Saturday 26 July

Dublin day 2

Dublin has many attractions in the city area. Robyn and I took a sightseeing bus tour (a hop on/ hop off arrangement) to get an overview. We sat on the bus while it took us past Trinity College, a jail, several museums and churches; and through medieval Dublin. It also took us right around the Guinness Brewery - a huge and glorious place.

At last we got off the bus at St Michan's church. This place has a crypt, and a guide to show people around. The place is dry, and stable; and so the bodies have been mummified (dried that is - there was no embalming or wrapping in cloth). There are two sections, each with 8 cells. Most of these are closed off with wrought iron gates, although on has a door (with three holes in it so we could see in). Each cell typically contains six coffins in very good condition. In one cell though, the bottom coffin of a stack of three had been crushed. In front of it, just near the entrance was a skull.

The highlight of the place is one cell with four open coffins; the skeletons laid bare for us to see. The lights were on, and the archway into the room open. Our guide told us about the four skeletons we could see. One was a Crusader, one was a nun. Another may have been a thief (no right hand). The last one was not identified, but is over 800 years old. All had some clothing, or possibly, skin remaining. There was also a spare leg bone resting casually on top of a closed coffin, and at the end of the passage was a jawbone sitting on a ledge. All a bit surreal actually. The guide invited us to touch the hand of the crusader - for good luck ! We both declined out of respect for the dead, although several others in our group did.

When we emerged, it was drizzling rain, but this didn't last long. We walked to the Museum of Decorative Arts and History. This was actually an odd mix.

The history was military and political. The Irish uprisings of 1798 and 1916 were explained. Then the guerrilla war leading up to the Treaty with Britain in 1922. This was a big display, of course, as Ireland has only been a republic since 1937. This is still in living memory.

Another part of the museum showed various military stuff, guns, planes (only 2  of these), uniforms, cannon and other weapons - that sort of stuff. I walked through it but didn't stop to look closely. I've seen this kind of stuff before, and I'm not much into the details of military history (strategy and battles -yes, but not but not the details of an AK47 assault rifle). Every country has their military displays though, and Ireland has at least reused an old army barracks.


The decorative arts were ceramics, glassware, silverware, clothing and furnishings. The place has literally tons of ceramic and glass pieces from all over the world. Almost all of these are in perfect condition. I saw only a handful of glass bottles which were scratched or chipped. All the rest seem to have been bought new, or taken from private collections. Everything is laid out on shelving, but its a bit crowded and hard to see.

Robyn looked at the clothing (the section was named "The Way We Wore"). All lovely stuff - like this..

I saw some of Eileen Gray's work as a furniture designer, and interior designer. She was very well regarded by those in the know, but not very well known by anyone else.

Here is one of her chairs

 

Well, it looked better in real life, even if they wouldn't let me sit on it.

 

 

After looking at a few more sections such as the reconstructed rooms from the 1900s, and the collection of religious silverware, we were kicked out (at 5 o'clock).

 

The tour bus took us back to a spot near our apartment on Lower Gardiner Street, and we walked home via a little grocery shop. After dropping the groceries off, we walked on down to O'shea's pub. I had a pint, and Robyn had a nice Sauvignon Blanc. Honestly, you can get wine anywhere these days, even in a pub in the heart of Guinness country.

 

Finally, we came home to cook dinner and watch the Tour de France on the telly.

 

 

Nitey night

 

 

Lex and Robyn

Friday, 25th July                          DUBLIN

Robyn writes: Another glorious day here in Dublin - beautifully sunny and a lovely 23 degrees apparently, though I suspect it was probably a bit warmer. We managed a bit of a sleep in; Lex was up at around 7.30 and I staggered out at just after 8, to find that Sandy had just called on Skype. So I got a cup of tea and called her back; had a good chat about what's going on at home. Sooo glad I'm half a world away from Explicit Instruction!

 National Museum of Archaeology and History

After breakfast, we got ourselves organised and headed out at around ten to walk to the museums district across the river. We stopped at the tourist information place on O'Connell Street to get some maps and we also bought tickets for the hop-on, hop-off bus tour for tomorrow and Sunday. They were 19 Euros each and go for all day from 9 to 9, unlike a lot of cities where they end at 6 and are only for one day. Then we walked across the bridge and found the Museum of Archaeology & History in Kildare Street. It's in a beautiful building dating back to 1890 and is a wonderful storehouse of so many of the artefacts that have been discovered over the years.

