John & Anne Twisleton’s visit to Paris 14-17 October 2022
You’re only 70 once and my birthday present to Anne Twisleton was to travel Eurostar to Paris for a weekend in the four star Hotel Mercure Paris Montmartre Sacre-Coeur. My only concern was the stated official abandonment of sale of paper metro tickets on 14 October, the day we set off! To our relief 30 min from Paris the train cafeteria announced they were selling the 10 ticket bundles to passengers so we landed safely in every sense and were outside Notre Dame half an hour after our 1pm arrival. On our long weekend in Paris we opted to stay in Montmartre with its artistic connections. On the eighth floor of Hotel Mercure Paris Montmartre Sacre Coeur we had a brilliant view down to the Eiffel Tower which inspired drawing. The Tower shed bright radial beams towards us at night and, on the hour, had a 5 min sparkling session. Lovely to see the intact facade of Notre Dame in Paris which survived the 2019 fire. On a plinth outside we saw the near life-size stone statue of Our L...