Day 19 to 21: Paris (France)

il etait beaucoup trop facile de se glisser dans le style de viw Paris.... as I said....It has been way too easy to slip into the Paris lifestyle.  The days have just flown by, and we could easily go a week or two more here.

First stop from Disneyland was actually the Arc De Triomphe (i.e. Charles de Gaulle - Etoile train station).  So we took a stroll down the Avenue des Champs Elysees to the apartment we had booked.





Stroll down the Champs Elysees on the way to our accommodation

Thought we'd splurge a bit on the accommodation in Paris, and the apartment didn't disappoint.  A spacious 2 bedroom apartment, decked out with wooden floor boards and modern features including complementary coffee (using the Nespreso machine - yay a touch of home), fresh baguettes (very French!), wine, beer, bottled water, and a range of yummy extras - our hosts Emma and Jeremy met us there to give us the keys, and totally went overboard in making sure everything was perfect.  Even walked us to the shops (albeit 100m away), and had all the maps of Paris out, and as the Internet was down had gone out and paid for a pre-purchased a mobile plan (and phone) for us to use instead.  We're really glad this wasn't our first AirBnB experience, as all the others would have had no hope living up to this standard!

 

Paris was nice, but damn we made it look good.... just ask Em (in Inks Sunnies)

 Dinner on our first night in Paris was at le Relais de l'Estrecote (a restaurant recommended by Emma).  She mentioned that it does tend to be popular, and sometimes there might be a half hour wait.  We were keen to give it a try so headed over there a little early.  Much to our surprise, there was a line of people 50m long, waiting to get a table!  The line grew (doubled) as the restaurant opened its doors and began to seat patrons (apparently its like this every night!). After a mere hour, we were seated and ready to enjoy a fine Parisian dinner.  Dinner was lovely, service was great - glad we were lucky enough to experience this Paris icon.

 

a mere hour wait ... but it was worth it

We rolled out of there and on the way home from dinner we managed to take a few snaps up and down the Champs Elysees, before enjoying the comfort of our abode.

Casual snap of the Arc de Triomphe as we crossed the Champs Elysees




...and turned the other way to view Concord, and La Louvre in the distance

The next day we decided to head over to the La Louvre - our mode of transport was chosen by the kids.



It was totally sick - even had a stereo...



Kids thought it was awesome as we bounced our way down the streets

 

Not quite sure what was more amazing - seeing the sites as we peddled by (complete with commentary from our driver), or laughing so hard (out of fear) as we navigated the crazy traffic! 

 

Our next stop: La Louvre for a quick look, before heading back here tomorrow.



We are a little hard to spot in this one....

 

but not so much in this one... and this appeared to be the thing to do....

Em had a crack too with her own personal touch.  As Batman said in the Lego movie "Got it first try".... with the photo.

 

Ink and the kids are in this one :) .... we weren't actually in the first one....

 

Em getting creative

 

....and Thomas wasn't going to be out done

 After getting cleaned up we headed off to the Eiffel Tower
 

On the first floor Emily and Thomas were brave enough to stand on the glass floor

 

Courageous kids standing on the glass floor...



....well one is anyway

 

Thomas checked out the people walking underneath.









We all grabbed a few happy snaps and soaked up the scenery

The iPod got a real workout taking snaps

 Dinner was amazing at 58 Tour Eiffel.  The Champagne, bottle of wine, and a 3 course dinner was way too good.  Put a special thanks on Facebook to Lisa and Erni for suggesting it. Totally recommend it too - especially if you are lucky enough to get a window seat.


Grabbed a window seat at the 58 tour Eiffel restaurant, which is on the first floor of the Eiffel Tower.

Walked up the 328 stairs to the top floor and took a few more shots - like this one with the Arc de Triomphe in it! .... Yes it's actually in it.

The Tower lights turned on at 10pm so we all started to take a few shots - the kids got really into it.  So we've included a few artistic ones below.

At 11pm the beams of light rotated from the top, and we just missed getting a photo of the 11:30pm shimmering of white lights... have to come back to Paris again!  The kids did amazingly well as they made it to bed just shy of 1am.... as we said, love the life-style.


Late (very late) the next morning we added our own padlock to the bridge

....right about here (note this is the remaining fence leading into the bridge that had them)

Checked out Notre Dame which was a bit of a struggle after a 4km walk to get there - the kids were a tad tired.  This was after walking past La Louvre to see the Mona Lisa.... which we will need to do another day - turns out they were closed ..... not impressed.   Why close a museum? Seriously?

The kids in front of Notre Dame - this was the shot before going through it - Damn it was hot in there.

Notre Dame was free, but the heat cost me a fair few ice creams and a metro ride up to the Arc de Triomphe.  That gave us the energy to climb the many stairs to the top and the kids got snap happy again.

Buzz definitely knows what the Eiffel Tower looks like now...

Em too

Our apartment is almost visible in the next shot.  This photo is from the top of  the Arc de Triomphe, and the Avenue de Champs-Elysees on the right (manicured trees) leading down to La Concord & La Louvre.  Our apartment was approx one more block down than the red awnings on the left and a street running parallel (that you cant make out in the photo).

We loved Paris - will definately be back!

Dear 5/6 White & Miss Ferguson,



I went up the Eiffel Tower! The Eiffel Tower is amazing! I had a lovely three course dinner! For first course I had salmon with some lovely sauce. For main course I had a yummy chicken dish and for dessert I had chocolate cake shaped as the Eiffel Tower. The meal was yummy, amazing and delicious!

Just a quick one today as I've got to go.

From your awesome classmate Emily.