WOW! what a fantastic city. Paris has the most incredible scenery and history just everywhere you look. we were in the 'city of romance' which was very fitting for lucy and i seeing as we had spent the past 2 months together so now we could have some lovely dates together...hehe.
only took us 5 hours on the train to get there so we weren't too exhausted when we arrived at our hostel. mind u were had the room which was on the top most floor and the furthest away so by the time we got into that we were buggered. we got our baguettes, our favourite cheese each, some salami and coke and we were set for the night. how very french!
went out that night to 'cafe oz', an australian bar incredibly enough, unfortunately it was incredibly expensive but had a good night out.
had a very big sightseeing day on our first day. lucy and i went on the free walking tour which went for about 3 1/2 hours and was fantastic! we started off in the latin quarter and place saint-michel, notre dame and worked our way along the seine, across pont neuf (King Henry IV built this bridge and decided he wanted sculptures of all his friends faces so he had a massive party, invited all of them over, got them drunk and then had a painter sketch their faces which in turn where sculpted onto the bridge. the faces are hilarious!), through to the louvre. saw the cafe where camille des moulins stood up and made his speech on 13th july 1987 which, in turn, got the peasants reared up for the next day...bastille day! walked through the tuilleries gardens and all the way to place de la concorde (is now a massive junction but was the place where the guilltine stood during the revolution) we saw Paris' most expensive hotel and could see all along the champs elysses to the arc de triomphe. also got a great view of the eiffel tower. finished off at the grand and petit palais over looking an incredible bridge which led to hotel des invalides.
after all of that lucy and i made our way back home, starting to feel a little weary and got a nutella crepe. OH MY!!
after dinner the 3 of us went back to the louvre in order to see all those amazing paintings. of course we saw the mona lisa but us girls were more fascinated with the renaissance paintings, marriage at cana, the oath of horatii, the crowning of napoleon etc etc. was a fantastic evening.
the next day we walked to the spot where the bastille once stood and then made our way to Paris' major cemetery which was absolutely massive! we saw oscar wilde, delacroix and jim morrison's graves but people such as chopin, rossini and jimi hendrix are also buried there. got a little creepy after a while so we left and went to the notre dame, this time heading inside (have to mention that for about half an hour got very cranky and miss jessica for leading me to a very scary person dressed as an egyptian sarcophagus!) notre dame was incredibly busy so couldn't get too much atmosphere but was beautiful nevertheless.
the next day was just lucy and myself so a lot of walking once again. we went to the opera house which was magnificent (this was the one where the phantom of the opera comes from)we then ate lunch in a park where one of the world's oldest universities still stands and then to the pantheon where voltaire and rosseau are buried.
that night we went on another free tour but this time it was around montmatre. we started off at the moulin rouge which looked strange and almost fake and then passed the house where van gogh once lived, the cafe where picasso ate as well as his studio. france's oldest vineyard and of course sacre cour. was really beautiful at night as it was all lit up. quite an incredible building, especially when u learn the history behind it as it was basically built by slaves. the stone that it is created from gets whiter the more it rains which i thought was pretty cool. we had a lovely view of paris by night as well. on our way back down the hill we walked along a street which has been there since the 13th century and where the word 'bistro' comes from. (the russians used to yell out 'BISTRO!' when they wanted their food brought out quickly, hence the word's history)
our last day in paris was incredibly well spent. lucy and i walked all along rue de rivoli and then went our separate ways while she went shopping for books and i sat in the tuilleries gardens making friends with ducks and eating my cheese baguette. when we met up again we walked ALL the way to the arc de triomphe. (this is set on a MASSIVE roundabout which no insurance company in europe will insure any car for!!) the shops there were incredible, it was designer name after designer name. i begged for some cartier but no luck there.
after that we moved along to the eiffel tower and walked to the 2nd floor. had a fantastic view of paris from all angles. the best was when we came down, it was dusk and there was a beautiful sunset which meant the sky was pink and the eiffel tower was lit up and sparkled on the hour.
thank goodness paris has a lot of landmarks otherwise lucy and i would have not had a clue where to go. we eventually found our way back to one of the streets we needed and when we got home we worked out that we had walked 14km that day! we really spend our time well in paris and im so thankful that we stayed for the full 4 days. it was a beautiful city, absolutely picturesque and everything and more than i imagined it to be.
