Vive La France!

Vive La France, come on let's scoot off to Paris today! 

Starting my France page in my posh travel memory sketchbook.

Aww look at this old photo from 1989 of Notre Dame, there it is in all its glory, I wonder if it will ever look like that again? Anyway, back to the travels.

In 1989 we headed off from Germany to Paris via Reims with my parents, the first night we stayed in Reims in a hotel where the reception looked very chic and the bedroom like a French brothel (or rather how I imagine a French brothel looks, because I've never been in one), lots of red chintzy wallpaper and a bed that had obviously seen a lot of service. The sketch on the left, is Reims cathedral, where the Kings of France were crowned. The original church burned down in 1210 and Notre Dame de Reims was built to replace it in 1211, a masterpiece of high Gothic architecture, it was damaged considerably during World War I and then reconstructed. A fabulous building which we strolled around and followed up by our first 'Petit Déjeuner' in France, the most fabulous croissant that I have ever eaten, yum! 

Paris was a revelation, we zipped around on the Metro, somehow or other the tickets were reusable, and sometimes you could travel around for hours and at other times one trip and the ticket was done. My Dad seemed to be suffering from culture shock and was always three steps behind….. we were all past the barriers in the Metro station and he's outside shouting ''I'm not buying anymore tickets'' or during one of our frequent Al fresco picnics in the Tuileries, we were all tucking into our baguettes with ham or cheese and swigging vin rouge (out of plastic bottles, how classy!) he was trying to grab some bread and looking for his butter knife! Always a bit twee, having dragged us all to the Théâtre de Bouffes  near the Gare du Nord to eat and finding it closed he tried to drag us into a bistro where a man with big green snotters running down his face was eating, I didn’t notice them but my husband and mum refused to go in! My Dad thought it looked cool! 

Just peeking out top right is Disneyland Paris, Sleeping Beauty's castle, we had a wonderful first trip there in 1995 with family friends. I have to say I was gobsmacked at the whole thing, really magical, although our feet didn’t think so at the end of the day. 

Here is my daughter’s souvenir from the trip …… the talking mirror from Beauty and the Beast, here we are 26 years on, and it’s still working! The mirror was one of the most popular toys in our house, all the kids wanted to hear the Beast say ''I love you'', that’s him doing it now!