Paris Breaks – Café des 2 Moulins
Paris Breaks – Café des 2 Moulins
A point of interest for film buffs on Paris breaks, this is the cafe where Amélie worked as a waitress. The Café des Deux Moulins. The musty atmosphere, with its 1950s decor, mustard-colored ceiling, and lace curtains, has been preserved — even the wall lamps and unisex toilet.
The menu remains much the same:
* escalopes of veal in a cream sauce,
* beef filets,
* calf’s liver,
* green frisée salad with bacon bits and warm goat cheese,
* pigs’ brains with lentils.
The Café des 2 Moulins (French for “Two Windmills”) is a café in the Montmartre area of Paris, located at the junction of Rue Lepic and Rue Cauchois. It takes its name from the two nearby historical “windmills”, Moulin Rouge and Moulin de la Galette.
Paris Breaks 2010
Paris Breaks for 2010
For Paris breaks, 2010 starts with the aftermath of the unfortunate Eurostar breakdowns with the bad weather last month in teh North of France but let’s put that all behind us now and look forward to a busy January as the long holiday period in the UK comes to an end. Believe it or not, Monday 4th January 2010 is NOT a bank Holiday in England and Wales, although both Monday and Tuesday are bank holidays in Scotland so we will getting back very much to normal pretty soon.
There is the prospect of some more downward pressure on the pound sterling later in the UK election year, so rather than wait for economic conditions to improve, a lot of people will be taking Paris breaks in the early spring, as well as going further afield, and possibly have that well earned break that has been postponed during 2009 to some extent.
January is traditionally the month for booking summer holidays too, and that can include tours of France and Europe with Paris breaks built in. One way for example, for keen francophiles from the north of the UK to get driving in France more quickly would be to take the train right through to Paris or even further south and then hire a car with right hand drive and everything.
Eurostar Deals to Paris
There’s been a bit of inflation in Pars over the past year and although the pound has recovered a little it’s still unfavourable for UK travelers on Paris breaks so what we try to do is get the best possible Eurostar deals and then keep the hotel expenses down. Now there are two ways of going about this. One is to look for Eurostar deals with hotel included, in which case you know exactly how much most of your short break to Paris is going to cost, and the other way is to book one of those £59 return Eurostar deals – usually including a Saturday night stay, and then find a cheaper hotel in Paris when you get there. A third alternative I suppose is to organis your own hotel in advance, by phoning up or booking online, but I’ve never done that myself.
Paris Breaks – Getting about
Paris Breaks by Metro
Everybody knows about the Paris Metro, it’s probably the best public mass transit system in the world but because of that I wonder if tourists on Paris breaks come to rely on it just a little too much. If you are coming from London for example, it’s easy to assume that the Paris Metro is roughly equivalent to the London Overground or tube but this is not really the case. The RER is more like the tube, and the metro is more like the DLR. If tourists in London sometimes make the mistake of taking the tube to go one stop when it would be easier to walk it in 5 minutes, then for travellers on Paris breaks this is even more so the case. The stops are much closer together, even in the more outlying areas such that if you need to take a corresponance or interchange for the sake of taking a second line for just two or three stops then it’s usually worth finding a route that takes you close enough in just one hop , and then walking the rest. Getting out at Pont Neuf and then crossing the river Seine is one of my favourite such cuts.
The Metro can be a bit slow for longer distances too, what with the stops being so close together, so it’s worth going down a level to the RER if you are travelling from one side of Paris to the other.
Paris Breaks by Bus
One form of transport often ignored by Paris visitors is the bus, and one can be forgiven for thinking its a little complicated bt it needn’t be and can often be the fastest way across shortish distances, plus you get to see the sights as your making your way.
Batobus Paris Breaks
Saving the best ’til last – have you tried the Batobus yet? That’s a brilliant way to get about on Paris breaks with stops along the Seine which are convenient for Notre Dame, Eiffel Tower, Champs Elysees, St Germain, Jardin des PLantes and Musee D’Orsay no less.
Paris Breaks to Museums
Paris Breaks to Visit Museums
People enjoy Paris breaks for many reasons,and one of the most popular is to visit the many museums and art galleries Paris has to offer. The most famous are the Louvre of course, the Musee d’Orsay, The Picasso museum and the Rodin museum, but there are many many other smaller mueums and galleries as well as these. For example, Paris has the Quai Branly museum, which it has to be admitted has caused a lot of controversy among the French and also international visitors since opening on June 23, 2006. Despite or maybe even because of this continued controversy, the Musee Quai Branly has become hugely popular.
The Musée Quai Branly contains an impressive collection of over 300,000 artifacts from Africa and Oceania that was previously displayed at the Trocadero Museum of Ethnology, near the Eiffel Tower
The controversy surrounds the nature of the objects in the museum’s collection, and how they came to be owned by the French state. Such things as Alaskan headdresses, Nigerian statues, Senegalese beadwork, and ornamental wear from India help to make up the main collections. So many are against the display of objects plundered from France’s colonial conquest and believe they should be returned to their countries of origin. There’s another type of criticism which complains that the displays are too dependent on on aesthetic appeal and extreme lighting, rather than having usueful descriptions in a proper context. So it’s impossible for me to recommend that you go to The Quai Branly museum and make your own mind up, for that would be encouraging yet more visitors. Make your mind up before you set out on Paris breaks which museums you want to see and then have the best possible time in Paris.
