Before I start, let’s fight together and beat the new strain of Coronavirus! Wash your hands with soap and water. Use hand gel (if you have any). Stay hygienic and eat healthily. My March and May time holiday has now been suspended/cancelled so staying at home for the time being. 😭😭😭
The Gang of Four includes myself, The Geek, Miss Money, Mr Games and Mr Sensible. Our last trip was in Wales a few years back and we haven’t been away together since then. After our Christmas meal last year, we had planned our small getaway. So before the news of Covid-19 we had already booked everything… It was actually too late to cancel (and the tickets were non-refundable anyway).
Friday 14th February 2020
Yep. We went to Paris on Valentine’s Day. It was the start of the Spring half-term, and it was the only time Mr Sensible could take off (as he’s a teacher). Covid-19 was still in its early stages before it became a pandemic, so we weren’t too worried, but we was cautious at the time (we’re still are)!
We entered Calais, our French journey has begun!
We reached the station before 6pm, and immediately went to the place we were going to stay in. We passed a lot of wedding shops before we reached our Airbnb flat. It was a cheap small flat that seemed to have been split into two.
We weren’t going to sit and rest, we had to do some exercise before dinner (Mr Sensible’s idea)!! 😦 The mini cakes below was my motivation!
Our exercise included a walk up a hill. A large hill! The Montmarte has a Roman Catholic church on top, the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. It’s free to go in but there is a security guard. The area was quite full of people with many tourists and lovers.
We had dinner at Le Panorama after a bit of searching around the town. I had my usual snails which was drenched in a herb dressing plus steak and fat chips. Mr Sensible had salmon and pasta. Mr Games had a round pizza. And Miss Money decided to have a fat pizza, which had loads of ham and egg inside. Very ham-my. Mr Sensible had cheese for dessert (it looked disappointing) and I had a pie. I wished it came with ice cream! The white wine was good though…
Address: 20 Rue Gérando, 75009 Paris, France
Time to sleep… zzzzzzzz
Saturday 15th February 2020
After a restless night, couldn’t sleep well… grateful I didn’t choose the living room or the room with the window. I would have been grouchy. It was time to walk, be tourists and find breakfast.
France have a wide range of macarons!
We had breakfast at Le Studio Cafe. Unfortunately they served me the wrong coffee. Wanted something without cream. Breakfast was not great. Thumbs down!
Address: 15 Place Saint-Pierre, 75018 Paris, France
Time to tour around Paris…
And now up the Eiffel Tower – when I went there last with Miss Pinky in 2014, there wasn’t much security, but now there is! I decided not to walk up. I think I would have died half way up the staircase. So I waited in the queue… for almost an hour or so… The others went up the stairs. It was incredibly cold up at the top, so I wrapped up with my scarf and gloves. People would have probably thought I had Covid-19, but to be honest it was so cold, I really had to wrap up! It reminded me of going up the Empire State Building in New York.
I decided to walk down the stairs with the gang… might as well carry on with some more exercise. 😦 Because we didn’t have lunch I think I was feeling grouchy… Sorry guys!!
That night we scoffed down a kebab dinner, and Mr Sensible had a Burger King. Hungry!!
Dinner was followed by some tourist videos of Alice in Paris.
Exhausted! Goodnight!
Sunday 16th February 2020
Along a different street, we had breakfast at Odette and Aimé. Quality was better! Thumbs up!
Address: 46 Rue de Maubeuge, 75009 Paris, France
After breakfast it was time to walk through some Paris arcades. They reminded me of some of the ones in London. Very beautiful! We ended up in the Royal Palace at the end of one of the arcades.
Then onto the place I’ve wanted to visit since reading Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code! The Louvre. Woohoo!! It was spectacular to see the glass pyramid after passing through the museum’s entrance.
Next was another long walk to a famous Steakhouse! Le Relais de l’Entrecote. There’s no menu at this restaurant apart from the dessert menu. My god, we spent €148.30 between the four of us. Wow. It was salad with two servings of your steak and fries. That’s all they served. Well, we didn’t have to wait long, which was a good thing. Miss Money, Mr Sensible and I were quite drunk from the red wine… worth every penny!
Address: 20 Rue Saint-Benoît, 75006 Paris, France
As drunk as we were (apart from Mr Games) we went walking around. Found desserts (Miss Money and I got one free macaron each! Hahahahahahahah!!!). We saw how bad Notré Dame became – it’s still under construcion… Then it was shopping time… I don’t think I could walk anymore. Maybe it was because we were walking too slowly.
Had a microwave dinner that night… Cheap night!
February 17th 2020
It was our final day in Paris. Three days in Paris is enough if you don’t have much to do.
Garé de Nord has luggage lockers, so we placed our stuff inside a large locker – make sure you have some coins!!
We then found a really nice place for breakfast which wasn’t too far from the station. Unfortunately it was near 11am, and I think they just ran out of breakfast items… It was the best out the three places we went to!
Then another long walk around…
Tea break at Cafés Richard…
And then an American lunch… service was incredibly slow…
Finally home time! SNCF offer short stories at a touch of a button in English and French… Mr Sensible, for some reason had the longest story ever! And I got two traditional stories. ¬_¬”
We separated at different stops on the London underground… tired!!
End of our Paris trip – until next time!! (Hopefully they’ll forget about having to climb up a mountain if we ever go on another trip together… LOL)!
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Unfortunately, I won’t be travelling for a while, hopefully Covid-19 will end sometime in the middle of the year!
Keep safe as always!! Remember to wash your hands!!!!!!!!!!!!
A Simple Geeky Life 
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