 Stunning gold jewellery

The top gold circular shapes are earlobe stretchers! The bottom ones are bracelets.

 Silver Viking cloak brooches - amazing craftsmanship

Viking warrior burial with sword and dagger

We spent several hours at the museum, with a break for lunch (excellent) at the cafe there. They have displays right back to Irish prehistory, including several bog bodies, which were quite fascinating. There were also displays of the Vikings in Ireland (there were a lot of them in Dublin especially) and some of the most fabulous golden jewellery I've ever seen. They were wonderful craftsmen. Then were displays about medieval Ireland and again some wonderful craftsmanship. We really enjoyed the museum, and at 2.30 we met up and then headed around the corner to the National Art Gallery. We spent a while there looking at the exhibits there before walking back home. Probably it wasn't a good idea to do this just days after the treasures of the Louvre - I'm sure any art gallery would suffer in comparison! Some lovely pieces of art, anyway, and we discovered some Irish artists we'd never seen before.

 Ireland's most famous bog body, Old Croghan Man - as he is today, and a reconstruction of how they think he looked in life, above.

While I headed home for a cuppa, Lex went off looking for Guinness T-shirts and came back with three - mission accomplished! He's also been for a walk down to the Royal Canal while I've been cooking tea (Irish pork chops and potatoes and SALAD. It's great being able to put greens back in the diet again!) Since then, he's been happily watching the Tour de France. There's good coverage on TV here. We've also been researching things to visit over the next two days while we have the tour bus tickets - will be nice to have some transport and not have to walk all the way. It's the first time on this holiday that we've bought the hop-on, hop-off tickets, as they are normally so expensive, but this seems quite cost effective for two days, especially as the trams are no good for where we're staying and the bus pass would cost us a minimum of 10 Euros anyway. At present, a lot of the city centre is a mess, as they are finally building the connection between the two different Luas (tram) lines in the city, and this means going right through the CBD. It's a time consuming process as they keep digging up medieval bodies (there was an abbey there) and of course every time they find bones, they have to call in the osteo-archaeologists and stop work! It will be really good when it's done though. Will see how the bus tour goes, anyway - the weather is supposed to get a bit cooler over the next few days but hopefully not much chance of rain. It should be nice to just sit up the top of the double decker bus and ride around and look at the sights for some of the time!

Thursday, 24th July                   DUBLIN

Robyn writes: Today was moving day; we said goodbye to Paris and hello to Dublin.

The alarm went off hideously early this morning at 6am (5am Ireland time, actually 4am if you take out the Daylight Saving!) We had packed last night so all we had to do was get dressed and throw in the last minute items, and we were out looking for breakfast just after 6.30. McDonald's, our first port of call, wasn't open and none of the local cafes were but luckily the bakery across the road was, so we grabbed a bottle of juice each and a pastry and headed for the bus. Unfortunately we then discovered that the OrlyBus only goes to the other airport, not Charles De Gaulle which we needed, so Plan B was the RER Railway system. Two tickets cost us 19 Euros, and we were soon on the platform waiting for the 6.58. It took us about 40 minutes to get out there, then we hopped onto the shuttle which took us to Terminal 1.

Then we started the interesting exercise of getting on the plane. We knew that Aer Lingus have a 20kg limit and that our bags would be a bit over, and had tried to buy extra kilos online, but it wouldn't let us. So we'd made sure to get there more than two hours ahead of time which the internet site told us would be enough time to purchase extra weight. We weighed our bags - mine was 24 kilos and Lex's about 23. He pulled a lot of the electrical cords, hard drive etc out of his bag and put them into his backpack and we headed for the check-in counter, figuring at least we'd only have to pay excess weight on one bag now. Amazingly, the girl on the counter didn't seem at all worried! Lex's bag came in at 19.9kg and she just put it all through for us and said nothing about extra payment. We scurried out of there very quickly in case she changed her mind!

