When I was young, I read 'A Moveable Feast' by Ernest Hemingway. And what an impression it had upon my romantic soul. To me, as I'm sure to many, Paris became this ideal. A wonderous, magestical place where starving writers went to the Lourve to feed on what they saw and be satisfied with a few mandarines. A place where one could stroll in the Tourilise Gardens quite alone with one's thoughts. Where one could spend an afternoon over a cafe creme writing, or reading. I was so excited to go to Paris. Sure, I knew it would have changed a lot since the early 20th Century. But its appeal was still there, right?
So, after driving around regional France camping and tasting vin with my fiance, we unloaded our stuff in our modest single room in a hostel in Montmartre. Probably our first mistake. Known as the home of the Moulin Rouge, it attracts millions of tourists each year, and is about as seedy as you can get. Our first night there, we had a disagreement and I ended up singing Natalie Imbruglia's Torn in a karaoke bar and having flirty conversations with the host about my phrasebook in bad French before stumbling up the rapey looking lanes to find the hostel. Not a great start.
The Lourve is closed on Tuesdays but they still let you in to the shopping mall ( goody), where the loo costs 3 euros and they have fancy toilet paper for sale. By the river tourists swarm and our plan for a quiet romantic picnic complete with Vireclesse were twarted by dumbshits taking photos of us. The ' real ' Paris. Puh! And some bitch of a lady screamed at me when I took a picture. I'll upload it. Hah!! "Take that, Frenchy! Chowder!"
We never found Shakespeares Books but I'm sure it would be disappointing, and the Eiffel tower and Arc- couldn't get a photo without a trillion people in it. Don't get me wrong, I understand large cities are all the same. But really, I thought we might have got a decent glass of wine, coffee or authentic French food somewhere. Alas. Poor Hem.
That said, we loved the Loire, Bergundy, Languedoc, Rhone and Champagne. Cellar door prices!! Woo!
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