Lurv that city

March 2006. Paris was all aflame, burning with passion - and Molotov cocktails. We were in the City of Love for three days to visit our recently wed friends, Rupert & Jacky and Trev & Ros. This happened to coincide with general strikes and protests ending in riots and significant property damage.




Prior to our friends' arrival, Weisie and I undertook reconnaissance of the bar and restaurant scene in Montparnasse. We had only one evening with them and wanted to make the most of it. Consequently, we enjoyed happy hour drinks, ate cheap-and-cheerful Chinese and consumed plenty of French wine in our tiny hotel room.




In spite of the riots, it was a vacances de l'amour. We loved seeing our friends, hearing their stories and viewing their wedding photos. We also loved walking around town and marvelling at the architecture of one of the world’s great cities. It was an occasion we had been looking forward to for some time, but, as always, it was over too soon.




During the two days prior to seeing our friends, we visited the seemingly endless Louvre. Since our last visit, we noted that the Mona Lisa had been rehung on her own wall, due to her escalating celebrity status. We also paid homage to Eiffel’s Tower, skipped through numerous parks, strolled along the Seine and snapped lots of photos.




We spent an hour under the city, crawling through one of its many dank catacombs (pictured above). Given the happy mood of the weekend, I am not sure why we did this. We were somewhat humbled by the dripping bone juice and millions of skeletal remains. Once we resurfaced from the communal crypt, we felt like jumping for joy at being alive!