14th, 15th and 16th of January 2012

Paris day 6 - By Jess

Our last day in Paris, and therefore Europe, had arrived! We checked out of our hotel but, since our plane wasn't leaving until 11pm that night, we still had a whole day to fill. So we decided to go and climb the Eiffel tower. We made our way to the famous landmark, during the day this time, and got in the line to climb it. The wait was quite long, around 40 minutes, but that was nothing compared to the people waiting for the lift. We eventually got to the front of the line and began the long, long journey to the first and second levels of the tower, as far as you can walk. It was a long climb, and I was very out of breath by the first level. When we got there, though, we were delighted to find that there was an ice skating rink on the tower. We did a loop, took some photos, and then headed for the second level. This meant another long climb, which we did.

The second level rewarded us with some great views. We had a toilet break and were surprised to find they had hot water up there. We took more photos and then decided to pay the extra 4euro each to ride the lift all the way to the top of the tower, as we couldn't get any higher on foot. We got in and went all the way up. And it's a very long way up. It was, of course, freezing up the top, but we took some photos, declined the 15euro per glass champagne, and marvelled at the amazing view of Paris. It was worth the arduous walk up to stand at the top and look down at the capitol building, fountains and surrounding parks and buildings. Just beautiful.

We then headed back down to the first level of the tower for some lunch. If we had seen the cafe, we would have gone there (a word to anyone who goes there after us) but we didn't so we decided to have lunch in Restauraunt 53. We each ordered a burger and shared cheescake for dessert. It wasn't the best food, but the view was brilliant, as we were seated by a window overlooking the park area behind the tower. We took our time with lunch, as we were both stuffed from the climb, and followed lunch with cups of tea. We then left the restaurant and inquired about the ice skating.

It turned out that the ice skating was free! You just had to leave your shoes as a deposit, so off came our boots and on went the skates. We then spent the next half an hour trying, with limited success, to ice skate on the Eiffel tower. It was lots of fun but neither of us were particularly great, and I was paraniod that after our injury free holiday one of us would break an arm or something on our last day. We were getting cold so we decided it was time to say goodbye to the tower, so we got our shoes back and climbed back down.

It was getting quite late at this point so we figured it was time to head back to our hotel, pick up our bags and go to the airport. We picked up some delicious cakes on the way back to our hotel and ate them in the bar. And then it was time to leave. We grabbed our luggage and tried to naviage the metro one last time to get the train to Charles DeGaulle airport. All those stairs with all our luggage presented a bit of a challenge, but we'd learnt from previous mistakes, and left plenty of time to get to the airport. We finally made it onto our train and disembarked for the last time. Once in the airport it was surprisingly quiet, though it was quite late, and after checking in and dropping off our bags (which, thankfully, were under the weight limit) we had some late dinner and waited for our flight.

We left Europe at 11.05pm and began our time travelling journey home on Air France.

The flight wasn't great as we were in the middle two seats of the middle row, meaning any time one of us needed the loo we had to inconvenience a stranger either side of us. The chairs were also tiny, even I was squished, but at least we were given ear plugs and eye masks. I managed to get a bit of sleep, but not a lot. On the plus side, as it was Air France, the food wasn't bad and the congac was free.

We landed in Singapore after about 13 hours, for a 3 hour wait. We weren't feeling brilliant, but we had a drink, tried to freshen up and then hopped aboard our Qantas flight home. The seats were bigger this time and we were on the aisle of the middle row, and I had a gap next to me and the next person, so it was much more comfortable. The food was ok, and once again I was able to sleep a little.

We arrived back home at 6.50am (though we didn't get out of the airport until nearly 8.30am) and so ended our awesome European adventure!

13/1/12

Day 5 in Paris - By Jess

We both woke up feeling slightly less chipper than usual, but after some coffee we made our plans for another day in Paris. We decided to do some shopping today after visiting Notre Dame and then visit the Montparnasse tower for some photos and dinner, so after dallying a bit we headed towards Notre Dame, Antique book markets and BHV in the old DeVille building.

