Away in April 2011

Day 21 – From Copenhagen to Paris

Copenhagen, Paris, Le Marais

Thursday, 21 April 2011

Woke early this morning to finish Copenhagen blog posts.

After breakfast visited the Museum of Copenhagen, just around the corner from our apartment. This is an excellent museum with a focus on recent and early history of Copenhagen. The recent history was particularly interesting, highlighting many immigrant stories and asking the question of what you would pack in your suitcase coming to live in Copenhagen. What would you bring with you and what would you leave behind?

Back to our apartment for final pack up and tidy. Then final walk down those flights of stairs to walk to Central train station for the 12 minute train ride to Copenhagen Airport and then an Easyjet flight to Paris.

The only tricky thing at the airport was you needed to do your own check-in including printing out luggage tags and boarding passes, prior to baggage check – but we only found this out after we had lined up! We weren’t the only ones to fail to read the signs though. A couple behind us did everything except print out their boarding passes – I don’t know how they got on.

The short flight to Paris went quickly – only 90 minutes – I really envy those living in Europe/ Britain their ability to travel so easily and so cheaply! The two of us flew London-Copenhagen and Copenhagen-Paris for total cost of £266.91 and these weren’t even the cheapest fares!

Anthony had conveniently arranged return transfers from Charles de Gaulle airport and our apartment. We therefore got to see some sights that we wouldn’t otherwise have trying to navigate the Gare du Nord, including Parisian traffic jams, fearless drivers using their mobile phones on roundabouts with road works, and the Northern suburbs of Paris.

We were met at 3 Rue Beautreillus Le Marais by the owner of the apartment, Jean Jacques, a charming but pedantic Frenchman who spoke very good English. He gave us a very thorough run down of the contents of the flat before getting to us to sign an agreement, paying for our week’s in full, in cash, together with a security deposit of €200.

But his insights into Le Marais, together with recommendations of places of interest and authentic French restaurants, were priceless! Despite the late hour, we took Jean Jacques up on his recommendation of dining at Vins Des Pyrenees, an authentic Parisian bistro on our street. It advertises itself using a lovley WW1 postcard with a picture of two lovers declaring their love obviously in French (see link http://www.parismarais.com/pleasure-and-leisure/vins-des-pyrenees/vins-des-pyrenees.htm)

A carafe of red wine, a beef steak for me and a steak tartar for Anthony, finished with expresso for two, was a very pleasant introduction to Paris!

	Central Railway Station Copenhagen [Map]		scale model of Mediaeval Copenhagen at Museum of C [Map]
	Museum of Copenhagen [Map]		Holy Thursday is a public holiday in Copenhagen so [Map]
	Inside Copenhagen airport [Map]		Our apartment in Le Marais [Map]
	Dinner at Vins Des Pyrenees [Map]		Charming interior of Vins Des Pyrenees [Map]
	3 Rue Beautreillis Le Marais [Map]		Rue Beautreillis [Map]
	street signs Rue Beautrillis [Map]