Well, it’s been quite a while hasn’t it? Plenty to share with you, no real reason for absence, just haven’t felt like writing for a bit, and today I do. Dreadful excuse I know, but we are where we are.

Had the loveliest trip in May with my good buddy Jen for our 50th and 40th respective trips around the sun. My birthday isn’t actually until the end of this month, but my approach to this particular celebration is somewhat long and drawn out, because, well, we don’t all get here, do we? Aging is a privilege, not a lament. Although not sure the husband agrees, getting pings from Credit Mutuelle in real time as my expenditure inevitably sucked the very marrow from our bank account….. I digress….

I headed out from Limoges on the 3.1/2 ish hour train journey to Gare D’Austerlitz. Jen was getting the Eurostar so would be meeting her later on. A nice easy journey, and a couple of Metro rides later, I was checked in (early – thankyou Hotel R de Paris), and bags dropped in the room, ready to head off to my little solo engagement for the next couple of hours.

I’d booked myself a ticket for the Pantheon, which I guess is France’s equivalent to Westminster Abbey. Final resting place for philosophers, authors, poets, philanthropists, the brave and extraordinary of French society. As Mausoleum’s go (and you know I love myself a crypt), this one is pretty epic.

It’s architecturally stunning for starters, absolutely exquisite building, both inside, outside and below. I fought my way through the multiple walking tours and groups of students and made my way in. I do very much enjoy a solo museum/gallery trip, where I can spend as long or as little as I like lost in my own little world. When inside, a lovely cool relief from the hot Metro, once you’ve stopped gaping at the ceiling, the first thing you really notice is Foucault’s Pendulum. A 67 mtr long wire suspended from the domed ceiling with a metal ball on the end, invented by Léon Foucault, who is incidentally also the inventor of the gyroscope. It’s basically an experiment used to demonstrate the Earth’s rotation. I won’t try to go into detail, but if you’re interested in learning more just have a quick google. It’s mesmerising to watch. Periodically a little waft of choral heavenly music is piped in, which just adds to the atmosphere in this gorgeous building. So calming just to sit on a bench and press your back into the stone and just marinate in the beauty of it all.

A small sign at one end directs you to the crypt and of course I didn’t need to be told twice. I’ve wanted to visit here for forever, I’ve already done the catacombs on a previous trip (loved), and I didn’t feel I could sell a walk around Pere Lachaise cemetery to Jen on this trip, so logistically, this was the one.

It’s plain and simple architecturally, but elegant and reverent to it’s depths. Lit with sombre lighting, but with interactive touch displays to find out more about those you perhaps hadn’t heard of, including the very few women interred here.

First big name, Voltaire, followed by Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas, who share their accommodation, which feels quite fitting. Emile Zola, Louis Braille, Marie and Pierre Curie, Josephine Baker. I think hubs is sick of me telling him that did you know that Marie Curie’s coffin is lined with lead because of potential radiation.

There’s an excellent episode of the brilliant podcast “You’re Dead to Me” about Josephine Baker – seek it out! Also some ladies that I hadn’t heard of but shall endeavour to learn more about, I’ll include some photos so you can have a read about these extraordinary women.

An excellent few hours spent, and a lovely gift shop I might add, before heading off to the hotel to meet Jen for our next adventures.

This involved dinner and drinks at the rooftop bar of La Terasse in Montmartre, close to our hotel. This meant a 20 minute queue, before a couple of cocktails and some decent food I seem to remember, all with a particularly great view of a certain lady of Paris.

We rounded out the evening with a trip to another Montmartre bar recommended by the good people of Threads, called Sister Midnight. Lovely little place with great vibes, although what is it with no-one in Paris drinking Bourbon these days? A cocktail menu riddled with gin that I cannot sadly abide, and the one drink I did panic order, I really didn’t like. Not their fault but we all don’t like gin you know.

Then back to the hotel for a reasonably early night because travel takes it out of you when you’re elderly, and Saturday was going to be a busy one, The Conciergerie, Places Des Voges and Victor Hugo’s house, culminating with the Moulin Rouge.

Pretty sure the Moulin Rouge merits its own post, so actually this might be a 3/4 parter. We’ll see how it turns out.

Leave the people wanting more as they say. The rest will follow…eventually…..

TTFN, I’ve missed you all,

V xx