Friday, 26 May 2023

Montmartre and home

Our last day in Paris began with coffee and croissants at the Bar du Marché, just along from our hotel. The weather was absolutely glorious as it has been all week, and I felt sad that it was the last breakfast of this lovely holiday. We left our luggage at the hotel and off we went by Metro to Montmartre, where we had drinks in the Place du Tertre and wandered around the pretty streets. The atmosphere was festive, there were street performers and musicians and of course lots of artists touting for business. We visited the Maison Rose Café (as featured in Emily in Paris!) and had lunch in a wee side street slightly away from the main throng. We also went for the first time to the wee Dali museum which I thought was excellent. What a beautiful day. We walked downhill and through the streets for a few kilometres and ended up back at Galeries Lafayette, on the roof terrace, where we had a cocktail and a mocktail (mine was called a Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds and it was very cold and tasted like heaven.) We had views back to Montmartre and the Sacre Coeur in one direction, and to the Eiffel Tower in the opposite direction. We set off back to the hotel in plenty of time to take the RER to Charles de Gaulle Airport from St Michel station. 
Or so we thought. Sadly there had been an incident on the line involving a passenger, and as a result all of the trains were cancelled. To make matters worse we weren’t told that straight away, so we waited around with hundreds of other passengers thinking that it was only a delay. By the time we realised that the trains weren’t going to resume in time for us to make it to the airport for our flight, we were cutting it very fine even to take a taxi. Back up above the ground we headed and James very efficiently ordered an Uber which arrived quickly. But it turned out that there were huge traffic delays because Beyoncé was playing at the Stade de France! Oh no! We arrived at the airport with only forty minutes before our flight, and ran to security, which luckily wasn’t busy, then to passport control and finally to our departure gate and we made it with about ten minutes to spare. Such a relief! 

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