Already a hot morning on the pavements of Paree. Back at the hotel, party to charge my phone having taken so many vids, and partly to recharge meself before heading to the rugby all dayer at Stade de France.
A highlight was coming across the place where the Montgolfier bros lived.
We bought lunch from a v nice patisserie somewhere in town before strolling back. Jambon beurre baguette pour moi and a salade pour THG. There was a heavy and very visible armed military presence on the streets. The five troopers who walked past us at Place de La Republique carried lots of spare cartridges of ammo for their rifles and also had pistols slung around their waist. No messin.
The soldiers were a bizarre contrast to the almost naked violinist sporting an Aztek costume plying his busking trade on the steps of the monument. He wasn’t a particularly good violinist and I didn’t see anyone give him money. Ditto the beggars that seemed to be every fifty metres or so on the streets around the square.