So did a lot of other people standing in front of me.

I know how to do the Paris Metro.
I know how to use the ticket machine so I don’t have a line of impatient Parisians behind me while I struggle with whether I am going to acheter a single ticket, a carnet of ten or a trip to Disneyland Paris. I know where to put the notes, in the machine next door with the picture of the euro notes, not my machine with the picture of the credit card.
I can tip tap up and down the worn concrete steps with the best of them, and I know from experience that if you aren’t going to tip tap up and down the escalators with the impatient Parisians, you will stand to the right.
I know how to work out which line and which direction to take so I end up at Notre Dame, not Versailles
So why did we take a taxi to the airport?

And that’s why we took a taxi!!

I first saw the Eiffel Tower on Bastille Day 1999 and despite the fact that there was an electronic clock counting down the days until the new millennium attached to her legs, I instantly fell in love with her. (You must excuse me for using ‘her’ but somehow ‘it’ seems too impersonal.) I was prepared to be impressed but I wasn’t prepared for how beautiful she is, her intricate ironwork, her beautiful burnished brown colour, her delicate beauty. My friend Barbra and I spent several hours lying on the bridge, waiting for Bastille Day fireworks, gazing at her, barely even talking.
I have returned twice to visit her, each time prepared to be disappointed, and each time she takes my breathe away. I love the way you can be strolling along a Paris Boulevarde, turn a corner, and there she is, sometimes misty in the distance and sometimes standing clear and proud and beautiful.
I love to share some photos, but I have yet to see a photo that does her justice!!

Our first view, across Place de la Concorde

It’s a bit dark, and the poor lady has no head, but just to prove I was there!

A painting in a nearby cafe

From the steps of Sacre Coeur, Montmatre/

Adieu bonne dame, Jusqu’à ce que nous nous revoyions (until we meet again)

It is a cafe much like any other Parisien cafe, Cafe des 2 Moulins, and I don’t know how often we walked past it without realising it was ‘Amelie’s Cafe’

It was bitterly cold out with melting snow turning to ice making long walks treacherous, and you can only spend so much time gazing at a chimney waiting for smoke of any colour to pour out, so we decided to brave the ice for lunch at Amelie’s Cafe.

Not a hint of the iconic fringe on the outside, but once inside there is no doubting where you are with pictures adorning the walls and the menu cover a clever Ameliesque design. Our waiter spoke good English, but accepted our continued attempts at ordering in French with good grace and only a hint of a smile on his face.

It was a very pleasant lunch, vegetable soup, sausages and lentils and tarte tatin, an upside down tart usually made with apples, but this made with pears and served with creme fraiche. All washed down with a bacchus of red wine, a bacchus being a large wine glass which saves having to call the garçon too often! All in all worth a visit, not only so you can say you have eaten in Amelie’s cafe.

Amelie with a devilish glint in her eyes!