https://parisjetaime.com/eng/ Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

The best place for an eyeful of the Eiffel

23rd January 202623rd January 2026 funtime65

The best place for an eyeful of the Eiffel, of course, can never be at its top, n’est ce pas, but instead from high up the Paris Montparnasse Observatory.

Which is still the only skyscraper in the City of Light and soars to 688ft.

Now to get the full panoramic experience of the French capital you’ll have to get moving, though.

With the Observatory due to close on March 31 for years of renovations.

The closure precedes the launch of a major renovation program aimed at completely transforming the building and its surroundings.

Highful in the Eiffel

Naturellement the Eiffel Tower is the biggest draw for visitors to France.

Many of whom, like ourselves with our then young family, will climb 674 stairs to reach… the second floor.

Because you can’t scale the 1,665 steps and will instead have to take the elevator, although you can skip the lot and get the lift from the ground floor.

All of which you’ll find out or already have in your Paree vacation.

Va va voom

What you might not know is that that other grand edifice by the Seine, the Paris Montparnasse Observatory, boasts the fastest elevator in Europe to get up to its observatory on the 56th floor.

Which more than 30 million visitors have taken in since its opening in 1974, offering a 360-degree view of Paris and its suburbs.

Now with such a vista you won’t be surprised to learn too that the Observatory has hosted more than 3,200 cultural, artistic, and institutional events at the top of the tower.

It has notably served as the venue for concerts by internationally renowned artists such as Justin Bieber, Soprano, Indochine and Feu Chatterton.

As well as events open to the general public, such as temporary recreational installations, an ice rink, a temporary roller skating rink and fashion shows during Fashion Week.

C’est Magnicity

The renovation project will involve a complete transformation of the building and its surroundings.

Mais non, it’s not adieu though, only a bientot.

And Magnicity, which has owned and operated the Paris Montparnasse Observatory and its floors for 53 years, will continue to operate its other panoramic sites internationally.

Notably the architects in Warsaw, Berlin, Rotterdam, and the iconic Sears tower in Chicago which is a truly ear-popping experience.

Countries, Europe, Music

Rainy Days and Songdays – Five Bastille Bangers

14th July 202514th July 2025 funtime65

And pour le journée qui s’en vent a return of our occasional series Rainy Days and Songdays – Five Bastille Bangers.

We’ll start en homage to the definitive chanteuse Edith Piaf at her gravestone in Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

And a shoosh from a pilgrim at her headstone (it’s the same in any language).

At les enchants mechants being dragged around by Pere and Mere looking for Francophile Oscar Wilde’s site.

Non, Je ne regrette rien

The cemetery is more of a town than a graveyard and has its own streets but is well worth a visit.

And be sure to leave yourself plenty of time because the gatekeeper will ring a great big bell in your ears to tell you time is up.

Mais Non, Je ne regrette rien.

Je t’aime – moi non plus

These days, of course, pre-pubescent boys can find the female form online, on TV and on any newsagent’s shelf.

But back in the day it was rarer, not saying right, but rarer.

And the least said about our gang of four post-school Riviera campers visiting a shop near the Moulin Rouge to see a certain short film the better.

Now when Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin brought out Je t’aime – moi non plus in the Seventies it caused a revolution in buttoned-up Britain.

But we still learned more French from that record than any lesson Wee Jimmy Young gave us.

Tous les visages de l’amour

And for the monlingual English-speaking world, of course, we know this classic as She.

Which the suave Charles Aznavour crooned and sent les femmes into a tizzy.

L’homme intelligent rhymed his Tous les visages de l’amour song in French as well as English.

Something the Irish National Anthem, Amhrán na bhFiann, or the Soldier’s Song, also accomplishes, more of which later.

Toi, paree de mille et un attraits/

Je ne sais jamais qui tu es/

Tu changes si souvent de visage et d’aspect.

Or She May be the face I can’t forget/A trace of pleasure or regret.

Oooh, la, la Blondie

Take a forgotten Sixties doo-wop song, turn the protaganist from female to male, make him French and you have a hit… pretentious, moi?

