The morning is my time, up before gateway tours the sun to watch it rise, paint the city and draw th

You are wrong, Cole Porter. I can never imagine Paris not sizzling like a rasher of streaky bacon dropped into a hot frying pan, any time of year. Yes, even in the winter when you say it drizzles. I know that each time I leave Paris , there is an innate melancholy, a little lingering hilton hotels in hawaii longing, sadness that tomorrow I won t be walking the footpaths and cobbled streets any more. And I become the Terminator personified, I ll be back an epiphany, not a mantra. For I know I will do anything to make it happen, again, and again, and again.
Paris is a city so magnificent, so breathtaking in its setting, so splendorous of its streets and buildings that we rue the fact that we don t actually live there. Paris does savoir faire like no other city. So many great writers have lived, drunk, (I use it as a verb, but take it as a noun if you wish) eaten, hilton hotels in hawaii fought and won, or lost, often in the same hour, been jilted or scored (perhaps not in that order) demonstrated, been robbed, mugged, abused by waiters, taxi drivers and had a run in with the flicks yet slept the sleep of the Gods, simply because Paris is a God and it always has been, in a manner in which other cities are not.
Paris makes lesser droolers and scribblers like me reluctant to scatter our thoughts before you reader, for when it comes to writers, all the greats have been there, Hugo and Hemingway, gateway hilton hotels in hawaii tours Sartre and Scott Fitzgerald, Balzac and Blair (Better known as George Orwell, no reference to phony Tony!), in fact a veritable gateway tours Anais and Alexandre hilton hotels in hawaii all the way to Zola. When you are in love, so the songsters write, every town is Paris. Movie makers are often seen filming in the streets. It is a place that is always cool, whether you re at a bistrot having coffee under the colonnades, or simply walking down the street thinking in your mind you are Maurice Chevalier - I lorve Paree in ze Sprinktime, I lorve Paree in ze Foal ...
Journeys, we re told, start with the first step. Well that s not strictly true in our case because it started gateway tours with the first pedal push, if you like. I have always wanted gateway tours to see the Tour de France hilton hotels in hawaii but alas, we have never been in France at the right time, or even in England, Belgium, or Italy, when it starts from those exotic locations. But this time, the planets were all aligned. Well except for the one called Wife-as-well, gateway tours which is responsible for all the storms, rain, and sunshine that come to my life.
I suggested we see the lycra lads somewhere on the section between Nantes and St Malo but no, she was busy with work and besides, one of the staff was away. Perhaps gateway tours then, to the Alps, the area around Annecy? Simply impossible to get away at that time, sorry! The time trial from Avranches to Mont St Michel, I ventured hopefully, but also in vain.
The day of the finish of the Tour de France was simply stunning. There are few better days in the year, clear blue skies, only a puff of wind, the Seine a majestic and friendly serpent full of river craft and crowds gateway tours in their thousands, to watch the spectacle of the finish on the Champs. The Ile St Louis , where we had booked an apartment within gateway tours a camel s bray of the Emir of Qatar s pad, looked serene from helicopter height, moored in the wake of the Ile de la Cite with the Notre Dame, anchored on the port bow. Paris at its best!
Five days before our departure I had to go to hospital for an urgent, and decidedly unexpected, hernia operation. It meant cancelling the visit, including a visit to family in Manchester where Australia was playing England in the Third cricket test and family had got me a much prized ticket. We were mortified but immediately after the operation, gateway tours started gateway tours re-planning the visit, sadly excluding England this time and knowing hilton hotels in hawaii that for the next three months, Wendy would have to do all the heavy lifting!
We flew to Paris via Dubai and with the frequent mention of our destination by the pilot and crew as being Charles de Gaulle airport, I developed a crazy ditty which wound itself into my brain so that every time the airport was mentioned I began singing,
Never mind, we were in even if the Blue Bus never showed despite our calls. Instead, hilton hotels in hawaii gateway tours we travelled rapidly gateway tours to our Rue in a Renault , Rue Chapon, hilton hotels in hawaii Apartment 26 in the 3rd Arrondissement , although I must admit, hilton hotels in hawaii that arriving via the 18th Arrondissement is not via Paris most salubrious face, grubby rather than dirty, and not the appealing grunge of history either. Rather nose wrinkling too, like mudflats exposed by the fallen tide. Then suddenly, there gleaming brightly, gateway tours was the white marbled marvelous Sacre Coeur , as distinguishable as the Statue of Liberty or Big Ben and metaphorically speaking, a short half head behind the Eiffel Tower in recognition stakes.
