New Year in Paris

Having watched the Sydney midnight fireworks live and in full on Sky News here at 2:00pm Paris time, we walked along the banks of the Seine on NYE, satrting at about 10pm, to the Place de la Concorde, along with many Parisians and other tourists. We had previously identified this a good spot to watch from, and it avoided the areas said to be very popular, the Champs Elysees, and the Parc du Mars. We didn't want to encounter Sydney like crowds. It was a good spot, but big numbers of Parisians and tourists thought so too, and it was very crowded with both pedestrians and motorists. Paris doesn't close its streets for NYE! We actually sat on the railings of the adjacent bridge, the pont de la Concorde.

At midnight the Tour Eiffel put on a beautiful dancing display of gold and silver, but it does this every hour every night for 10 minutes, anyway. We did a hand held video of this display - trust us, it's at midnight on NYE. So Paris did nothing for New Years Eve. There were no fire works from the tower, but we did hear (on German TV) that the government had banned fireworks "due to security concerns". The City took notice of its own ban, but not the people who had brought their own fireworks which they let off in the street for the hours before and after midnight, so they were showering us as we watched. Frankly, what security concerns could be allowed to interfere with the City's own fireworks eludes us, and it really sounds like a defeatist concession to terrorism rather than a justified precaution. A city with equal or greater issues with terrorism these days is London, and their fireworks went ahead an hour later, focusing on the London Eye, and looking fantastic. That all said, everyone was in a festive mood, lots of champagne was being drunk, and groups of friends were clustered together. It looks like this is what happens here at New Years, and the people watching and the traffic watching was extremely entertaining, as was the walk back to le Marais - we didn't brave the Metro, and the walk was invigorating. Approaching midnight, and afterwards, the cacophony from car horns was deafening. We were interested to see huge numbers of motor home type vehicles parked on a large area to the side of the Place de la Concord. It seems that this is a very popular spot for motor campers in France on New Year's eve. On New Year's day, after a slow start we headed into the city centre, via the ice skating rink at Hotel de Ville, which is always popular, and had many skaters on it. We passed by the Place St Martin (photo is of the memorial to the liberation of Paris during WW2. We learned from Ben's Christmas present book on Paris that the French have a lot to regret about WW2, but they can be rightly proud of this liberation with General de Gaulle ignoring the US Army and marching his own army on Paris to take it back) and walked in the St. Germain des Pres area, which has some lovely boutiques, unfortunately, or maybe not, most were closed , so it was window shopping only. Stopped for a coffee on Bvd St Germain, which was the most expensive one yet, about $12, and we were't even at le Deux Magots or Cafe Flore! There were many ladies passing by, in very nice fur coats, the most we have seen, although they are very popular everywhere in Paris. As usual we spotted a huge church, St Sulpice, and detoured in to have a look. A huge building, having quite a big renovation on the outside, but needing lots of money spent inside as well. It was very cold today, about the same as it was when we first arrived in Paris, took us a bit by surprise, as you cannot tell from our apartment windows, and it has been much milder the last week.

Note: Have removed the Video - it doesn't seem to work!