Mais non, Debbie Harry was keen to broaden her international appeal and pretty much created a niche with French lyrics in English songs.

And not being a linguist she does seem to have a knack for it…

Denis Denis, avec tes yeux si bleux, / Denis Denis, moi j’ai flashe a nous deux, / Denis Denis, un grand baiser d’eternite. / Denis Denis, je suis si folle de toi, / Denis Denis, oh embrasse-moi ce soir, / Denis Denis, un grand baiser d’eternite

And came back for more on Sunday Girl, sounds much more sultry and sensuous as la fille du dimanche and even more so in the full French version.

La Marseilles

Et little would Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle have known in 1792 that his peasants’ song would become the most rousing national anthem of them all.

Mais oui, there is the Stars and Stripes, the Soldier’s Song, Land of our Fathers and the Internationale.

Now we expect that the Marseillaise will be sung with gusto around the world but perhaps even more so this year.

As cette annee marks 230 years since the French Convention adopted it as the First Republic’s anthem.

While some of the songs we’ve picked here may have a Pariscentric feel, La Marseilles is truly panFrench.

With De Lisle writing it in Strasbourg, with its original title Chant de guerre pour l’Armée du Rhin.

And it being popularised by Marseillaise volunteers marching to the capital.

Whether French or not we all recognise the stirring cri de coeur so it burns my eyes to see AI want to translate it into English.

Better preserve some things for humans to create like Rainy Days and Songdays – Five Bastille Bangers.

Countries

Notre-Dame and other phoenixes from the flames

6th December 20246th December 2024 funtime65

C’est magnifique, and as world leaders gather in Paris today we say merci mon Dieu for Notre-Dame and other phoenixes from the flames.

Notre-Dame de Paris (Our Lady of Paris) is the very spiritual soul of the French capital and said to house Christ’s crown of thorns.

As well as Quasimodo!

Of course, it is always a cause for celebration when God’s children raise themselves up.

After fire has razed their churches.

And so we will be rejoicing in Notre Dame’s grand reopening, nearly six years after an electrical fault caused it to burn.

And giving a thought to other great buildings that have been rebuilt from embers to stand ever taller than before.

The buildings that wouldn’t die

Put on a pedestal: Bandanaman, Martin Luther and the Frauenkirche

The Frauenkirche, Dresden, Germany: Now while Notre Dame and our other prized buildings were gutted by fate.

The pride of Dresden was flattened in war.

Before the good people of the Saxon city, the Florence of the Elbe, rebuilt their Renaissance city.\

Brick for brick, mural for mural as it was before it was firebombed.

Bosnia’s National Library, Sarajevo: The 19th-century National Library sits proudly on the Milijacka river.

And unbeknown to visitors its current iteration is less than 30 years old.

It had housed some two million books, old scripts, photos and transcripts before the Serbs bombed the heck out of it.

The 47th President of America: In Washington DC

The White House, Washington DC: And isn’t it apt that it was an Irish-American, James Hoban, who rebuilt the US presidential residence.

After their previous overlords had burned it down in the Second War of Independence in 1812.

In the midst of the Napoleonic Wars.

St Paul’s Cathedral, London: The highest-profile casualty of the Great Fire in London.

St Paul’s has in fact been in the wars itself over its 1,300-year history.

Burned four times before that 1666 tragedy, hit by lightning and the Blitzkrieg .

It has survived all of that to be the church of choice for British Royal family weddings.

Il Teatro La Fenice, Venice: And we’ll finish on a centrepiece of the city on the lagoon which literally means The Phoenix.

The opera house has been destroyed by fire three times, the last arson, before reopening in 2003.

Our prayers answered

So give up a prayer for all these and other great buildings.

As we mark Notre-Dame and other phoenixes from the flames this weekend.

Countries, Deals, Europe, Halloween

Scary Prague and Paris below our feet

24th October 202424th October 2024 funtime65

They’re two of Europe’s great cities and for the month that’s in it, let’s look at scary Prague and Paris below our feet.

