We didn't have a lot of time to rest after the great yet hectic week we had spent with our friends from various parts of the world (actually, we had the following nationalities present during the week: French, Finnish, Malaysian, Chinese, Japanese, Hungarian, French and English. And Nick is actually Welsh-Irish-English), since we had booked tickets for the Friday to go to Paris (and from there to Angers, where Mathilde's dad lives).
So after one evening of tidying up and packing, off we went again to the airport to catch "the Navette" to Paris (Air France call the flights from Nice to Paris "the shuttle bus", maybe because they're so frequent?). For once we got lucky with the travel (after the delays, lost luggage etc. we've become used to...) and were put on an earlier flight, so we actually arrived in Paris an hour earlier than we expected. The plan was to stay with Sarah and Bruno, who live on the other side of Paris from Orly, in the 18th arrondissement (the arrondissements are the administrative sectors of Paris, there are 20 in total). Our departure from the airport was delayed a bit by us running into Ollie and Rafael, who were actually catching a flight to Nice! Another case of "small world, eh?"... So we had a quick coffee with them, before heading off for Porte de Clingancourt.
Sarah had prepared a great dinner for us (seems that she took my comment about "being able to eat a horse" seriously), which we eagerly wolfed down in our hunger (well, maybe I'm just speaking for myself, actually - about being hungry, I mean).
Saturday was a bit of a slow starter, in the best sense of the word, as we leisurely got up and had a great traditional French breakfast (or at least my version of it, which involves eggs, fresh baguette with ham, croissants, pain au chocolat...). After this brunch of sorts, we headed off to Gare de Lyon (which is, by the way, in my humble opinion, a very impressive-looking train station) where we sorted out our train tickets for Angers (for some reason we didn't receive the tickets posted to us).
After this we did a nice walk on top of an old viaduct from Bastille towards the east of Paris. It was a very nice walk indeed, nice to see some typically Parisian boulevards and houses from a new perspective (above). They have also planted trees and bushes on top of the viaduct, so it was kind of like walking through a garden. We stopped for a light lunch and refreshing drink at a typically Parisian brassserie. Throughout the afternoon I was struck by the lack of Parisian clichés - there was hardly any traffic, no shouting people, and even the waiter in the brasserie was polite!
In the evening we took the metro down to Butte Aux Cailles (in the 13th arrondissement :-), where the plan was to meet up with Stephane (a French friend of ours from Guildford) and some of his mates to watch some rugby (France vs. England - France ended up winning). It's a nice and quiet part of Paris, almost like a small village of its own, with some nice bars and restaurants. It was good fun watching the rugby (for me, at least ;-), whilst having a few pints, kind of reminded me of the good old days in England...
We finished off the evening by having a Chinese meal (sorry, can't remember in which arrondissement ;-), then left the lads to continue on to the next bar as made our way back to Sarah's and Bruno's....
So after one evening of tidying up and packing, off we went again to the airport to catch "the Navette" to Paris (Air France call the flights from Nice to Paris "the shuttle bus", maybe because they're so frequent?). For once we got lucky with the travel (after the delays, lost luggage etc. we've become used to...) and were put on an earlier flight, so we actually arrived in Paris an hour earlier than we expected. The plan was to stay with Sarah and Bruno, who live on the other side of Paris from Orly, in the 18th arrondissement (the arrondissements are the administrative sectors of Paris, there are 20 in total). Our departure from the airport was delayed a bit by us running into Ollie and Rafael, who were actually catching a flight to Nice! Another case of "small world, eh?"... So we had a quick coffee with them, before heading off for Porte de Clingancourt.
Sarah had prepared a great dinner for us (seems that she took my comment about "being able to eat a horse" seriously), which we eagerly wolfed down in our hunger (well, maybe I'm just speaking for myself, actually - about being hungry, I mean).
Saturday was a bit of a slow starter, in the best sense of the word, as we leisurely got up and had a great traditional French breakfast (or at least my version of it, which involves eggs, fresh baguette with ham, croissants, pain au chocolat...). After this brunch of sorts, we headed off to Gare de Lyon (which is, by the way, in my humble opinion, a very impressive-looking train station) where we sorted out our train tickets for Angers (for some reason we didn't receive the tickets posted to us).
After this we did a nice walk on top of an old viaduct from Bastille towards the east of Paris. It was a very nice walk indeed, nice to see some typically Parisian boulevards and houses from a new perspective (above). They have also planted trees and bushes on top of the viaduct, so it was kind of like walking through a garden. We stopped for a light lunch and refreshing drink at a typically Parisian brassserie. Throughout the afternoon I was struck by the lack of Parisian clichés - there was hardly any traffic, no shouting people, and even the waiter in the brasserie was polite!
In the evening we took the metro down to Butte Aux Cailles (in the 13th arrondissement :-), where the plan was to meet up with Stephane (a French friend of ours from Guildford) and some of his mates to watch some rugby (France vs. England - France ended up winning). It's a nice and quiet part of Paris, almost like a small village of its own, with some nice bars and restaurants. It was good fun watching the rugby (for me, at least ;-), whilst having a few pints, kind of reminded me of the good old days in England...
We finished off the evening by having a Chinese meal (sorry, can't remember in which arrondissement ;-), then left the lads to continue on to the next bar as made our way back to Sarah's and Bruno's....
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