Then we had to go through security etc, so we joined the line in the terminal. It hardly moved at all in 10 minutes. I went wandering to check things out and noticed the next gate was empty. I showed the bloke there my boarding pass and he said yes, that it was fine for us to go through there! So we abandoned the huge line (they are all probably still there) and got straight through to the top storey where we went through the scanners and finally made it to our gate. Well, we thought so - our boarding pass said Gate 13 and there was a choice of 12, 12B and 14...in the end, they announced that we were actually boarding through 12 anyway so the superstitious need not have worried! Charles De Gaulle is one of the most confusing airports we've been through - you really need lots and lots of time to find where you need to go.

Finally, we were on our plane and had a nice comfortable and quick flight over to Dublin. We were down on the ground by 11 Dublin time and caught a taxi to the pub where we were picking up the key to our unit. The taxi driver was very friendly and chatty and speedy and I think only went through one red light that I saw, but we made it in one piece for 27 Euros and had soon picked up the keys and walked the block up to our unit. It's on the first floor of a renovated set of units and has one nice big bedroom, lounge, a decent bathroom and a tiny but fairly well equipped kitchen. It's very centrally located only about two blocks from the post office, and we noticed the tram line is only a block up too. We headed out to the nearby supermarkets to get some groceries for lunch and the next few days. Dublin is having beautiful sunny summer weather at the moment - 26 yesterday and it felt close to that today as well. The locals are in ecstasy.

Lex in front of our unit (that's our bedroom window behind him)

We were both fairly shattered after the Paris rush, late nights and early mornings, so we both had naps this afternoon and I put on a load of washing. It was a nice lazy afternoon, just what we needed. It's so nice to have room again, space to cook and a washing machine! Lex has taken advantage of the reasonably good internet access here to do a few computer downloads as well.

 The Liffey

 Both of us at the famous Ha'penny Bridge

Time: about 8.30pm!

After tea (a nice chicken and noodle stirfry with LOTS of vegetables!) we went for a walk into the city at eight o'clock - still broad daylight. We enjoyed exploring the neighbourhood and walked down to the Liffey. It's now quarter to ten and it's still not dark - the eternal day goes on! At least we have good thick curtains. Am dreaming of a sleepin in the morning before we go out to explore Dublin properly.

Wednesday, 23rd July                PARIS

Robyn writes: After such a late night last night, it was a real shock when the alarm went off at seven thirty this morning! Unfortunately, we'd had to set it as we really needed to be up and going to get the day underway. We finally (after about three or four missed tries) managed to have a quick chat to Cait on Skype, then got dressed and headed out to look for breakfast. We couldn't bring ourselves to go to McDonald's, even though they are the cheapest option around, so went back to yesterday's little cafe, which has French breakfast for 6 Euros. Unfortunately for our ideas of passing on the pastries and having the bread, they were out of bread....so we had to have the most delicious, freshly cooked and still warm chocolate pastries I've ever had. Sad! Maybe we can do healthy food again once we get to Ireland.... Anyway, we had our pastries, tea/coffe and orange juice, then bought some fruit and headed for the Metro a bit after 9.

Our aim for the day was the Louvre, which is famous for its LOONNGG queues, so we'd studied all of the advice on the internet and in our book and formulated a plan. Unfortunately the "get there before it open" thing hadn't worked, but we did get to the Metro station there at twenty past nine - not bad. We then took the exit for the shopping centre attached to it, where they have ticket booths. There was a big line which we immediatley jumped into, and it moved fairly quickly. All was going swimmingly and we were within metres of the entrance when an entire Asian tour group, encouraged by their leader, tried to push in! There was a lot of loud and agitated French from the security guards and the tour group just pushed in and looked smug. I turned around and the family who'd been immediately behind us were now about twenty back! However, the security people stood their ground and most of the group were evicted, though I'm suspicious one or two of them snuck through. Without wanting to sound xenophobic, the Asian tour groups are the worst here - they barge in (often shoving you as well) and some of their leaders are sooo rude!

