Dinner was finally procured at a very traditional little place with acceptably surly waiters who warmed up considerably after we ordered a good bottle of Chateauneuf Du Pape. Unfortunately, the wine selection coup came too late to tharwt the young trainee waiter who attempted to do away with us by unloading a bowl of scolding French Onion soup into our laps. It wasn't so much the actual experience that was so troubling, it was more that the smell, colour and consistency of the resulting stains on our clothing looked like we'd just thrown up over one another. Despite the mishap, the meal was good and kicked off a long, fun evening which ended at an after hours establishment in the company of a couple of loud but very agreeable New Yorkers.

The next afternoon was spent wandering around an enormous and impressive antiques market although we couldn't seem to find anything we wanted to buy and after a romantic stroll up the Champs Elysee followed by Woody Allen's new film, 'Sweet And Lowdown' (not a classic) we started to look for somewhere to eat.







We left gay Paris once more at the whim of the groundbreaking Eurostar. True to its probably not very successful '21st Century Customer Charter' of making the journey as unpleasant and difficult as possible, the terminal in Paris is even more confusing than London with a multitude of signs directing the plucky passenger to an upper level by way of an escalator, whilst depicting the image of a man going down in a lift.

continue: New York