We arrived at Notre Dame and first visited the interior of the church. There were some beautiful stained glass windows and statues, though as it's a 'real' church there were parts where we couldn't go right up to in the alter. Then we decided to climb the towers and see where Quasimodo lived. Notre Dame was one of the few places in Paris that our passes wouldn't allow us to skip the line, so we waited for around 45 minutes in the line to climb the towers. The climb was very long up a seemingly endless marble helical staircase, but it wasn't as bad as we were expecting, and when we finally reached the top between the two towers the view was breathtaking. The gargoyles and other gothic details of the building are truly exquisite, and we spent quite a bit of time taking photos and enjoying the brilliant view. We made our way across the roof section to the second tower where we had another long and even narrower climb to one of the bells. the view from the very top of the second tower was even more spectacular and it was lovely seeing the interior oak structure of the bell tower and how it supported the massive bells. Once again we took our time before our long, but much easier, descent. A really fansastic start to our fifth day.

We then headed to HMV where we spent some time looking at clothes and so on, and also tried to start finding presents for people. We eventually tracked down some nice silk hankies which were on special (as everything is horridly expensive) and Andrew found some shirts. After shopping for a couple of hours, we decided to head for the famous Shakespeare bookshop and explore the antique book markets on the edge of the Sienne on the way. We must have looked at hundreds of antique books, as well as comics ad nick nacks and I found two more books that were reasonably priced, both from the 1700's. We were once again nearly thwarted by the impossible Parisian streets and we spent quite some time looking for the bookshop. We enventually found it, but only after first giving up and heading back, at which point we stumbled across it and were able to spend some time browsing English books for a change.

It was now time to head to Montparnasse and get our night photos of Paris. When we arrived at the tower we were disappointed to discover that the restaurant at the top where we had intended to have dinner was undergoing renovations and was closed, so we just caught the very fast lift to the top and spent about half an hour taking some amazing photos of the city at night. It was freezing cold, and so once our photos were done we decided to head back to our hotel to pack up and get some food.

By the time we made our way back to the hotel it was getting a bit late, so we quickly packed our bags and then headed to a restaurant in Montmatre which had good reviews. It was completely full, so we wandered around for a bit and then found the 'oldest hotel in Montmatre' where we had our last dinner in Paris. It was lovely. I had a first course of escargot (snails), which were quite nice, followed by duck and finally creme brulee for dessert. Andrew inadvertantly ordered three courses of cheese. For entree he had a baked camenbert cheese on pear slices drizzled with honey, followed by chicken in cheese sauce and a cheese platter for dessert. All the food was lovely, as was the wine, but we were cheesed out by the end of it. The creme brulee was probably the best dessert I had had all trip. We headed back to our hotel at about 1am, very full and looking forward to our last day.

12/1/12

Day 4 in Paris

Today is another museum day, beginning with the Musee D'Orsay. Before heading to the museum though, we decided to actually go to the Moulin Rouge that night so we quickly headed just up the street and booked a table for that evening. The girl said that jeans weren't allowed, so we figured we could get some pants for Andrew at some point during the day. From there we headed off to the museum and on the way I finally found an Antique bookshop that actually had some reasonably priced books, so I picked up a book published in 1778 by Voltaire and then we continued on our way.

The Musee D'Orsay is a museum mainly focussed on Impressionist painters, so we spent hours wandering through this fantastic museum looking at the brilliant Monet's, Manet's, Cessane's and so on. The Museum also has some beautiful sculptures and, of course, Toluse Lautrec's work and Rodin's work as well. We had a lovely lunch in the upstairs restaurant - the building is a converted train station and the restaurant was located with one of the humungous clocks as part of the central wall. I had quiche lorraine and Andrew had the cesar salad, with tea as an accompianment. We were feeling a little under the weather as we'd stayed up very late the night before, so we didn't have wine with lunch that day.

After lunch we went and had a look at the next two floors of the museum where even more exceptional art is on display, incuding a giant sculpture of a polar bear which was awesome. There was a special exhibition on dedicated to the works and life of Oscar Wilde, which showcased the paintings and works that apparently inspired much of his writing. We ended up spending over four hours at the museum and we finally decided it might be a good idea to go shopping for pants.

