Work trip to Paris, France - 12th to 13th February 2008

A good work trip to Paris, which included all the usual ingredients of nice food, trips on the Metro, and nearly getting run over by cars coming at you very fast and from all angles. An obscenely early start, in time to get the Eurostar at 5:25am, meant for a very long first day there. Having been to Paris so much, there is not really much to surprise any more, but it always good to get off the Eurostar and out into the city - I always find that it doesn't take very long at all to get into the swing of things.

Amongst the meetings I had on this trip, one was in an office very close to the Arc de Triomphe. Our taxi swung around the deadly looking roundabout that surrounds the arch, one of the few in France (or the world) where cars that are on the roundabout have to give way to those that want to get onto it. Very strange, and it results in some amusing near pile-ups as cars come to a very abrupt halt. An entertaining ride, and definitely one best made whilst wearing a seatbelt.

After the meeting, I walked out into a lovely sunny day. It was lunchtime, and I had 45 minutes to kill before needing to be back in my office, so I walked - round the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs Elysees, and past a lot of posh Government buildings to get back to work. In the sun, despite being February, it was lovely and warm, an early preview of "Paris in the Springtime". A few meetings later and it was back onto the Eurostar home - a good trip, and always a pleasure to visit Paris.