‘thank you for organising such an interest trip’ : connect culture’s first review!

From Judy -

Zara in front of Notre Dame

Many thanks for organising such an interesting trip to Paris for us -
and for laying on such nice weather. We were a bit apprehensive about
taking a wheelchair to a foreign city we hadn’t visited before and it
was good to know that there was someone at the end of a phone whom we
could call on at any time if an emergency arose – and that it was
someone who had personal experience of traveling with a wheelchair in Paris and some useful contacts on the ground.

Thanks to your advice we knew exactly what to expect from Eurostar,
both at home and abroad, and of course we we were royally treated on
board.

The hotel was excellent, with plenty of space in our room to move
around in. It was nice that it was within easy walking distance of the
Gare du Nord where we arrived as it would have been a bit daunting to
have had to look for bus stops straight away. Unlike some so-called
accessible rooms, ours did have a bathroom with doors wide enough to
accommodate a wheelchair. Again, it was useful that all this had been
road-tested by someone else using a wheelchair.

We got to all the places we wanted to without having to spend hours
pouring over bus maps and timetables as all the work had been done for
us beforehand. We also had good advice on how to use buses and which
ones were accessible. Thanks to your advice we also managed to get to
some places we might not otherwise have considered and enjoyed some
lovely meals in spectacular surroundings.

I would highly commend Sainte Chapelle to anyone else’s itinerary. I
was quite blown away by the beauty of it when I first went to Paris
about forty years ago – in fact it’s about the only thing I can
remember from that trip, particularly because I had never heard of it
before I visited. Unlike Notre-Dame it is amazingly accessible to
wheelchair-users considering its great age and small size – in fact we
saw bits that able-bodied people didn’t.

I’m sorry we didn’t go up the Eiffel Tower, which was entirely Zara’s
choice. Although I suffer from vertigo I’m alright as long as I can’t
throw myself over and I guess you are pretty contained up the top.
There were awfully big crowds, which I suppose is what put Zara off,
and hopefully things would be easier on a weekday rather than the sunny
Saturday we chose.

I expect Zara told you that as far as we could see all the many
falafel places in Rue des Rosiers had a step up into them. The
vegetarian Indian restaurant (Krishna-Bhavan) we found gave us our best
meal if not the most glamorous surroundings – and it was almost
certainly the cheapest – but you probably won’t get any more
vegetarians to complicate things yet further.

As regards costs, we are pleasantly surprised that a short break in Paris can be done on a low budget. People traveling on Eurostar with a wheelchair are upgraded, which means you get some nice champagne and a topnotch light meal. The journey flies past in no time at all and you can go straight into sightseeing mode once you have signed in at your hotel. It’s great that you don’t have to pay high prices to get a reasonably central and fully accessible hotel. Getting around Paris was cheap and easy on buses, of which there are many accessible ones, and it is a fairly compact city anyway.

You obviously have lots of experience which will be invaluable to other
wheelchair-users in the future. Thanks again. Judy