What a shambles that was! We headed to Galleries Lafayette to discover hundreds of shirts, jeans and suits that needed to be tailored, but no plain, single black pants for sale! We then began a somewhat frantic search for a shop that sold basic clothes, heading back to UniClo, only to find that even they didn't have what we needed. We eventually found a C&A where Andrew finally found a well priced pair of well fitting black slacks, and we raced back to our hotel room to get changed. We had planned to get dinner before the show, which we had to arrive at by 8pm, but we were rushed for time, so we only had a chance to slip into some 'fancier' clothes and then go straight to the Moulin Rouge.

We arrived and were shown to our table. We were seated at a table of six (where there were currently no other guests) but we were thankfully placed at the end overlooking the ballustrade so we had an uniterrupted view of the stage. Part of the deal with show is that each person gets 1/2 a bottle of champagne. Our waiter intially gave us a small bottle of champagne and orange juice on the side, but obviously realised his mistake and so we also were given a large bottle between us as well. Because it was quite an expensive outing we felt obliged to drink as much of it as humanly possible. We hadn't eaten anything since about 1.30pm, and it was now nearly 9pm. We proceeded to get quite sauced.

Around 10 minutes before the show started a man with his girlfriend (?) were also shown to our table, at which point, upon seeing two people at the table already, he proceeded to have a huge hissy fit about having to sit with other people. He was getting really angry, and he eventually slipped the waiter a 50 to get him and his partner on their own little table essentially in the middle of the stairs. This meant that we ended up having the whole table to ourselves for the night.

The show was brilliant! Of course, we were quite drunk by this stage, but it really was a spectacular series of performances that included acrobats, jugglers, comedians and ponies. One of the highlights was when a giant aquarium came out from under the stage and was lifted above it, inside which were three huge boa constrictors and a woman who 'danced' with them underwater. Well worth the money and so much fun.

The show finished at around 11.30pm, at which point we were both very drunk but very happy, and in great need of food, so we popped right next door to Quick Burger and had what I consider to be the best cheeseburger every (although that could be drink Jess talking) and we eventually headed back to our hotel room around 1am. A brilliant day in Paris!

11/1/12

Day 3 in Paris - By Jess

Today was set aside for the Louvre and other museums, and so began a massive day of museums. We began with Dali museum in Montmatre, once again getting very confused in trying to find it, but once we did it was a brilliant little museum showcasing many of Dali's works, especially his awesome sculptures. So much of Dali's art was thoroughly weird but both of us really enjoyed his work.

From there we then headed to the Cinemathique museum, a lovely collection which explored film history and had some awesome exhibits of early projectors, cameras and film techniques. There was also a fascinating special exhibition on the early film Metropolis, which was amazing, and they showed the first non-documentary film 'Journey to the Moon' - hilarious - and some Charlie Chaplain, also very funny. We bought a souvenir magnet and then headed back into the main city for the Louvre.

We utilised the hop-on hop-off bus, which took much longer than expected, though it did give us a chance to see the Arc Du Triumph, Champs Elise, Capitol building, War memorial and Eiffel Tower again, and we hopped off at the Louvre.

We arrived at around 4.30pm and went to the restaurant for a beautiful lunch of quiche, duck and cheesecake. From the restaurant we then began our 5 hour tour of the Louvre. Wow, just, wow. You could spend a week in this museum easliy. We saw Anicent Egyptian relics, the Mona Lisa, paintings by all of the masters, ancient Greek and Roman sculptures, amazing jewelry, furniture and decorative works, as well as Napoleon's apartments and the ancient fortress foundations of the Louvre itself. An astonishing place and we would go back any time.

By the time we left it was nearly 10pm so we made our way back to our hotel after a very busy day for some much needed rest. An amazing day in Paris.

10/1/12

Paris day 1 - By Jess

We had a pretty early flight out of Rome to Paris, so we woke up and headed to Leonardo DaVinci airport where we had some breakfast and then got on a plane, landing in Paris at about 12pm. We caught the bus to the Opera in Montmatre and then proceeded, with marginal success, to actually navigate the Paris underground. A lovely Parisian man tried to help us, but with heavy luggage and all those bloody steps, it took us quite a while to actually find our hotel. Once we eventually did, we settled into our room and then went to ask our concierge how to get to all the places we wanted to go. He was brilliant and showed us on a map everywhere we needed to go. Our hotel was less than a 2 minute walk from the Moulin Rouge, right in the centre of the Red Light district (which we ddn't know when we booked it) so we wandered up to see the famous club and then we headed in the direction of the Eiffel tower.

