Getting There

The preparation seemed like a hundred marathons run in succession over months and months, but we finally limped over the finish line and crawled onto a plane somewhere in the early hours of a Canberra morning.

The idea of a house swap with a family from Alsace in eastern France was brilliant but both Debbie and I probably underestimated the amount of work it would take to actually turn it into reality. Our problem was compounded by the diminutive size of our house, which meant that we had to dismantle our second bedroom office to turn it into a kids bedroom for our French "swapee" family, but it also made us realise that we had deferred (avoided?) a whole lot of maintenance tasks around the house for rather too long.  That took care of our weekends for a very long time.

Nevertheless, it was done and we were on the plane, having indulged ourselves in Japan Airlines premium economy so that we might arrive somewhat less compressed in Paris than travelling cattle class.  I'm six foot tall and eighty odd kilos, which is pretty average these days, so I can't imagine how somebody with a bit of real height and body mass fits into those terrible economy class seats.  I suppose you endure for the reward at the end of the flight, but we couldn't face that prospect this time.  We scooped up a bit of a bargain from JAL in the middle of last year, but it's still a a fair bit more than the bargain economy fares that the strong Aussie dollar has been delivering lately.

It was money well spent, however, and we arrived in Paris somewhat less the worse for wear than on previous occasions.

Despite our principal objective being Chatenois, a small town in Alsace, it went without saying that Paris would be our first port of call.

The Mean Streets of the Marais

As usual, we booked an apartment in the Marais and but this time really hit the jackpot location wise.  It was a nice, comfortable but otherwise unremarkable apartment (the four flights of stairs was part of our fitness campaign), but a step outside the door dropped us straight into the Rue de Bretagne, with an almost unlimited choice of boulangeries, boucheries, charcuteries, patissiers, bars, restaurants and cafes, as well as being a short hop from a couple of Metro stations  (Arts et Metiers and Filles du Calvaire).

We also discovered much to our delight that Les Marché des Enfant Rouge was on our doorstep - a very cute covered market that had us instantly ooh-ing, ah-ing and drooling.  It was almost the first thing we discovered, and provided us with an instant hit of essential supplies as well as French luxury food.
  
Parfait!

                                                                                    

A chance encounter on the metro