That bit of excitement over, we went through security then lined up for our tickets, and within 25 minutes in total, we were in the Louvre! When I looked at the huge queues snaking their way across the courtyard in the sun later, I was very pleased we knew to come in via the shopping centre. We split up to go and find our "must see" items - I headed for the Mona Lisa, figuring that it would only get busier as the day went on. It is actually much bigger than I'd expected, and I'm sure it's a very nice painting, but there are so many people jostling around, trying to take "selfies" with it, that it's hard to see it (the bullet proof glass over it doesn't help, either). Anyway, I have seen it! There were other da Vinci paintings I preferred, I have to say.

I also saw the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Venus de Milo and several of the famous paintings of Napoleon being wonderful. I wandered through the medieval layer of the building and checked out their Egyptian collection. The galleries are huge and there is so much there, I think you'd need a week to see even half of it! We met up for lunch; Lex had also seen the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo and several other galleries including the Greeks and Mesapotamians. We had a fairly indifferent lunch for 15 Euros each (hideously expensive) then headed off for another hour before coming home for a break to rest our poor weary feet. The Metro was absolutely packed for some of the trip - at one stage I was hanging onto Lex because I couldn't reach anywhere else! The great advantage of the Louvre is that it's open until late tonight, and unlike yesterday's museum, you are allowed out and back in on the same day. We arrived home to find a very nice electrician fixing our airconditioner, much to our relief - Paris has turned sunny and hot (30 degrees at 3pm!)

 Meeting the Mona Lisa

Actually I really liked this one by Leonardo better!

The Venus de Milo sans arms

 "Less is more" is certainly not a motto that the French kings ever embraced. But all of this extravagance got them into a lot of trouble later....

View from the second storey of the courtyard and the pyramid. Note also huge line of people who didn't know the best entrance to come in!

Me on the stairs inside the pyramid

 

A bit before 5, we headed back into the city to the Louvre once more - more packed trains. It's really hard to guess when they will be busy and when not - at 11 o'clock last night when we were coming home it was like sardines! We got straight back into the Louvre without even having to queue for security this time (5.30 is obviously a good time to come) and headed off for another round. I very much enjoyed the 14th to 17th century French artworks and the reconstructions of their beautiful rooms from the 1700s, right up to the Revolution. Lex didn't get to see all that much as he lost a lense from his sunglasses and headed out to find an optometrist (who very kindly put in a new screw for free) so that took quite a while. Then when he made it back inside, the gallery he was heading for had a fire alarm and they wouldn't let anyone in!

Anyway, we had another two hours and met up at 7.30 under the pyramid. We headed out into the Rue de Rivoli in search of a restaurant and found a nice little cafe nearby where they had Boef Bourginnone (that may not be spelt correctly!) We mystified the nice waiter when we asked if the potatoes it was served with could be changed for vegetables, so we had a huge pile of beans instead. The beef was lovely - absolutely melted in your mouth. This was of course served with the usual basket of bread (which he replaced when we finished the first one!) A lovely meal!

We then headed home at 9 and the Metro was really quiet. When we got back to our district we checked out the Orly Buses for tomorrow morning's trip to the airport, and Lex just had to have a beer (Cooper's Stout) at the nearby "Aussie Bar" we discovered! Lots of didgeridoos and a huge kangaroo... We've now come back to PACK and organise ourselves for travelling tomorrow. Yet another really big day!

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!

Sunday, 20th & Monday 21st   July                   PARIS!

Robyn writes: We were up around 7 this morning to make sure that we got ourselves organised in time to leave enough time for the train - our Eurostar to Paris was due to leave at 11.30 from St Pancras/Kings Cross, so we had to be there by 11. We figured that by leaving the house before 9.30, we'd be fine....we got to the station just in time to see the 9.30 train pulling away. No worries, there was another one due soon. Only then announcements kept coming over apologising profusely for the delays, and in the end it was nearly 10 o'clock before it came. I was getting quite anxious by this stage! However, the rail system came to the party very nicely and whisked us in to London Bridge very quickly, then we changed lines and made it to St Pancras by 10.30. Phew!

Once at the station, I then spent about quarter of an hour queuing for the ladies' toilet - they seriously need more! We checked in by zapping our barcodes on our printed tickets. St Pancras is big and busy. We had to do the whole security check thing, just like at the airport - have our bags scanned and have our passports checked. When they finally called our train to board at just after 11, it was a long walk up to carriage 16, where our seats were. It is a HUGE train! Luckily we were at the head of the pack, as we had no trouble getting a place for our bags on the port rack at the end of the carriage and overhead inside. Then we settled down to wait for departure.

