Our exploration of Paris went very well. We walked from the hotel along the Seine to the Notre Dame. About a 45 minute walk but well worth it. We decided it was time to eat and had a delicious lunch in a cafe across the lane from Notre Dame. It's a magnificent building from the outside, but WOW! when you get inside its just amazing. Gerard managed to jump the queue so we didn't have to wait in line too long.
After that our legs were a bit tired so we jumped on board a double decker tour bus and did the tour of the city. It's just incredible and certainly a place you could live in. All the monuments are amazing. When the bus turned into the Champs Elysees and we caugh our first glimpse of the Arc de Triumph we both caught our breath and went WOW! We saw the Eiffel tower and all the other notable icons of Paris including the Ritz Hotel, L'Opera district, the CBD and the Place De La Concorde.
The traffic is incredible, cars just go in all directions, there are no obvious road rules and no lanes marked, so it seems to us its just rafferties rules. Some gasping moments watching six lanes of traffic converge on one spot.
Back to our hotel for a short nap and then out to dinner at a local French restaurant. The food was fantastic, we worked out what was beef and chicken and went with that as we had no idea really of what we were ordering. Gerards steak was in a nice blue cheese sauce whilst Jordan and my chicken came out in vegetable soup. Interesting, but very yum! French fries are great too! A good night's sleep, when you walk around every day, you sleep very well.
Sunday we spent at the Louvre, now that really is amazing. We spent five hours walking around and only saw a small amount of it. The Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo a must see of course. We had a great time taking silly photos of us imitating the stands of the statues. Mind you we got some weird looks and then some other tourist caught on and started doing it to.
After the Louvre we went to the Eiffel tower and went up it. It was an amazing view, Paris just goes on forever. By then it was late, just on dark about 8pm, so we headed back for dinner and a good night's sleep.
Yesterday we caught the metro, we became very good at it with Jordan's help and went back to Notre Dame, then out to the L'Opera district for retail therapy. The shops were great and I bought an outfit to wear to Nick's wedding. Yes, Suzie, I got the outfit.
A quick trip back to get our bags and then catch the 6.10pm flight to Rome. We just made it!