We eventually made it to the tower just as it was getting dark, so we took some photos and then wandered back into the shopping area of the city, near the famous Galleries Lafayette. We found a restaraunt and were delighted to have some very tasty French food. As with the rest of Europe, it's cheaper here to buy beer or wine than soft drink. We finished our lovely meal and then tried to get back to our hotel. Unlike every other city we'd seen so far, Paris was really, really, really hard to navigate. This is partly because it's a confusing layout, and partly because there are so many little streets that aren't actually on any of the maps, making navigating really hard. We finally found our hotel, after many wrong turns, and got ready for Versailles tomorrow.

9/1/12

Paris day 1 - By Jess

We had a pretty early flight out of Rome to Paris, so we woke up and headed to Leonardo DaVinci airport where we had some breakfast and then got on a plane, landing in Paris at about 12pm. We caught the bus to the Opera in Montmatre and then proceeded, with marginal success, to actually navigate the Paris underground. A lovely Parisian man tried to help us, but with heavy luggage and all those bloody steps, it took us quite a while to actually find our hotel. Once we eventually did, we settled into our room and then went to ask our concierge how to get to all the places we wanted to go. He was brilliant and showed us on a map everywhere we needed to go. Our hotel was less than a 2 minute walk from the Moulin Rouge, right in the centre of the Red Light district (which we ddn't know when we booked it) so we wandered up to see the famous club and then we headed in the direction of the Eiffel tower.

We eventually made it to the tower just as it was getting dark, so we took some photos and then wandered back into the shopping area of the city, near the famous Galleries Lafayette. We found a restaraunt and were delighted to have some very tasty French food. As with the rest of Europe, it's cheaper here to buy beer or wine than soft drink. We finished our lovely meal and then tried to get back to our hotel. Unlike every other city we'd seen so far, Paris was really, really, really hard to navigate. This is partly because it's a confusing layout, and partly because there are so many little streets that aren't actually on any of the maps, making navigating really hard. We finally found our hotel, after many wrong turns, and got ready for Versailles tomorrow.

8/1/12

Day after Vatican - By Jess

Today was all about getting to see some of the last bits of Rome before we headed off to Paris. We went off to the Pantheon to see one of the oldest Ancient Roman temples in the world, and one of the best preserved. The distinguishing feature of the Pantheon is that it was constructed from concrete, which the Romans later forgot how to make. It's a very big structure and it's mind boggling how they were able to construct it so many thousands of years ago. When we arrived there was actually a church service on, so we took a few photos and went for a wander. I wanted to get a ride in one of the horse and carriages that were congregated around the front of the temple. However, when I asked how much it was, the driver said "200 Euro", so bugger that! We went for a wander around some back streets and then wandered back to the Pantheon so we could have a look inside. It's a very pretty church inside, but it only took a few minutes to do a circuit.

Following the Pantheon we decided that some serious shopping was in order. Before that we needed lunch, so we headed back to the spanish steps nad had lunch at a first floor restaraunt overlooking the famous landmark. I had gnocchi and Andrew had traditional Roma pasta and both were pretty nice. It was lovely being able to look out over the fountain and the steps and just relax for a bit. After lunch we headed back to one of the main shopping streets and began looking for shirts and dresses. We didn't have much luck when it came to the shirts but I finally found a clothing shop with some gorgeous tops on sale. I bought a new dress and two tops, and we continued our shopping expedition. By the end of our shopping we'd bought some new socks and undies, then we headed back to our hotel to do much needed washing. On the way we wandered into a little museum which ended up being the front part of the recently excavated Trajan's markets. We spent a couple of hours wandering around the ancient market site and getting some beautiful photos of Rome at sunset. Eventually we made our way back to the hotel and we grabbed our bags of dirty clothes and headed to the laundromat, stopping to get a takeaway pizza on the way. We spend about 1 and a 1/2 hours doing washing, eating pizza and watching Inbetweeners. It was prettly late by this time so we headed back to our hotel to get ready for our very early start tomorrow.