 Excited travelers on the Eurostar

 

I loved the serviettes!



Right on 11.30, we were off and whisking through the southern English countryside. Less than half an hour later, just as I was idly wondering where we were, we plunged into a tunnel - and it took us a while to realise that this was THE tunnel and we were under the English Channel. I tried not to think too hard about that though! In what seemed a very short time, we were out in the light again - and in France! We then had an hour or so of racing through lovely green French countryside and so many little villages, often so close together it seemed ridiculous! We both had Chicken Tikka for lunch and before we knew it, the driver was announcing that we would shortly arrive at the Gare du Nord in Paris, our destination.

 The train on the left is the one we came in on

 Lex at Gare du Nord

 Views from our hotel window

It took a while to get off the train, but we finally made our way out to look for Metro (the underground) tickets. There was a massive line, so Lex went off to make enquiries of one of the helpful, orange-clad "Information" girls and boys, and came back with the news that we could get the day passes we wanted from the machine around the corner, so we zoomed around there, and quickly bought our 5 day Zone 1, 2 & 3 passes for 34.80 Euros each (around $50 each). Then we navigated our way on the purple line to our hotel, the Hotel du Lion which is conveniently located right next to the Denfert-Rocherou Metro stop. Not too many sets of steps to negotiate with our heavy bags, thankfully.

Here we nearly had heart failure - when we went to check in, the girl told us that our booking had been cancelled in February, just after we'd made it. Apparently they tried to take the amount for the stay from our card and it was declined - and Expedia, who we'd booked through, were supposed to tell us this. Needless to say they hadn't. Am never using them again and I'll have to double check any Irish hotels I've booked through them, I guess. Luckily for us, the hotel had just had a cancellation so we do have a room, although the aircon isn't working :( However as it's on the fourth floor, we can have the windows open and so far it isn't too hot, anyway. We do have a fan as well. At least it's a roof over our heads, which in the height of the summer holidays might have been VERY difficult to find....It's a small room, though I'm sure Paris has smaller! At least it is very comfortable and has a great little bathroom. And with the metro at our doorstep, it's so very convenient for going places. Unfortunately the French obviously don't do kettles in rooms, so we can't make ourselves a cuppa.

Once we'd unpacked, we headed out to explore a bit. We put our rail passes to immediate use by heading to the Eiffel Tower. This can actually be seen from some windows from the Hotel du Lion, but sadly not ours. The line directly there is closed for maintenance at present so we had to go a roundabout way, but managed to get ourselves there without much trouble. The tower is so impressive, photos don't do it justice. It's an amazing piece of engineering and quite beautiful too. Unfortunately hundreds of others were also there admiring it and queuing up, so we decided against waiting to get in to go up it at that stage, and instead we walked around the district - to the Seine River and across to the other side. Paris is unlike other capital cities in that there don't seem to be the usual cluster of high-rise buildings - it's full of huge, grand, beautiful sandstone buildings and many, many bridges across the river. Once we'd crossed the river, there were heaps of African men (refugees, one surmises) selling Eiffel Towers - all sizes, all prices! Lex wouldn't let me get one. This is a city of itinerant sellers and beggars - wherever you go, you are being accosted by someone! We were very lucky with the weather - as you can see in the photos, it was heavily overcast but never actually rained and in fact started to clear as the evening went on.

 Many views of the Eiffel Tower!

It seems to change colour in the sunlight

 Crossing the Seine

 

Foodies' moment - my magnificent dessert crepe!

We had a lovely few hours walking around and seeing the sights, then realised it was after seven o'clock Paris time. France is an hour ahead of England so we'd lost an hour during the day. We headed back via the Metro again then began looking for somewhere to eat. Parisienne cafes tend to be expensive - 15 to 18 Euros is the standard in our area (that's about $22 to $27AUS) for a main meal, but we found a creperie just up the road which was inexpensive and delicious! I had a chicken crepe with salad and Lex had one with goat, walnuts, tomato, mint and Roquefort cheese. He reported that it was delicious. We had chardonnay and merlot to drink - both excellent, as one would expect in France! Then I had a lovely dessert crepe with apple, caramel sauce and almonds. Yum! It was a lovely meal for 40 Euros all up, so we were quite pleased with it. Finally, after 9.30 as it was just beginning to get dark, we waddled back to our hotel. It was a big day!
 

