A quick trip to Paris

I took a quick trip to Paris for some meetings... I love Paris. I've been lots of times and it never loses it's romance.

On the first night, we go for a meal with some friends. It;s very nice to be integrating with local france... It;s a very nice bottle of wine, but we have early meetings, so it's an early night, without seeing much paris.

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After a day of meetings, beside the pompidou centre...








..... its a social dinner in an unremarkable restaurant followed by (expensive)unremarkable beer in an unremarkable bar. There's so many of these little bars in Paris. I call them "Amelie bars", the atmosphere in them is very far from my preferred drinking environment.... so to bed without seeing much more Paris....

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Friday, and another day of meetings. This time, we have the evening to ourselves, so we head off to my favourite restaurant:



Vin de Pyrenees is a restaurant I discovered by accident the first time I came to Paris. I was visiting the street where Jim Morrison died, and by the time we found it, we were really really hungry and tried to get into a little restaurant beside Jim's flat.

The maitre d' was the usual parisian surly when I asked if he spoke english.... I then told him I was Scottish and he welcomed us in..

It was one of those places where you have a candle lit dinner for two but on long tables with benches, so we had to step over other patron's knees to get to our table - or more correctly our bit of the table. The food was wonderful....

I finally found it again, a few trip sto paris ago, and it's changed owners a few times, but the food is at least as good, or possibly better.

We survive the sticky weather by having a rose before we get stuck into some Cote De Boeff....



Satiated, we head off back to the hotel with a meander round the Marais....















FInally I got to see some of Paris. The Marais is always great, and tonight is no exception... it's dark, but there's so much light, and its the middle of the summer, so everything iss bathed ina beautiful glow that(coupled with the protein overdose), makes everything seem absolutely beautiful.

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We have a half day of meetings, and then I head back up to Amsterdam. My trip is entertained by Lego Star wars:



It;s great to combine star wars with lego.... and you feel like you're 8 yrs old...

...back in Amsterdam, I head straight to the pub to meet The Kiwi for drinks... I'm shattered, but the weather is good, the beer is cold, and a summer of travelling has just begun...




Bon nuit...