Paris

Paris has been on our list of places to visit (as it probably is for most people) so we thought we would get it in there before summer and the mad crowd of tourists. We decided to go for the weekend (as you do) so that we could save our precious annual leave for longer trips further away. Both of us have been to Paris before but not together. We flew out from Heathrow on Friday evening so we could get a good nights sleep in before our sightseeing. The flight was very short, one of those ones where you get to cruising altitude and then beginning your descent. On the advice of a colleague of Peters who does the same trip regularly (he's French) we caught the Air France bus into Paris from the airport as the metro at the airport is not somewhere you want to be at night, apparently. After a short metro ride in the centre of Paris we found our hotel and settled in for some sleep.

Saturday

Day one of our weekend trip was a bit of a mammoth day, we got up early and made our way to the Louvre to get there for when it opened. We had to wait a little bit for the security checks but once we were inside we found an automatic ticket machine and purchased our tickets, thus avoiding the queues. This was my first visit to the Louvre and I was aware that there are heaps of really cool things in the Louvre as well as the more well known things. However as I'm not art buff I didn't really know what they were! We spent a fair bit of time here wondering around the vast floors of the three "wings". My favorite piece was Psyche and Cupid (A Canova), just made me all warm and fuzzy! We did see the Mona Lisa and my first impression was that it was quite small (it was on a very big wall, which may not have helped!)

Psyche and Cupid (A Canova)

Next stop was a walk to Ile de la Cite which is pretty close. This is one of the oldest parts of Paris and is an Island in the Seine. It had been recommended that we visit the Sainte Chapelle, and I am so glad we did. Once we had queued up and got in you walk us a spiral staircase and when I got to the top I stopped dead in my tracks as I was faced with so much stained glass it was incredible. The stained glass is on three of the fours walls with an impressive rose window on the fourth. Apparently the glass covers 620 square meters, I forget the number of pieces of stained glass but it must be thousands.

A very small part of the stained glass

Another place that I hadn't been to on my last visit to Paris was the Notre Dame. After a little rest for our aching feet we joined the queue to get in and see the inside. As we were standing there admiring the very high ceilings we heard a voice behind us calling for the English Tour. We thought, why not? and so we joined this tour and I'm so glad we did as our tour guide was excellent and I learnt so much about the place. Being an engineer and liking geometry, my favorite part was discovering that the building is not quite as symmetrical as it first appears. In the photo below, count the kings (the full statues in line with my head).

Me at the Notre Dame

After this we had a bit of a long walk about Paris and finally decided to head back to the hotel for a rest (we are out of training to be tourists!) We had planned to go out for some dinner and then head to the Eiffel Tower and see it at night, however we woke up at 8pm so we skipped dinner and headed straight to the Eiffel Tower, where we were faced with another queue. Again it was well worth the wait and we were whisked up to the top in the lift for some awesome views. Every half hour the tower glittered and when you were up the tower it was quite weird.

Sunday

Day two was our day of rest, we did the Paris city bus tour and a boat cruise along the Seine. In hindsight we should have done the bus tour on Saturday as the tickets were valid for two days but oh well. It was a lovely sunny day and we ended up back at the Eiffel Tower (see below). Our final walk for the weekend was up the Champs-elysees to the Arc de Triomphe where we caught our bus back to the airport. There are heaps more photos on our photos page

Next on the list is Sydney, again! but far more importantly, NZ and Deborah and Kynan's wedding (I must try not to cry, or make sure I'm wearing waterproof mascara!)