France

Well I am back! (some will say I did not know that you went away!)

Paris was great.

When I went there To be honest I was a little bit worried, as I do not really speak any French....Well I had nothing to worry about as the French can speak English better than me!

To be honest I did try to speak a little french & I think that I made some of the locals smile at my attempts.

So anyway what did I (or we as I went with Nicole) get up too?

By the way I have included web links so if you wnat to find out more about where we visited you can.

Day 1

Was the day that we traveled by Eurostar form our great railway Station St Pancras international. We left soon after 9am and was in the centre of Paris by 1pm.

Our next adventure was to travel by the Metro. I call it an adventure as the people I work with had told me that the Paris Metro was a complicated underground network and it was hard to get to different places.

What I found surprising was that when we was standing on the platform waiting for the Metro there was hardly anybody around, then just after the train arrived and we had boarded it there was a mad rush and people appeared from nowhere, and then the train was absolutely packed!
The second train on the underground network that we caught was a total surprise even though it was underground it was a double decker train! I had heard that the overground services were double deckers, but I did not know that these trains were run as a part of the Metro services.

Anyway we managed to find our way really easy, and it was not as bad as expected.

Once we had left the underground we had to find out Hotel. Anyway the Hotel that we stayed at was the: Hotel Eiffel Rive Gauche (http://www.hotel-eiffel.com/hotel_rg_home.htm).

Anyway the Hotel was a nice little place hidden off one of the back streets and it was very quiet.
We did not have a room with a view, but it had everything we needed. what we found funny was when we put on the TV the channel that came on was showing BBC & ITV programmes all dubbed into French, so there was Billy Piper in Doctor Who speaking in French.

After Checking in, Nicole & I decided to take a walk and find somewhere to eat as our hotel did not provide evening meals. As we was staying really close to the Eiffel Tower there was plenty of places to eat...So off we trot.

Once we had found a place to eat our next bit of fun occurred! Nicole looked on the menu and spotted a meal that look like it was a Pitza and as I chose to have the same we ordered it. When the food arrived though it turned out to be a salad.

Day 2

Nicole & I decide to climb the Eiffel Tower (http://www.tour-eiffel.fr/teiffel/uk/) to level two (That's as far as the public can walk), then we crammed into the elevator and traveled to the top.
Anyway it turns out that I did not like the elevator because it looked like there was nothing holding us to the tower and all I could see out of the window that we was standing next to was the ground far below.

Once we was at the top of the Eiffel Tower though it was great, and all the fear of the distance from the ground to where we was standing was gone. we was extremely lucky on day 1 as the sun decided to shine. So we had great views. (pictures to follow soon!)

After returning to ground level it was time for some food! So we picked up some chips and a coffee from the tourist shops underneath the Eiffel Tower...Only to discover that we got attacked by a flock of pigeons and crows who also had decided that they quite liked our chips!

In the Afternoon as it was still Sunny but cold, because I had fully got my bearings on Paris we decided that we would walk to Arc De Triumph (http://www.aviewoncities.com/paris/arcdetriomphe.htm), then once we were there we walked the length of the Avenue Des Champs - Elysees (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Champs-%C3%89lys%C3%A9es) down to Jardin des Tuileries ( http://www.v1.paris.fr/EN/Visiting/gardens/jardin_tuileries.asp) where we continued to the Louvre, which turned out to be closed!
So we went to Notre Dame, and had a look around that.

Day 3

On day 3 the weather had changed and we got up to see that it was pouring down with rain, so as we knew that the Louvre was open we chose to go there. Anyway the place is so big and you would need more that a day to look around it. Not only does the Louve contain art, but also treasures of old civilisations. It is well worth a visit if you go there mind, and if you go into the basement you can see the original Louvre that was demolished to make way for the present day buildings. (http://www.louvre.fr/llv/commun/home.jsp?bmLocale=en).

Day 4

Well day 4 was in a way a sad day because we had to "come back the smog". But we will definitely return to Paris and hopefully soon!