One thing I’ve meant to do in Paris for years is the Catacombs. I knew very little about them; only that they were underground and went on forever. When I went to Paris last month, I added them to my tentative to-do list, having discovered that tickets only go on sale four days in advance and… More There are 6 million dead bodies under Paris
Ok, I’m ridiculous. I decided to use the Coronation weekend to go to Paris. I’ve said on many occasions that I don’t love Paris but I like it more as I get to explore on my own terms and it’s a very quick hop over from Southampton Airport and quite honestly, I was never going… More A night at the Paris Opera
Shall we talk about Paris again? Shall we mine my past for content? Yeah! Let’s talk about a school trip to Paris in 2002. Between living on the south coast of England and taking French & Spanish A Level, I ended up doing four school trips to France. I’ve already talked about Cherbourg 1998. Later… More A school trip to Paris in 2002
I’m sort of surprised I’ve never written this one but on the other hand, there’s not much to write. It’s about the time I spent a week dogsitting in the south of France and I’m writing it now in honour of the day that my ex-boss emailed me out of the blue* to say “it… More Dogsitting in the South of France
I considered going to the Altitude Festival this year – for obvious reasons, it’s a good thing I never quite made up my mind to do it. There’s nothing seasonal about this but since we can’t travel at the moment, let’s relive old travel stories. This is Altitude 2010, my first ever visit to the… More Stay At Home Storytelling: my first snowsport holiday
The weekend I was in Paris was the weekend gilets-jaunes protestors celebrated their first anniversary by causing havoc all over again. I stood in Place de la Concorde, looking at police cars and riot vans lining the square, armed police pacing around, sirens and blue lights rushing up and down both sides of the Seine… More Paris: Love & Violence
You know I love a boat ride and on this weekend, the Batobus did just the job. In Paris, the big name in tourist boats is Bateaux Mouches but they depart from Pont de l’Alma and that RER station was closed that particular weekend, to keep the gilets-jaunes from rioting in tourist areas. I rode… More Paris: taking the Batobus to the Eiffel Tower
How have I never been to Sainte-Chapelle? For various reasons (language student, living on the south coast etc), I’ve been to Paris quite a few times. In fact, to be brutally honest, I’ve been too many times. Many an August day I’ve spent there, breaking up a three day drive home from wherever we’d been… More Sainte-Chapelle has a rock-hard floor
In blog-time, it’s been months since I went to Paris. That’s because there’s been so much other stuff I needed to post first. In real life, I haven’t actually left London yet. I’m sitting on the Eurostar at St Pancras and there’s still seven minutes until we depart. I’ve never been a mad lover of… More The romance of the Eurostar
I went on my first school trip abroad in 1998. We live on the south coast of England – and when I say “on the south coast”, I literally mean that half of us lived closer to the ferry than to the school and when we got to France, it was the same thing with… More My first school trip abroad