Paris pre Christmas
A short flight from Istanbul and we arrived in Paris, a stark contrast to Mumbai which accentuates every aspect of Paris. Strikingly stylish but expensive, beautiful but aloof, historic but full of its own self importance.
We stayed in a small and stylish four level apartment near St Augustin in the 8th arrondissement close to the boutiques behind Elysee Palace, which seem to have a greater percentage of baby haute couture since the new Sarkozy/Bruni princess arrived, and the department stores of Printemps and Galleries Lafeyette.
Our first full day in Paris was Kate's birthday and by chance our nephew, Tom, was in Paris with his school's end of year rugby tour. We had the chance to meet up with Tom and his team in the Louvre. Needless to say 40 rugby players in their late teens resplendent in their bright blue track suits were easy to find in the Louvre and it did not appear that art appreciation was high on the coaches priority list.
Apart for this brief injection of culture, the majority of time in Paris consisted of of Christmas shopping with our apprentice fashionistas. Paris was surprisingly devoid of obvious Christmas decorations, very different from our last two Christmas's in Germany. The window displays in Printemps has no connection to traditional Christmas characters as it was sponsored by Chanel. Marionettes of Santa and his elves were replaced with evil looking Karl Largerfeld marionettes with bulimic supermodel puppets as his Christmas henchwomen.
After catching up with some work friends our stay in Paris reached an end as my feet could no longer stand the endless loops around Parisian department stores.....so says Chris!!!
we headed south, way south, on a fab train journey to Antibes and our rental hopuse La Maison Moderne on the Cape for four nights, inclusive of Christmas.
We stayed in a small and stylish four level apartment near St Augustin in the 8th arrondissement close to the boutiques behind Elysee Palace, which seem to have a greater percentage of baby haute couture since the new Sarkozy/Bruni princess arrived, and the department stores of Printemps and Galleries Lafeyette.
Our first full day in Paris was Kate's birthday and by chance our nephew, Tom, was in Paris with his school's end of year rugby tour. We had the chance to meet up with Tom and his team in the Louvre. Needless to say 40 rugby players in their late teens resplendent in their bright blue track suits were easy to find in the Louvre and it did not appear that art appreciation was high on the coaches priority list.
Apart for this brief injection of culture, the majority of time in Paris consisted of of Christmas shopping with our apprentice fashionistas. Paris was surprisingly devoid of obvious Christmas decorations, very different from our last two Christmas's in Germany. The window displays in Printemps has no connection to traditional Christmas characters as it was sponsored by Chanel. Marionettes of Santa and his elves were replaced with evil looking Karl Largerfeld marionettes with bulimic supermodel puppets as his Christmas henchwomen.
After catching up with some work friends our stay in Paris reached an end as my feet could no longer stand the endless loops around Parisian department stores.....so says Chris!!!
we headed south, way south, on a fab train journey to Antibes and our rental hopuse La Maison Moderne on the Cape for four nights, inclusive of Christmas.
