Paris 2023
The Paris tourists decided to take a different route this year, mainly to get a night in Brussels which we had promised ourselves for several years until Covid struck. The plan was fly to Amsterdam and then get the train to Brussels for our night and move onto Paris, again by train the next day.
As part of our research we found a European football game between Anderlecht and Ludogorets of Bulgaria on the Thusday night and tickets were duly purchased for the game.
However, probably as a result of Brexit, we were delayed for several hours at passport control on Amsterdam which meant we didn’t get the train we intended. A pit stop in Le Corbeau for a Kriek in Brussels brought about the decision, given the time, to give the football a miss. This was a good decision as the game went to extra time and penalties so it would have been quite late before we got into a bar for a beer! A good evening was spent in Brussels supping some of the world famous Belgian beers and an early night was had by all mainly due to the bars all being shut!
Friday was a quick train journey to Paris and a meet up with our 6th tour member. After which we had a great meal in Pascal’s and then our tradition visit to Bastille for cocktails and then Oberkampf, where we should have taken a lesson from the previous night and left the bars early, but we didn’t!
Due to the rugby being on Sunday, we did out normal walk on Saturday, visiting Notre Dame to see how the restoration is getting on, Boulevards St Michel and St Germain de Pres and of course the Tour Montparnasse. A walk up the previously notorious rue St Denis was a disappointment as was the visit to the very busy Le Sully. An early night was averted by getting a ‘lock-in’ at Pascal’s however!
Sunday was a visit to the basilica of St Denis, the bar Keith’s being going on about for years and the rugby. At night we had nice pub crawl down the rue du Faubourg St Denis.
Monday was the interesting flight home via Copenhagen!
Tour members were: Zio, Ali, Fred, Keith, Kenny and for the Paris part of the tour G
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