Miniatures, Traveling Together and Paris at Night

Earlier this week, we had the pleasure of meeting up in the centre of Paris with a tour group from America.

This particular "Traveling Together" tour was dedicated to miniatures. With an intense itinerary which, in the space of three days had already taken in Birmingham Miniatura, London, and a trip through the "chunnel", we were delighted to be able to spend an evening with some seriously addicted miniaturists before they continued their tour down through Burgundy and on to Lyon.

We arrived more or less on time in the lobby of the Novotel Hotel situated at Les Halles in the centre of Paris and were greeted by the smiling face of tour organiser Barbara Spohn. After a very welcome drink in the Hotel bar, we were invited to set up in Anita Mills' room. You can find out more about Anita here.

As you can see, the presentation was basic, but with a group of collectors chomping at the bit, installation time was very short! With a knock on the door came, in came the tour party with wide eyes and large, friendly smiles, grateful to have all the time and space they needed to move around and choose. If only all miniature shows could be like this!

It's not very often that we find ourselves in 4 star hotels, so we took full advantage of it to enjoy the views of Paris that the room offered us. Above is one of the entrances to Le Forum des Halles, and below is Sacré Coeur, both visible from the same window of Anita's room. Nice!

Once the group had made their purchases, we took up their kind invitation to dine with them in the hotel restaurant. We enjoyed a lovely three course meal, were looked after by some incredibly helpful staff, while accompanied by some live piano playing. Towards the end of the meal, the intense tour schedule combined with jet-lag was understandably starting to take its toll on some of the party, who returned to their rooms for some much-needed sleep. They had been on their feet since 6 am, and had earned it!

So it was about half the group who decided to go on the short walk towards the Seine and the Pont Neuf bridge. They were delighted when we said we'd join them.

Paris in the daytime is gorgeous, but at night it takes on a whole new look...

You'd probably never notice these apartments during the day, but at night, you can't miss them!

The Samaritaine department store with its art deco architecture looks out over La Seine.

The Pont Neuf metro station entrance.

The rue Pont Neuf with its cobbled surface. That's some of the tour group leaning on the wall.

And the Pont Neuf bridge which spans the Seine river. Off in the distance is...look at the next picture...can you see it?

Look, it's there behind the Bateaux Mouches tour boats too!

Yes, visible from here, at over two mile's distance, is the Eiffel tower!

And to cap it all, at the moment we arrived, it started its hourly flash! We filmed it...

We thoroughly enjoyed our few hours with the group and it was all over far too quickly. At the time of writing they're still in France, enjoying the sights of Old Lyon. Hopefully we'll have the opportunity to meet up with them another time and find out if one particularly sprightly 83 year-old has added to her collection of 250 dollhouses! Go Dolly!