Weekend in Paris

The nice part or the hard part of being a frequent business traveler, is that you gather loyalty points that you feel "forced" to get away again in your free time again.   And so were cruising through Paris last weekend until my feet almost literally couldn't take another step.

Although Paris seems so easy to reach (1h15 by train from Brussels) and we now and then have to be there for professional reasons, I realised I hadn't truly been strolling downtown in the last 10 years.   And even then I was going to team dinners with colleagues or having training all week , with only limited 'free' time.  Shockingly I realised it had been since my grade 11 that I had been a true tourist in Paris...wow I'm already more than twice the age I had then.  Geeeeez, how is that possible?   

And for that reason we were doing the pure stereotypical tourist stuff: Eifel tower, Louvre, Arc de Triomphe,  Place du Tertre, Quartier Latin, ...  but also some spots I've never been before, less crowded but very nice such as the locks at the Canal St Martin.  All of this of course with a regular stop at one of the many brasseries, to give my feet a much needed rest and watch the crowd. 

(haha which reminds me of one of the waiters on a little quiet square in Montmartre explaining to his American customers that dish x had horse meat in it..."just joking". We loved his humor but it was lost on them however.     When a little later they asked where Montmartre was, he simply stated with his best Frenglish 'but this is Monmartre, it's not the just the church", walking away leaving them stunned instead of giving them a little bit more directions or explanation....oh he was brilliant).