Because our friends Cassideeeeh Trrrrravel (soz) have flagged up what’s under the flagstones in the Czech and French capitals for frighteningly good prices.

And while most will look up in wonder, and rightfully so, at the Astronomical Clock and Charles Bridge and Eiffel Tower and Montmartre in those cities.

For horror fans the fun is going underground.

Only here for the beer and the Fear

In Prague, the city of 1,000 spires the aspiring ghost lives down under the floorboards of Prague Fear House.

This being the country where more people drink beer per head of population than any other in the world your tour naturally revolves around a bar.

We’re told it is lit with dark, gothic interiors shades and gooey candy eyeballs garnishing tiki cocktail mugs.

Our grisly associates at Europehaunts tell us that there are a choice of hardcore and regular tours where you interact with actors.

Czech it out: Strahov Monastery Brewery in Czechia

All guaranteed to make you go shriek in the night and retailing from £5854pp.

As much as any nuclear bunker, the likes of which we saw on our dip down.

To that post-apocalyptic world on our Prague Communist Tour.

You’ll travel out on January 10, 2025 for two nights staying at the 4* Hotel St George. Prices from €249pps.

The fear of Dieu

Now, if Prague can be scarily good then mais oui Paris would put the fear of Dieu into you.

Particularly if you’re paying homage to Oscar Wilde or Edith Piaf at the Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris at closing time.

And the Monsieur comes a-ringing his bell to get you out.

Paris is we know haunted by hunchbacks and horrifying hommes et madames from the other world.

Skulls and crosses: In the Catacombs in Paris

And boasts the largest underground ossuary in the world, the Catacombes of Paris.

A 1500m-long route 20 metres deep, for an extraordinary visit.

You’ll fly on January 17 for two nights.

And stay at the 4* The Originals, Maison Montmartre. Prices from €229pps.

Countries, Europe, Sport

The Olympic ode goes to…

22nd July 202422nd July 2024 funtime65

A gold medal the pinnacle of an athlete’s career but then the Olympic ode goes to…

Well, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of the Modern Olympics whose XXXIII iteration gets underway on Friday in Paris, that’s who.

Who knew?… well, non moi until I was educated this week.

By my nouveau ami Guillame Le Roux, owner of golf travel firm Intro Travel.

Who helpfully fed me this nugget at lunch at the Engravers Suite.

In the company of Visit Hilton Head and Savannah/Hilton Head International Airport.

Games punctuated

There will be 329 medal events across 32 sports at the Paris Olympics, including golf, with breaking making its debut.

Times, fashions and sports, of course, change and many of the original line-up of Games events have been consigned to history.

With the full stop put on the literature competition.

Alas, as I reckon I could well have been in the running.

As a past performer at the Edinburgh Fringe with my group The Forth Stanza.

And judging by the reception to my impromptu offering at lunch…

‘There was a young man from Paris/Who slipped and fell on his aras.’

Let the Games begin

Now fellow wordsmith Pierre took gold for literature at the 1912 Summer Olympics for his poem Ode to Sport.

But good sport that he was, he used the pseudonym of Georges Hohrod and M. Eschbach.

The names of villages close to his wife’s place of birth in Alsace.

Even if we don’t have floppy-hatted dreamers waxing lyrical on daffodils and fair maidens to witness.

Channel your inner Olympian

All eyes will be on Paris these next few weeks.

But who among us can afford the inflated prices around the French capital now the Games is in town.

There are options thankfully and hundreds of tickets still available.

The best of which is Channel Tunnelling it to The City of Light from £69, Folkestone to Calais.

With Guillaume speaking for us all when he admitted he would attend in person.

Le course

Should an invite to the golf at Le Golf National to see new Open champion Xander Schauffele defend his title be forthcoming.

Now in the meantime I’ve been working on my limerick just in case they reintroduce the literature prize.

So that I can hear those magical words yet.

And the Olympic ode goes to..

Countries, Europe, Sport, UK

A centennial tribute to Olympian Eric Liddell

2nd June 20242nd June 2024 funtime65

On this slow summer Sunday let’s pick up the pace a bit with a centennial tribute to Olympian Eric Liddell.