Our tucked away apartment with a common flagstone entrance area, twisting narrow stairs gateway tours and a front door that closed with the portent of a prison door, had shutters and dancing wooden floors, and probably an acquaintance with the time of Napoleon. But like so much of France, it had been modernized significantly since, in a civil coda sort of way! Like a sly old fox however, I slipped away from the unpacking to stretch gateway tours my legs and absorb hilton hotels in hawaii what was left of the daylight. I made my way past the Centre Pompidou with its colourful outside plumbing, down Rue du Reynard, to suddenly find the splendour the Hotel De Ville before me.
I gave the Seine one of those European kisses, a quick peck on both cheeks and back to the right bank again and met Wendy to have dinner street-side in a pseudo wicker chair, seated side by side at a table shrunk by the rain, amid patrons similarly jimmied in to epicurean espace . For make no mistake, during our week in France we found nearly all the food of gourmand dimensions and food-wise, the only two things that might kill you are over-eating and the taxes. Everything looks cheap, until you add the taxes. It is almost as though President Hollande is saying, Let them eat cake and we ll make a killing on the taxes! And few we met had a good word for Hollande, or his Valerie!
The beauty of the bistrots and cafes (they must number gateway tours in tens of thousands) is that you get a chance to nestle and preen, sip a coffee or wine, and peruse the passing of people in perpetual motion well while you are watching em. The whole world seems to buzz, rattle, rumble, stumble, breeze, wheeze, and amble by. Helmet-less Lotharios with leonine locks on ludicrously loud Lambrettas, making much of their muscles, macho, and crooked noses, in that JP Belmondo gateway tours tough guy sort of way. Or by women on bicycles or foot, women with strong noses, high cheekbones, gateway tours and big teeth, who sashay as they walk, laugh easily, and talk with their hands, most, invariably thin, poured into shorts or short dresses, schmick rather than chic, made up by nature not Helena or Coco. It made sitting on a coffee hilton hotels in hawaii a simple passing pleasure.
Amid this street gateway tours theatre and cacophony gateway tours of aural assault, we stood out like the tourists that we were and invariably our proffered French was met with a smile and a shift into English faster than the paddle change on a Porsche gateway tours does gears. People were welcoming and warm with the arrogant Frenchman image tipped off to the antipodes. The service was good, plate presentation as though by Pissaro, and the knowledge of menus and food preparation, unsurpassed.
The morning is my time, up before gateway tours the sun to watch it rise, paint the city and draw the curtains for the flowers. gateway tours The coming hilton hotels in hawaii of the light is ephemeral, the lifeblood of artists, photographers, workers gateway tours and the simply appreciative. Grand sandstone buildings dazzle, great railway hilton hotels in hawaii stations too, finer and more grandiose than any airport ever could be, stone, iron and glass, Opera houses for the daily masses. It is the time to wander, led by a curious eye, trailed by following hilton hotels in hawaii feet.
In the semi-darkness, the city s heart was pumping, cleaners and street sprayers, delivery men, people on bikes, and some of the bistrots glowed with life, the aroma of coffee and fresh bread. Paris was cleaning up after the night before gateway tours and stocking up for the day ahead. Then again, the cleaning service was conducted by efficient swarthy Caucasian Frenchmen, maybe with a measure of union job reservation involved gateway tours and unlike gateway tours in many other countries where the latest gateway tours wave of immigrants usually found their start in cleaning the streets.
Like a lady of easy virtue, Madame Seine drew me to her wares, as she does everyone, hilton hotels in hawaii and I was rewarded by the hour with La Conciergerie , once a palace, once a prison, now basked in a soft wash of light. I stood long moments before the Pont Notre Dame , just looking and looking. It was before the bateaus with their cargo of camera carrying tourists, address systems sprouting their four language commentary and the thrum of morning traffic. It was Paris serene that held me to its bosom, the distant Eiffel Tower a wary sentinel hilton hotels in hawaii showing none of the wrinkles of its 124 years, but then again, I was a fair distance away. Nevertheless, its iconic shape confirmed that if I pinched myself, I would still be in Paris, France, hilton hotels in hawaii as those Yankees say.
I ventured further, singing to myself, How would you like to be, down by the Seine with me; under the bridges of Paris with you Well stop right there! Quite frankly, I wouldn t and nor might you if I altered the lyrics in a representational way. Reprise please, Maestro! down by the Seine with me, down in the pissoire of Paris with you
Hmmm, I thought so. While in Paris we saw many homeless kerb-side squats, hilton hotels in hawaii people sleeping rough in the way that major cities always attract hilton hotels in hawaii the not so well off in straitened economic times,