Six and seven...

It's actually quite incredible that by the start of July, I will have already taken 7 trips so far this year. The latest two, which will be detailed in the following posts, include a return visit to South Africa for business during which I was able to tack on some personal time to see more of the gorgeous country there, plus a couple of short (but jam-packed) days in one of my favourite cities of all time: Paris!

Yes, Paris. Everyone loves Paris. I cannot even say "Paris" without eliciting a deep sigh, closing my eyes and smiling.

For this trip, I once again traveled with my business colleague Melissa who shares the same great affection for both Paris and South Africa. And although our stopover in Paris was very short, our mantra of "we're in Paris!" made sure that we didn't waste a minute...or a crumb of our baguette...while we were in the gorgeous city of light. After a long flight (7.5 hours) with a horrible movie (Valentine's Day...ugh) and no sleep, we navigated our way on the Metro to our hotel. Not the best idea when your luggage weighs in at a whopping 24 kilos but we did manage to find our hotel while getting a great upper body workout. Our adorable hotel - Hotel de la Sorbonne - was somewhat easy to locate across the street from the famous University and close to the Luxembourg Gardens. It's a tiny, boutique hotel with cute (very small, of course) rooms decorated in bold colours. Each room has a juliet balcony that overlooks a pretty an internal courtyard - and has it's own Mac that serves as your TV and computer. Rooms are inexpensive (under $200 CN) and are all roughly the same size (based on the layout map on the back of my door) so I would advise not to splurge on a superior room. Located in the Latin Quarter and close to Notre Dame, the hotel is easily accessed by the Luxembourg, Cluny or St-Michel Metro stops.

Once we settled in and cleaned up we made our way on foot through the Latin Quarter, the Marais and Bastille to take in the shops and sights. We took shelter from the rain at Cafe Bastille for a bite of dinner (Poulet et Risotto for me, Salmon for Melissa) and some good wine. We got lost on our walk back but a hailed a cab. This was probably not the safest move as our cabbie was watching a World Cup match on his GPS screen while he drove us. Thankfully no one scored...or crashed.

After a good nights sleep, a good Parisien breakfast (at Brasserie du Cercle Luxembourg) and a walk along the Champs Elysees, we braced ourselves for another long flight (11 hours)...and another incredible adventure in South Africa!