Tuesday, July 22nd                       PARIS

Robyn writes: After a good night's sleep (finally - the best since we left Scotland!) we set the alarm to wake up at quarter to 8, which we did quite happily. As the weather is (thankfully) reasonably cool, we'd shut the doors, put the fan on high and rotating, and were perfectly comfortable with the roar of the traffic but a distant background noise which we didn't even notice. The morning was qute cool, cloudy and breezy, so we took jackets when we headed out a bit after 8.30 in search of breakfast.
We started at the bakery across the street, Le Pain au Naturel, for a pastry which we ate strolling along. When we'd finished that, we popped into a cafe for a cup of tea and coffee. I then had a banana from one of the fruit stalls along the way. And that was breakfast!

 The Musee d'Orsay is a stunning building inside - it's a converted railway station

Front of Musee d'Orsay

Then we headed for the Metro and our first port of call for the day, Le Musee d'Orsay, the museum of French art basically from the Impressionists onwards. We got off at the Metro stop there and walked to it, getting there just after its opening time of 9.30. There was a bit of a line so we got into the queue but then luckily they split it in half and we had bought our tickets and were inside in less than 15 minutes. It definitely pays to arrive early; when we left at 2, the line was huge. This is the summer holiday season and no matter where you go, there's a queue! It cost us 11 Euros each to go in, so wasn't cheap but their collection is incredible.

We both started with the Impressionists, so spent over an hour enjoying the Renoirs, Monets, Pissaros, Sisleys et al. The collection is huge and had many paintings by these artists I'd never seen before, and of course many other artists we'd never heard of. I particularly loved the Renoirs; he's always been one of my favourite painters, and I now have a new appreciation of Pissaro's work. Lex really liked Signac and Pissaro's paintings. We then split up to go and look around some of the many other galleries of Art Nouveau, photography, and into the Post-Impressionists. I queued up to get into the Van Gogh room, which was packed with people wanting to see the famous self-portrait and one of his "starry night" paintings. Apparently "Whistler's Mother" is there too, but neither of us saw it. Not much of a loss, I can't say it's a favourite painting of mine.... We queued for about twenty minutes for lunch, then had a chicken baguette and cuppa in the cafe there (once you go into the museum, you're not allowed to return if you go out. So if you want to eat, you are held captive paying their prices for their food!)

 The Arc de Triomphe

 The Grand Palais

 Statue of General de Gaulle

 Ring scam not going according to plan for our French friend

Crossing the Pont Alexandre

We went back out into the museum until about two o'clock, and saw as much as we could in that time. Then we left there and walked back along the Seine and caught the Metro to the Arc de Triomphe. We came out across the road from it so of course there were hundreds of people admiring it - we joined them. Lex took a photo of a nice young bloke from Melbourne and he obligingly took ours. A French bloke tried an interesting scam on us - he walked up to us, saying "Excuse me, you've dropped your ring" and when we said it wasn't ours, tried to give it to us anyway. We sensed trouble and Lex ended up dropping it in the dirt as we walked away! Don't know what was supposed to happen, but we got out of there quickly and headed across to the Arc. As we walked along the (rather hot and stifling) underground passage to get to it (it's in the middle of a huge roundabout) we passed the lineup of people waiting to pay a lot of money for the privilege of climbing up its stairs to the top. Lex measured the line at about 70 metres. We decided there and then NOT to climb up! Instead, we admired it and took more photos.

Then we headed back to walk along the Champs Elysees, supposedly a beautiful and romantic street...now just filled with expensive shops. Not very exciting, actually! The barricades are all set up along there ready for the Tour de France which will be ending here soon. Then we crossed over and walked past the Grande and Petite Palaces - beautiful buildings put up for one of the World Expos in the late 1800s. We crossed the river again and finally found a Metro station to bring us home (several are closed for track work at present).

We rested our aching feet for a while (well, Lex went for a walk around the neighbourhood first to check it out a bit more) before heading out to look for diner. On the way we popped into the Post Office to get some stamps. The man serving us had very little English, and we were quite proud of how well we managed to communicate with him! The local restaurants are all what we consider a bit expensive, and we ended up walking for about 5 blocks before we settled on a little French cafe. When our waiter came, I began: "S'il vous plait, parlez-vous Anglaise?" and he said, "Your French is very good!" So we could order in English (a bit of a relief...) But generally we've managed quite well with our high school French! This gives me quite a feeling of achievement after mastering about two phrases in the whole time we were in Japan...anyway, we both had steaks, and they were of course a triumph of cooking. Unfortunately they were both accompanied by a huge serving of the most perfect chips - and nothing else. (I know a large portion of male readers will be thinking: aha - the perfect meal, but we would have gladly traded half for some salad or veges!) Lex tried a "Picon" beer, which the waiter seemed rather dubious about, and he could soon see why - it is beer with an orange flavouring in it - obviously a girly-type of drink. He reported it was a bit sweet! We enjoyed our meal for just over 30 Euros, then headed back to the hotel.

 Lex with a Picon beer - NOT a  recommended tipple!

 Paris lights up

Interactive screens to tell us where everything is

Along the way, we noticed that it was finally clearing and there was blue sky overhead. It was half past nine, so there was still an hour's light, and we decided to go and check out the view from the Tour Montparnasse just near us. We slipped up to grab our Metro tickets and for me to change into walking shoes, then headed off. It's only 3 Metro stops away, so we figured we'd be there with plenty of daylight left....wrong! Unfortunately the Montparnasse station is a HUGE interchange, with kilometres of underground passages. We walked and walked and walked, and finally found the exit - then couldn't figure out how you actually get out to the world. Every exit seemed to only go to other parts of the rail system. We decided on one way, and headed off back into the maze for about 10 minutes, came to an exit....and realised it was exactly where we'd already been! Then we had a brainwave and followed the bloke in front of us, up the escalator apparently leading to the main train station, but also to the outside world. We staggered out to find it was nearly dark :(
Anyway, at least there was no queue at all for once, so we paid and took the lift up to the 56th floor, then walked the three stories to the viewing platform on the top of the building. Sadly, the everpresent haze was back (or maybe it was a fog coming in) so visibility wasn't great, but we did have a wonderful view of the Eiffel Tower across from us as it was lighting up for the evening. We stayed until it was quite dark and it was great to watch the lights come on across Paris. They have interactive screens which tell you where everything is, so it was great to find all of the landmarks and put them into context. Finally at about 11, we headed back down in the lift with two nice young blokes from Brisbane, then stood chatting to them for about ten minutes swapping Paris stories and travel hints! Then it was back onto the Metro for the (much easier) trip home - another very late night. It's been another very big day!