Friday, 21 April 2006

An area that neither Virginia nor I had visited is La Defense. Just on the western outskirts of Paris this is a skyscraper business city and the largest new office development in Europe. The main attraction is La Grande Arche, an enormous hollow cube large enough to contain Notre Dame. We are told that it has superb views over the city of Paris but we found the whole area uninteresting compared with the rest of Paris. Bruce thought it was a bit like the biblical story of the tower of Babel. It was too big and almost seemed to have been designed for no other purpose than to be bigger than anything else. It was with a sense of relief that we returned to the older part of the city.

In complete contrast, we walked down one side of Rue Montaigne and back up the other. Now this is serious shopping country. Among the shops found on this stretch are Prada, Georgio Armani, Harry Winston, Louis Vuitton, Dolce & Gabbana, Dior, Nina Ricci, Chanel, Bulgari, Escada and Gucci; and that is only a small part of the list. This is "beautiful people" land! Here a starter before your lunch can easily set you back $50 or $60 dollars. While many of these shops can be found in other parts of the city, this is where the real money shoppers come. Rue Montaigne is a quiet, tree-lined street and most of the fashion houses have commissionaires and the street is lined with only the very best chauffer driven cars.

We have seen the future and it is Toyota! Oh, what a feeling! The Toyota showroom on the Champs d'Elysees has several prototypes of what you may be driving in two or three years in Europe (read ten or twelve for Australia). The one that appealed most to us looked like a big armchair on wheels. It is an electric powered single person vehicle. Very sleek, very neat. See the photo! By the way, if you think fuel is dear where you are, try Europe. It is at least double what we pay in Australia and this is why cars will get smaller and smaller and operate on alternative fuel systems. It is also why in Paris at least, there is an excellent public transport system. We have been using buses and rarely wait more than five minutes and despite what you may have heard taxis are not expensive and have special lanes which speed up their service.