Liddell’s legend lives on less in his home country of Scotland than on the big screen.

As the God-fearing star of the Oscar-winning Chariots of Fire.

The film which chronicled his and fellow British sprinter Harold Abrahams at the 1924 Paris Olympics.

With Liddell entering the pantheon of sporting greats by winning the 400m gold.

But only after sacrificing his place in his favoured event of the 100m.

Because it would have involved him having to run on a Sunday, the Lord’s day.

Bring Eric into the open

Happy Hundred: Liddell fans inside Edinburgh University

Now you would imagine that such heroism would have earned Liddell a permanent podium in a town square.

But, of course, this prophet in his own land was overlooked for the usual slavers and empire builders who look down on us from plinths.

And the Flying Scotsman is hidden away in Eltham College (no, us neither).

And hidden inside his alma mater of Edinburgh University.

Also as a stained glass window in a church in Holy Corner in Morningside in the Scottish capital.

Paris revisited

The great sprinter will no doubt be eulogised by commentators in the City of Light to inspire our Paris 2024 hopefuls.

Without a mention that China, who will no doubt be pilloried by our Little Britainers, pay more homage to Liddell than we do.

And there is a statue of Liddell at his Japanese internment camp in China.

With the People’s Republic even claiming the Chinese-born Liddell as their first Olympic champion.

With a memorial to the Scot who lies there for eternity having died doing missionary work in the Far East.

It might be worth reflecting that the original Olympians in Hellas performed for the greater glory of the Gods.

While today’s athletes compete for greater riches, clicks and social media followers.

The OG Olympians

Those OG (as the Gen Z millennials) Olympians in Greece would call them became immortalised in statue.

And wouldn’t it be fitting then as a centennial tribute to Olympian Eric Liddell?

To erect a town square statue to a real Edinburgh hero… and we salute the sterling work of the steering group The Eric Liddell 100.

And God knows, there is no shortage of redundant erections around the city which we could start ripping down now.

Europe, Sport

From Olympia to Paris as we let the flames begin

16th April 202416th April 2024 funtime65

Now it’s been flickering since the first Classical Olympics so for the day that’s in we’re going on an odyssey from Olympia to Paris as we let the flames begin.

All to mark 1,000 days until the start of the XXXIII Games gets underway in the City of Light.

The flame burned brightly all through the original games in old Hellas in reference to Prometheus stealing fire from the gods.

Now you might think that the Athenians would have revived the flame.

When the Games were revived in 1896 but maybe the gods had been appeased.

Burning ambitions

Olympic adventure: Olympic Airlines in Greece

It took the Dutch to bring the flame back for the Games in Amsterdam in 1928 for a more prosaic reason… to show people where the Olympics were being held.

The grandiloquent Germans of the Thirties took it up a step though not for the best of motives for the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

There was no precedent for the torch relay but then The Third Reich were reinventing everything they came across then.

was introduced by Carl Diem at the 1936 Summer Olympics in Berlin, Germany.

And seeing they were burning their way across Europe at the time they thought nothing of beating a path.

From Olympia to Berlin over 1,980 miles with 3,331 runners in twelve days and eleven nights.

Where minor protests in Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia were put down by the local security forces.

The Greatest

King of the ring: Cassius Clay/Muhammad Ali

The torch relay became a fixture for the next 72 years becoming ever more unwieldy.

Before being discontinued after all manner of disruptions and protests on its way to Beijing in 2008.

Nowadays the torch relay only takes place in Greece and the host country.

And that’s what we saw yesterday in Hellas with the Vestal Virgins stealing the show as they always do.

Now while that’s a staple in the Home of the Games each host country has it in its gift.

To choose the figure who will light the torch when it reaches its venues.

And there was to be no more emotional moment than in 1996.

When a warrior who wouldn’t have looked out of place in Ancient Greece.

Former Olympic champ Muhammad Ali lit the flame, hands shaking because of his Parkinson’s.

So there you are and we hope you’re not too whacked after our odyssey from Olympia to Paris as we let the flames begin.