Introducing the - Peugeot

“WE’LL ALWAYS
HAVE PARIS”
say the Boks and our winners
by Nandi Canning*
Bergman’s unforgettable line to Bogart plenty of time to explore. My group chose to visit
‘we’ll always have Paris’ has become the Montmartre, a beautiful part of the city, the location
shared property of the Springboks and of the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur and the suburb artists
the competition winners of PMSA’s Rugby World like Picasso and Van Gogh called home.
Cup promotion.
PEugEOT & Rugby
‘It is something that few
of us would have been in
a position to do without
Peugeot’s generous gift.’
anthony burns
The script of Casablanca takes some beating, but the
Boks’ triumph and the Paris trip of a lifetime by our
winners must have come close.
Peugeot, a lead sponsor at the Rugby World Cup and
the tournament’s preferred motoring brand, laid on
the match tickets and the Paris hospitality for PMSA’s
South African contingent.
‘Calling all passengers boarding Air France AF995 to
Paris’ was the announcement that set the dream in
motion for our competition winners – Lungelwa
Nabe, Adam Franks, Donovan Botha, Anthony Burns
and Willie Bezuidenhout – and their partners.
They were accompanied by SA Marketing Director
Mike Wilson and myself on the 11-hour flight to
Charles de Gaulle Airport, and then through the
infamous Paris traffic to the hotel.
After freshening up, everyone climbed aboard the
City Tour bus to see the sights – the Louvre, the
Seine, the Musee d’Orsay and Notre Dame – and
take lunch in a street-side café.
A leisurely walk through the streets of Paris brought
us back to our hotel and limbered up our team for
an evening at the Lido, lashings of French cuisine and
a brilliant show.
Friday the 14th September saw the group catch the
Metro to the Eiffel Tower, where we climbed over
600 stairs to the second level and then caught a lift
to the top.
After the morning’s exercise, it was lunch on the
Seine followed by an afternoon at leisure, giving you
By the time we headed out to the Stade de France for
the SA-England group encounter, Paris was already
dotted with green and gold and white jerseys in
anticipation of the match.
The Boks’ 36-0 win was awesome. You just had to be
there. And we were!
On Saturday we were up early for a tour of the
Bridges of Paris, a chance to catch up on Paris history
and juicy gossip about France down the centuries.
It was an enlightening morning thanks to accounts of
a statue of Henry IV of France stuffed with a bust of
Napoleon to tales of how city dwellers were taxed
according to the number of bodies of family members
they dumped in the Seine.
The group then proceeded to lunch at Notre
Dame, where the adventurous ate frog’s legs and
steak tartare.
In the evening, the group went on the Bateaux
Mouches for a scenic boat trip down the Seine.
Dinner was served and everyone had a magnificent
final evening catching the sights of Paris at night from
their table and the viewing deck.
All too soon on the Sunday morning we were whisked
back to Charles de Gaulle Airport for our return flight
home. Finally, we had a chance to get some sleep and
absorb the dream trip and that dream of a win!
*Nandi Canning is the Promotions and Events Specialist at PMSA.