other cheese. At dinnertime, we were forced to eat out as we stayed in a hotel room, so we really were unable to do some shopping at a nice Parisian market and have a go at the local ingredients ourselves. In short, we couldn’t help but eat out twice a day; and as we felt obliged to do as the Parisians do, we just had to eat a hot meal twice a day as well. What a punishment…
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Even though Paris is only a 6 hour drive from where we live, we never actually go to the trouble of finding a hotel and driving up there. Until now. It’s been 27 years since I last spent some time in Paris–more time than the average hour it takes to drive through it when we’re on our way to the south of France. 27 years, that’s more than anybody should have to wait to return to Paris. So we finally found a decent hotel (see map below: marker A) and arrived after a smooth enough ride through the streets of Paris (thanks to Eva, who for some reason wanted us to take a scenic route off the highroad when we entered France, but thankfully got herself back on track as soon as we reached the city).

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