The croissant wars
After the, essentially, work trip to Athens, we looked forward to a few days of proper vacation, before heading to the Netherlands, to spend time with my mum, and to attend her 80th birthday party.
Paris nicely was a perfect fit, in-between Greece and Holland, as well-priced flights from Athens were available, and very well priced, and fast, trains run between Paris and Rotterdam.
The weather wasn’t quite ideal, autumn clearly having arrived, assisted by occasional showers, but we still managed to walk, and see, quite a bit.
Sights included:
+ The first Space Invaders mosaic.
+ Mounting evidence of the annoying trend of shops selling iris photography.
+ A Chanel show at the Grand Palais, with hordes of influencers trying to catch a glimpse of the second-rate celebrities.
+ The Flame of Liberty memorial, a life-size copy of the flame of the Statue of Liberty, which has become a memorial for Lady Di.
+ Pluche baguettes and croissants at insane prices. We had been looking for a partner for our pluche avocado, Alvo, which I eventually found in Lisbon, finally giving Alvo a partner, Guaca. Later, at home, they turned out to be the perfect couple.
+ A rainy climb up the Eiffel Tower, enlivened by an Augmented Reality app in which Gustave Eiffel himself tells you about some amazing bits and pieces of his tower, and in which Brazil’s favourite aeronaut, Santos-Dumont, plays a bit part.
We enacted the croissant wars, in which we pitted croissants from different bakeries against each other in a test of quality. We only had five days, so we had to pack in many croissants in a short amount of time.
The winner was the croissant from The French Bastards.