Having consistently been a big fan of Emirates direct flight from Adelaide to Dubai, I am now almost wavering in favour of via Melbourne or Sydney in order to snag the big bird…. Business in the A380 is sublime ….. another level up from the poor old 777 that services Adelaide!
Some of you may remember our last A380 experience where we were upgraded to FIRST and Russell overdosed me on sleepers so I missed the whole experience…. this time I was going to enjoy upstairs to the max.
From the McLaren Flat Bowls Club to 38,000 feet above Romania, you can't keep a good barmaid out of the bar..
I did go and visit the girls downstairs and shared the photo, it seemed only fair that they didn't miss the experience as well 😉
Half an hour behind schedule at 2pm saw us landing safely in CDG to an updated (for us anyway) terminal that facilitated a very quick transit thru Immigration with a somewhat slower baggage delivery but we were soon on our way to the apartment .
We were met at the apartment by our “greeter” who did a great job explaining as many of the apartment's idiosyncrasies as our weary brains could cope with before leaving us to enjoy our home for a week.
I agonised quite a bit about choosing the location of the apartment (many months ago) and there are certainly more 'charming' arrondissements but for our first time visitors seeing the Arc de Triomphe and the Eiffel Tower from the balcony can't be beat I think? It also has AC, not a given in Paris which can be very stuffy if warm.
A restorative cup of tea and shower saw us out wandering down the Champs Élysées with a multitude of other tourists and Parisians alike, all enjoying the late afternoon sunshine to the soundtrack of a brass band playing at the base of the Arc.
Aaaahhhh, this is the life.
I was excited watching the girls get excited as we passed the iconic big name flag ship stores and we eventually found ourselves at a pop up bar adjacent to Ponte Alexandre III. Perfect for people watching both on and off the Seine, exorbitant drink prices but hey, it's our first night in Paris!
That exorbitant drink went straight to our heads though (us girls anyway) and an entertaining introduction to the Metro followed as we collectively admitted that fatigue was winning and headed back to ave Carnot and dinner.
With sleep proving to be a more of a priority than food, we had a pleasant enough dinner close to our apartment and headed back to our first real “flat bed” sleep for a couple of days.