Shona goes to France
Some kites (and a video camera) got left behind in Berck and I had go and pick them up, so to make a weekend of it, I took Shona along for the ride. We left straight after school and head for the tunnel:
Berck sur Mer
The original plan was to stay at the hotel and fly kites on the beach but on Saturday morning, it was so bitterly cold and windy that we decided that wasn't a good idea. Here, Shona is wearing my coat on top of her own and she was still cold.
The Louvre
We drove into Paris and found "Gare de l'Est", which has an underground carpark. I bought a 1-day pass for just under 10 Euros. As an accompanied enfant, Shona's ticket was a mere 10 cents. Shona looked at the map of line 7 and spotted the Louvre, so that's where we went. We wandered round the buildings but didn't join the queue to go to see some portrait paining.
Arc de Triumph
From the Louvre, we wandered out through lots of shops and stalls (and a pit stop at McDonald's) and went down into the Metro again at Tuileries. A few stops West on the yellow line brought us up in the Champs Elysees. We came out towards the bottom and walked all the way up to Le Arc de Triumph.
La Défense
Following the yellow line from the Arc de Triumph to the end, takes us to La Défense.
The Eiffel Tower
No visit to Paris is complete without the tower... We started at the Trocadéro where there were two couples having wedding photos, a group of lads dancing to the entertainment of hundreds and the usual people selling tower trinkets.
Back to le Gare
Exhausted, we made it back to the car, at the station.
Last Day
After Paris, we drove back to the familiar L'Imperatrice hotel in Berck. Again, I had planned to fly kites but we were put off by a hailstorm and headed off towards Calais by all the backroads. We stopped at Le Touquet, but is was this windy:
Further up, the weather was clear and bright and we could see the white cliffs across the English Channel.
It was the first time that I had driven the coast road North from Boulogne. It is a delightful part of the country - we must explore it more.
And finally back to the tunnel terminal, bang on time to drive straight onto the train.