Monday, 25th July                                        PARIS

Robyn writes:  We had really good intentions of getting out and about early this morning - all of which counted for nothing when we both slept in until about ten o'clock! Because of not having an airconditioner, we couldn't close our doors, so had one of them open all night - with the result that it sounded like all of the traffic in Paris was in our room all night. Including lots of sirens. We both kept being woken up and finally, around 5ish, I got up and closed both doors, decided it was cool enough and fell into a deep sleep. Finally! So that was why we both slept so late....

We got ourselves organized and went out looking for breakfast (petit dejeuner), and paid 7.50 Euros each for a French breakfast - a croissant, some Panini bread, orange juice and tea or coffee. Then we finally headed off for Notre Dame, our first destination of the day. Of course by the time we got there, it was after 11 and the queue was HUGE. We took some photos and walked around it a bit and then noticed that there was a Bach concert being held in the cathedral that night. We went up to the information desk and asked the girls there about tickets, and one of them said, "Oh, you have to get them from the desk inside - I'll show you where." And, just like that, she took us past the line and right into the church! Well, we were very impressed! We went to the desk, bought two tickets for the concert, then decided that as we were inside, we might as well look around...best queue jumping ever! The church as it is today dates back to the 1200s and is very, very impressive. It's also very, very dark and plain compared to the English cathedrals we've seen. We enjoyed our look around, then went out to explore a bit more of the islands that Notre Dame is located on in the middle of the Seine. It has to be said we walked rather smugly past the queue to get in, which was now stretching right around the square in front and then down the street behind...

 Notre Dame

 The stained glass was amazing, especially the famous "Rose" windows (above)

We were greatly amused by the famous "lock" bridge on the island - a tradition has grown up where couples write their names on a lock, lock it onto the bridge and throw the keys away. This means that you will stay together. The bridge is absolutely covered in them, so much so that parts of the railing are breaking away and the bridge is under serious structural threat! There are several entrepreneurial young men on the bridge selling locks, but we declined ( we figured after 32 years of marriage we are fairly well permanent anyway!). We enjoyed our walk around - it was cloudy but nice and warm and a lovely day to be walking. We found a late lunch in a little café across from the Seine then walked through the Jardins des Tuillieres and up to the Place de la Concorde. Lots of beautiful scenery and iconic landmarks along the way.

 Lex bought a CD off this Paris busker

 On the bridge with all of the locks - truly amazing!

 Lex on the Pont Neuf (oldest bridge in Paris)

 by the Seine looking towards the back of the Louvre

Egyptian obelisk in the Place de la Concorde

We headed home around 3.30 to have a bit of a break and get ourselves organized to go out again for the concert, which started at 8.30 but the doors opened at 8. After some checking out of restaurants on Trip Advisor, we decided on Au Bougnat, a little bar and restaurant around the corner from Notre Dame. We got dressed up then headed out again (5 day Metro pass coming very much in handy) and found it quite easily. As it was so early, we got a table easily. We had a wonderful meal - Lex was most impressed when they brought out complementary tapenades of olives and breadsticks. For our main meals, Lex had baked cod and I had a lovely roast fillet of veal with a vegetable flan. Then we shared the best crème brulee I've ever had! These were of course accompanied by some wonderful wines (this being Paris).

 At Au Bougnat

Notre Dame in the evening light

 

We headed over to the cathedral at 8, to find a massive line waiting for the concert. Luckily it moved very quickly and we only took about 10 minutes to get in and find a seat. The cathedral was great for the concert - excellent acoustics. There were a group of four singers and an organ player. Very impressive in such beautiful surroundings. The concert went until around quarter to ten, and we walked out to find it was still light! Rather disappointing, as I'd imagined seeing it all lit up... Oh well, we'd had a lovely night out. Another very big, very tiring day!