Back in Paris!! Left Beaune early as there was only two TGV's to Paris today (refer Tuesday's blog) so after early room breakfast found ourselves wandering through the streets of Beaune in the dark (refer to Trivia below) to catch the connecting train to Dijon - thankfully on time as we theoretically only had 15min change-over time for the TGV.
Boy does that train fly - no monitor display of speed (we're French - we don't do that sort of thing!) but it was well over 300kph judging by the Italian trains. It was actually 10mins late leaving Dijon but arrived in Paris on time so made up the time easily. Beautiful "Tour de France" countryside all the way. Had to sort out our Metro ticket to get to where we are staying in the Montmatre area (near Moulin Rouge) - interestingly had mixed messages between the "info" lady and the "ticket" lady but found the latter was correct and after a change of trains at Charles de Gaulle we arrived at Blanche station by about 12 which was pretty good going - Moulin Rouge is the first thing you see as you emerge from the underground.
Our hotel is just 100m up the hill from Moulin Rouge and is very good. Bad street to wander along as the food/bakery/restaurants/fruit/chocolate etc etc shops are out of this world so there was much drooling as we took the afternoon walk. Booked another back-street restaurant for dinner - booked into M-R for the 11.00pm show so there will be an addendum to this blog at about 9.00am your time to let you know how it went!
One advantage of the earlier-than-expected trip to Paris is that we have had the whole afternoon to look around the Montmartre area. Main attraction is the immense "Sacre Coeur" (Sacred Heart) Basillica - better inside and out than St Peter's in Rome. Fantastic views across Paris as it is built on a very high hill. Lots of beautiful art, antique,craft, restoration etc shops in the narrower streets as well. Had a lunch coffee at a typical Parisienne street cafe - cost 7.50 euro each so we went to starbucks (sacreligious I know) for a'noon tea and it was pleasant and quiet and coffee was 3.75.
Cheers all - hard to believe, but this will probably be the last travel blog before we get home as not much chance to send while sitting in a 777 at 40 000+ feet!!
Addendum: Well here I am at 2am - just returned from the Moulin Rouge. How was it?? - don't let anyone tell you otherwise - it is a fantastic show - went for 2 hours non-stop and it was the most entertaining, spectacular, sometimes one of the funniest shows we've seen - pure top class entertainment. It's too late to give more information - tell you more in the next blog which won't publish for a few days. Good night!!!
trivia: sunrise in Beaune is at 8.15 - so now you know why our rides never started until about 9!!
Pictures:
*The famous Moulin Rouge - not very impressive from the outside really.
*This shop is just for cheese!
*The Montmatre area - from our hotel window.
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