Travelling Bead 2: Down by the Seine with me ...

And so to Paris.

Fabulous fast smooth ride from Ashford to Gar du Nor, first class upgrade, a big breakfast, a chatty train assistant, and voila! We were in Paris. Super fast ride from the airport to our tiny tiny tiny hotel in the St Germain area of Paris, close to Gaspare Manos, whom we'd come to see at his invitation. Super chic shops lined the streets on either side. Our balcony overlooked a magnificent old church, whose bells shook the walls when it rang.

Did I say the room was tiny? Two skinny beds, on wheels ... no room for suitcases. However in true French style the bathroom was generous, tiled to the ceiling in blue. And the lift? Merde. The lift was built into a cavity between the two walls. It allowed for three people but I refused to go in it with Reno ... we were wedged nostril to chest with no breathing space, no air conditioning. The luggage had to go up on its own. I rode it, alone, up five flights the first time, hyperventilating. The doors opened and caught the bag on my arm, jammed me in. Bag lover or not, I was prepared to lose a bag rather than an arm. The next two days, I ran down the steps.

But this was Paris. We wandered out in chic spring bliss, along the poodle populated streets, along to the Seine, there to watch lovers and more lovers, the painterly light, the wrought iron and art deco, the palatial buildings, the palaces and people parade. Soft shadows and cobbled streets, clothes so expensive they didn't dare show tags. I was desperate for a red coat: if it's not available in Paris, it doesn't exist on the face of this earth. We ate at a restaurant we stumbled into, dark and cavernous and in the olden days, smoky: playing cool jazz: feasted on fish and salads and almost fainted at the bill. But this is Paris.Whatever we wore, we felt like peasants. Even the peasants would have looked more chic than we did!

In the morning, looking chilly and promising rain, we walked a few hundred metres to our assignation with Gaspare in an appropriately named cafe: Le palette ... place for painters then and now and in the future ... anyone who could be anyone were pandered to by the sycophantic waiters, who, Gaspare told us later, reserved a table and petit dejuner for him each day. And then charged us Euro 30 for two coffees and two croissants. Merde. Gaspare sauntered in, looking more French than Italian, greeted us with baci e bacione from across the cobbles, and drove us to where he works from his chateau, at the back of a chateau that belongs to the director of a swanky bank in Switzerland, who come to Paris when they feel like it, on the outskirts of Paris. It's a wonderful old chateau and he's lucky to have it - for the price of a painting a year. The owners are renovating it as he wishes - he uses the space as he wishes ... leaves his Paris pad every day and comes here to paint. Lucky man. Fabulous break.

The weekend retreat of Gaspare's friends! Imagine coming here when you felt like it ... all that space and greenery. Afterwards, we went to his home in St Germaine, where the walls were painted black, there were ancient old oil paintings and old chairs covered in beautiful tapestries, interesting light fittings, aged pictures of his family in silver frames. We felt very privileged to be shown his inner sanctum and treated like family.

Later that evening we wandered the little streets again, but the weather had closed in ... again ... I was fluey ... again, and we retired to our twin sliding beds. Paris was magnificent - much too short ... but we did see a young man propose to his girlfriend by putting a lock on a bridge over the Seine, then get down on his knees to propose to her. Ah. Paris. City of Lurve.