Paris...

Okay so obviously I am running a day late and a euro or two short...

Paris was wonderful...everything expected and some... just being there I think was the best part about it... its not an everyday thing when you live downunder... there is none of this "oh lets just go to Paris" for the weekend... or any other European city for that matter... no its more like a grand event... so I for one was determined to enjoy every minute of it...

Now like most I have seen photos of all these amazing places and thought 20mmm wouldn't mind seeing that sometime before I pop my clogs... Paris was one of these cities on my "before popping my clogs list"... did it live up to the expectations... I would have to say yes... though I did get more than I bargained for... no where do you see photos of the stairs in the Metro stations... no mention at all of the fact that Paris has a gazillion stairs... I do feel like we found every single one of them and walked up and down them at least once if not twice or more!

Did we walk up the 1600 odd stairs of the Eiffel Tower? I think NOT with two children in mid 20's temps the day after arriving in Europe after a 30 something hour flight!!!! Nope we booked tickets to take a lift at 1.30 Saturday afternoon... little realising that was still going to mean a huge line of people all waiting to do that exact same thing!!!! but you should have seen the seriously long queue waiting to actuallly climb it!!!! seriously by the time you got to the first step you would be totally buggered from all the standing around just trying to get to that first step...

do you think the tired looking people in this photo would have made it to the top of the Eiffel Tower if they had of had to climb it???

Now the other thing no one ever tells you about is the queues... it seems queues for this and that are perfectly normal here... which I guess with the much larger population base is kinda to be expected... but one thing we found was that sometimes queues can be avoided... NOT jumped mind just avoided all together!!!!

And with no hurt feelings for anyone else... just takes 5 minutes of reading a guide book to find out that there is in fact more than one entrance to the Louvre... one that doesn't take you under the amazing Pyramide to start with but does mean that you aren't standing in the sun for hours on end... and its only a few minutes walk around the corner... pay at a machine or in person (we did the former no worries whatsoever) grab a map and start wandering...

It does also mean that later when you exit the museum from under the Pyramide you can take the obigatory shot... got to make sure it doesn't go anywhere after all!

Next up... snails, travelling on the metro... travelling on the TGV... visiting a Roman amphitheatre... staying in the oldest part of a VERY old town... and driving extremely narrow streets that often end up being two way!!!! in a VOLVO!!!!!!!!!!!