James' in the UK

I already knew I loved Paris so this weekend was just reacquainting myself with an old flame. Some how Paris is very chic and sophisticated but at the same time can be quite gross. It has a fasinating history, and throughout time has been influenced by the artist/student population which means it is quite innovative and charming. No matter what you do in this ciy it involves lots of stairs and lots of chocolate (or maybe that was just me!).

Getting to Paris almost didn't happen, the airport we were flying into was closed due to a thunderstorm so our flight was delayed for a couple hours until the storm had passed. We thought it was going to be cancelled altogether but we were ultimately happy that we didn't fly into the storm. We got to the hotel quite late and then had to carry the suitcase up 4 or 5 flights of stairs.

We got up Saturday morning and were starving hungry so we walked around a bit to find some breakfast and ended up going to a supermarket and getting crossants and fruit which we ate in the park looking up at the Eiffel tower. As we were in the area we climbed the 3 million stairs up the tower and viewed Paris and the tourists through the haze.

Under the Eiffel Tower

Then we headed on over to the Arc de Triomphe and 3 million more stairs. We spend the rest of the day (in fact the rest of the weekend) just walking around. That's what we do when we travel.....we walk. We walked down the Champs-Élysées, detoured around the Grand and Petit Palaces, risked our lives crossing the road in Place de la Concorde and watched little sailing boats in Jardin des Tuileries.

Based on memories from backbacking days years ago, we headed up to Montematre to sit on the steps of Sacre Coeur to look over the city. Unfortunately this area had got a lot more touristy since I'd been there (whole tour buses passing through) so it was nothing like I'd hoped it would be. We found some tea then waited on the steps for the sun to go down. Waited, and waited, and waited and waited. Hell that sun just stayed in the sky. It started raining so we eventually went home wet and not-all-that dark.

Sacre Coeur

Sunday was predominantly rain. We tried to do a couple things (Luxembourg Gardens, Pantheon) but it just got a bit wet so found some inside activities, going to the Lourve and the inside of Notre Dame Cathedral. I hadn't been inside the Cathedral before and was quite impressed. We did have a laugh at the plasma screens used to project the sermon, even the cathedral has to move with the times.

Inside Notre Dame Cathedral

The Louvre is huge and we had fun finding some of the more out of the way corners of the museum. We liked the basement with the old foundations and some of the Iranian mosaics - so different to anything we had seen and very cool.

Eventually the rain eased and we went on a cruise along the river, then a bit of a walk around the city looking at some of the lit up monuments.

Eiffel Tower

We were catching a afternoon flight home on Monday but this left us enough time to head back up to Montmatre to find a painting and a tour up to the top of Notre Dame Cathedral. Unfortunatley the rain hadn't gone away completely but was clear enough that we didn't get soaked.

Gargoyle on Notre Dame Cathedral

We caught the train back to the airport (on the way checking out the biggest vending machine we'd ever seen) then flew home.

Snack of choice in Paris: BN Biscuits