Paris

24/06/09
Got up super early to catch the 7.27am Eurostar London to Paris, as noted by others the chunnel is a non event as one moment you are in the UK and the next (well after several minutes in darkness) you are in France. Checked into our hotel and promptly caught the metro to the Notre Dame church. Impressive gothic features which are refreshing after visiting all those churches in Italy. There is no queue to get into the church but a long one for ascending to the roof which was worthwhile indeed when we did. Those cute little gargoyles crawling everywhere, but you also get to go inside one of the bell towers and ascend to another higher rooftop too.
Afterwards we walked past the Musee Du Louvre and into the park towards Place de la Concorde, before crossing the river towards our objective that night, the Eiffel Tower.

Paris

First encounter of French inhospitality was at the tower, you can climb or take the lift to the 2nd level to buy another ticket that ultimately takes you to the top. We brought the lift ticket but were not told that the lifts are in another pillar even after showing the attendant our ticket. Therefore we ended up climbing to the 2nd level wondering where is that lift which is not fun at all after a long hot day!
Now I been on the 1/3 scale model in Shenzhen of the tower and even that was high, the Eiffel Tower due to its isolation from other tall structures accentuates it height even more for superb views.

Eiffel

25/06/09

Today we went to the Louvre, just beat the crowds to get that picture with Lisa. Now any gallery would kill to have such masterpieces in their collection, and if they did they would be their own room as Lisa was but not here. Here hung casually in one of the main corridors were several Raphaels lots of Rembrandt too. Many other masterpieces are scattered throughout the museum and hence we ended up spending most of the day searching for them before leaving for a belated lunch at Avenue des Champs. Then a quick hop to ascend Arc de Triomphe Etoile for yet more skyline views.
Some sudden downpours almost brought the day to an early end (note this was the first rain I’ve seen for almost 3 weeks) but it cleared in time for us to continue to Cite de L’Architecture for some ground level night views of the tower.

Louvre

26/06/09 Friday
Woke up this morning to the BIG news. Michael Jackson is dead, RIP. Sig told me after he heard about it last night from a friend in NZ. Therefore I will remember where I was when I heard the news, Paris…

Anyway we went to visit the Sacre Couer which is on the highest point in Paris and therefore gives a free view of the Paris skyline from a northerly aspect. After that a stop at Galleries Lafayette, a 7 level department store that I know a lot of girls would love. To finish the day we walked to Ecole Militaire (which also gives a straight view of the Eiffel Tower), passing on the way Opera Garnie, la Madeleine, Assemble Nationale and Musee de Armee.

Later that night as we were back early I decided to watch some TV and the first thing I tuned into had a tribute news hour to Michael Jackson! Seems the French loved him and some smaller stores and radio stations were playing his music during the day.
On that note RIP MJ…

27/06/09

Nearby our hotel is actually a large park with a canal running through it. The park also contains the Science Museum housed in a modern building with a large shiny sphere in the front and of all things a decommissioned French submarine! Couldn’t resist going into the sub to add to our list another warship we have been into. I had a later train than Sig and so after sending him off biked around Paris for the afternoon before the last train back to London.