I am leaving today. Leaving this great city, going back to tiny and grey Vienna. Going back to normal life. I think I will never forget my visit here, and I am glad to have friends here. Extremely good friends like Milan and Hichem, who elevated this vacation from great to marvelous and I really hope, they allow me to come back here soon.
I have seen a lot, but still only a small fraction of what is to see. I barely scratched the surface. Before I go pack my bags, here is a little slideshow of pictures i took here.

Au revoir Paris, I will miss you, au revoir Milan and Hichem, I love you both and thank you for your hospitality, au revoir …

Versailles !

As a fitting closing point to my stay here, I crowned my journey with a visit of Château de Versailles. Although the weather was still bad and heavy winds threatened to lift me off my feet, it is a marvelous place. I wasn’t inside due to endless streams of american and japanese tourists standing in line, but I got a good look at the surrounding garden, or park, big enough to host a small city itself. Incredible to think this was private property, built for the pleasure and well being of one family and their affiliates only, while the general public was living in poverty, enslaved and always on the brink of starvation. No wonder they chopped their rulers heads off sooner or later.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité, as long as you are rich enough anyway.

Fucking cold!!

After a week of sunshine and wearing light shirts, it got really cold today. I am a little angry because my phone doesnt work, and without phone i can’t transfer money to france. Other than that, I took a goodbye tour through the city, and along the banks of the river Seine.
I will really miss that city, teeming with life, charming as an honest smile, and home of the slowest supermarket cashiers ever…

->Photo :Centre Pompidou

Monday, rise and shine!!

Only took a little trip to the city, later roamed the streets of northern Paris by car. In the evening meeting a dear friend at Gare du Nord, and was late because my good friends who are living in Paris and use a Navi-system in their car and on their precious iPhone dropped me off at the wrong station, Gare de l’Est . Fortunately by running i was able to cover the distance between both in a matter of minutes.

->Photo: Charlemagne

Thou shallt not move yo ass on Sunday

Spent my day at Milans home, resting. Only took a little stroll through picturesque Cachan with it’s Medici Aqueduct in the evening. If travelling to Paris , this is a nice place to stay. It is not too far off, yet free of metropolitan stress and hustle.

Château de Vincennes

Visiting the lovely medieval style Château de Vincennes. From there into the forest behind it, resting in the sun for some time, enjoying those wonderfull maybe last warm days of this year. After that we ventured to Place de la Bastille, wandered the little shopping streets adjacent, strolled via Place des Vosges to les Halles, from where we got our train home. Slowly I am getting a little tired. 4 more days in Paris, not much cash to spend anymore, but i really really love this city.

Todays program lead me to La Défense.

The district is at the westernmost extremity of Paris’ 10-km long Historical Axis, which starts at the Louvre in Central Paris and continues along the Champs-Élysées, well beyond the Arc de Triomphe before culminating at La Défense. Around its 100-metre high Grande Arche -goddamned that thing is huge, and it’s extremely windy up there- the district holds many of the Paris urban area’s tallest high-rises.

The adjacent shopping center is mind boggeling, the subway station below gigantic, and the whole arrangement made you feel like in the middle of a sci_fi movie….

God I love this City, and although i consider english to be my second native language, i just don’t have enough words to describe it.

E.T., the Eiffel Tower

Starting this day at Trocadéro, strolling down to the Eiffel tower. An extremely long waiting line crushed my desire to go to the top, so I wandered around the city happily aimless, passing lotsa churches and monuments, like the Panthéon.

In the late afternoon i met Milan again, and we ventured to Montmartre and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, Paris, from there wandering down to Quartier Pigalle, where we had coffee, adored the neon lights around Moulin Rouge and escaped without spending money for sex, haha…

Shocking – I’m shopping

In a City like Paris, where even the poorest and most fucked up people are better clothed than stylish people in Austria, you just have to spend some on fashion. So i granted Milan a day off his tourist guide duties, and roamed the shopping areas around Les Halles…

Luckily I am used to shopping without cash and got away pretty cheap with buying almost nothing, but I could have spent thousands of Euros…

Onto the City.

RER still on strike, I had to find my way to the city by bus to meet Milan at Montparnasse around noon, after he finished his french school and we took a tour through the city, so I could get a first impression.

So from Montparnasse we crossed Jardin du Luxembourg, took Boulevard St. Michel to cross the Seine, see the Cathedral Notre Dame de Paris, passed the City Hall, the Centre Pompidou, Les Halles, Église Saint-Eustache, the Louvre, onto Champs Elysees up to the Arc de Triomphe.

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