Day 35 - October 5 - Villerfranche-sur-Mer to Paris!
We got up and checked out fairly early and walked to the train station for an 8 am train ride to Nice. This time we did not get lost, we stayed on the right road, walking through the old town again, stopping for coffee. We hopped on the train and arrived in Nice about 8 minute later!
We were about an hour early for our TGV train to Paris. David checked the board, figured out platform and went to get more coffee. Our TGV train arrived early, so were able to get on the train and had 30 minutes to settle in our seats. David went to get me some English magazines for the long train ride. He came back with the British version of InStyle magazine and a home design magazine. The train took off and luckily wasn't too crowded - it was a 5.5 hour train ride.
Once again, I enjoyed the scenery along the coast of France through Cagnes-sur-Mer, Cannes and Cap D'Ail. Luckily we did not have to change trains at all. Once we left the coastline and got out in the countryside, the TGV started going it's normal speed (300 mph?). I liked looking out at the scenery, seeing all the farms dotting the countryside, looking at villages perched on hillsides.
We arrived around 15:00 (3 pm) at the Paris Gare St. Lazare train station. This station was amazing - large, thousands of people milling about, national guard with machine guns and berets watching everything, wrought iron and gothic looking clock.
We called the apartment manager who said he would have someone meet us at the apartment around 16:30 (4:30 pm) so off we went to find at taxi. It took us a few minutes to get oriented and we were both on the lookout for pickpockets and thieves. We finally found the taxi stand outside and once again, a la Rome, we stood for 15 minutes or so in a queue before we were able to hop in a taxi.
We drove the French traffic towards the Champs Elysee, up Rue de Rivoli. I was gawking at the sites and names of places I had read about my entire life - I caught a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower before we turned onto our street! Wow!
We turned on to Rue du Ponthieu and hopped out in front of a building sandwiched in between cafes and shops. We used the key code to get in to the entryway. We waited about 20 minutes for the manager's assistant to show up. She took us up to the apartment, using the smallest elevator known to mankind, and let us in our home for the next 8 nights.
It was beautiful, as nice as the photos on the website, if not better and larger than I expected. We rented this from Vacation in Paris and it's one block off the Champs Elysee.
We hooked up the computer to the internet and read their comprehensive book on using things in the apartment and where to eat, buy groceries, cafes, shops, etc. We decided we needed some supplies such as wine, cheese, snack food and hopped over to the Monoprix (like a French walmar) right around the corner from us.
Wow- this place was small and massively crowded. I window shopped upstairs where the clothes were and then we went downstairs to get some groceries. It was really too crowded and we were ready to get back to our abode.
David started some laundry and around 20:00 (8 pm) we went to eat at Dynasty Thai on the corner of our street. It was Thai/Chinese food and was good, but a bit pricey.
We ended the evening peering out our floor to ceiling windows watching the traffic and listening to the sounds of Paris!
