City break: Paris

We took ourselves off to Paris for a long weekend in mid-September. The weather was overcast most of the time and there was cloud low enough to cover the top of the Eiffel Tower early each day.

We ate breakfast each day at Les Editeurs, near the hotel. It is named for the people in the many publishing houses around here on the edge of the Latin Quatter and St Germain des Pres. Sorry - no photo of the hotel, the Jardin de l'Odeon, which was excellent.

The Louvre, of course.

Policemen on duty at the Palais de Justice, and soldiers patrolling outside the Louvre - France had been declared a potential target by a terrorist group the week before.

By chance we came across a steel band from Trinidad playing at the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel in front of the Louvre Museum. Their colour, vitality and rhythms made it a wonderful show which the audience adored.

The Palace of Versailles. It's a short train ride out of the city, then a walk. The queue for the Palace was very long - perhaps taking an hour to gain entrance - but we wanted only the estate, so walked between the buildings to a separate entrance.

In the 1770s Queen Marie-Antoinette was given a 'village' near the Petit Trianon in the great park of Versailles. It contained several buildings, farms and gardens with a village pond and stream. Fram animals were raised and crops grown. Servants wore appropriate costume, and the Queen and her friends also dressed as villagers. She could enjoy "being" a country woman and farmer amongst them.

The buildings (apart from one or two long gone) and grounds have been restored, making a delightful represtnation of a country scene of the eighteenth century - but one which was always an artificial contrast with the reality of life outside. Did the French invent the theme park here?

Our stay was rounded off by dinner at Julien, an Art Nouveau restaurant full of turn of the century style.