Day 11 - Paris

How do you fit Paris into one day? The museums, the palaces, the castles, the culture, the shops (!), the churches, the towers, the monuments, the scenery, the food? Je ne sais pas!

 

We started out at 8.30am with an early morning bus ride to the church of Notre Dame, home of the notable hunchback, Quasimodo. Spectacular as always, the church gave ample opportunity for many photographs – it truly is remarkable.

 

A short period of free time to buy souvenirs nearby was followed by a walk back to the bus and then on to the Eiffel Tower for a photo stop – there was no time to climb the edifice and we had to be content to capture it on film (or do you say disc now?)

 

More time on the bus had us circling bits of Paris thus far unseen with our guide Patricia pointing out monuments, buildings and points of interest along the way. Carly tried to capture some of them as we passed by on the bus, no mean feat with the way all drivers manoeuvre in Paris! We then had about 45 min of free time which we spent shopping for cookies and lunch and then eating same in the Tuilleries Garden. Our stop on the bench was brief as it was pretty cold and keeping moving was the order of the day.

 

Next it was off to the Palace of Versailles, an absolutely wondrous building with magnificent gardens to match. We spent 2 hours there checking out the way the kings of France chose to live before they came to a nasty demise during the French Revolution. Carly has admitted she has learned more about history, geography and politics in the last 10 days than she did in 13 years of school (all those school fees down the drain…oh well…c’est la vie).

 

A bit more sightseeing in the bus and it was back to the hotel to prepare for a night out for a traditional French dinner – yep, snails, frogs’ legs, the lot. Carly chose to start with French Onion soup (bit of a cop out) but recovered beautifully by choosing the roast duck and profitteroles. I started with the frogs’ legs (yum) followed by Beef Burgundy and apple tart. We also had a big cheese platter and were totally stuffed by the end. The food was fantastic and there were also some musicians who had us all singing, clapping and dancing along as well.

 

(My frogs' legs)

After dinner we had another stop at the Eiffel Tower to view it lit up – very pretty – and at 9pm it sparkled even more with a fairy light display for about 5 minutes. We could not fit another thing in so it was back to the hotel to prepare for our early departure tomorrow.

 

Farewell gay Paris!