Today I’m travelling from London to Paris by Eurostar in an effort to miss the Good Friday holiday traffic due tomorrow.
A very straightforward 2.5 hours later, the first of the changes in the five years since I was last in Paris is evident – I have a taxi driver with a GPS that doesn’t need detailed instructions on the nearest street to my (admittedly difficult to locate) apartment in Rue St Roch. I used to rent an apartment one street over in Rue de la Sourdiere (a one way street leading off a one way street), and that really used to throw them.
Rue St Roch is a one way street adjacent to the Eglise St Roch on Rue St Honore. The church is famous for it’s weddings (the Marquis de Sade was married here) and it’s celebrity funerals. It is also famous as the burial place of André le Nôtre, the landscape architect of the Chateau de Versailles and Vaux-le-Vicomte.
The apartment is also a short walk to the Jardine des Tuileries, the large formal gardens in front of the Louvre. It is grey and overcast today, and a little misty. The gardens are looking lush and green at the start of spring.
