deux cases cochées

Our final full weekend in Paris began on Saturday with a early lunch of spicy noodles at Jixiao's Buns by the river, watching streams of kilted Scotsmen in rugby shirts rush past to nearby pubs for the Six Nations.  They are insufferable. However, the weather remains gloriously sunny and warm and it is making me excited for spring.

Full and happy, we were walking back home through Île de la Cité from the left bank when we passed Sainte-Chapelle, which I'd wanted to visit for years but never got around to it; it's either been too cloudy or there's been an enormous queue. This time, it was so empty outside, that I wasn't sure if it was open at all -but when I saw it was, we decided to bite the bullet and pop in! Built in the C13th to hold Jesus' crown of thorns (!) it's essentially a massive reliquary (the crown of thorns are actually in Notre-Dame). It was beautiful; walls of stained glass telling stories.

Sainte-Chapelle

On Sunday we rather spontaneously went to Versailles - another excursion we'd been meaning to take for years - only this time I'd planned to go this coming Monday, sitting down smugly on Sunday morning to plan the route there and possibly book tickets - only to discover it's shut on Mondays. It was a tiring but excellent day - we booked tickets online, and thanks to my ICOM card (because I work at the V&A) we were able to skip the queue of ticket-bearers (which was genuinely hundreds of people long) and walk right in! It was very busy, it being the weekend, but it was worth it! The palace itself is ridiculously lavish and the gardens magnificent. We walked through the huge estate to Petit Trianon, where Marie Antoinette had a mini palace, complete with a little "farming" hamlet in the grounds, with rustic cottages where she and her ladies could pretend to be shepherdesses. We walked over 21,000 steps that day and slept very well!

Warning: lots of pictures below:

In other news, we're missing French class so we've been practicing our French together in conversation and watching almost exclusively French shows together. Dix Pour Cent (Call My Agent) is the only one we haven't yet tried with French subtitles; we need English because it's so fast! But otherwise we've watched Le Jeu in French with French subs, and are working our way through Plan Coeur (The Hook Up Plan) with French subs too. There's lots of slang, but it's manageable.

Have a good week, everyone - hope the sun is shining wherever you are! xx