Up at 06:30 today, quite a cool day in Paris. This morning we met up with our local guide Fabienne (sp?). She must have thought we were a very gormless bunch, last night was a late night and we were all still pretty sleepy when we got on the bus. She told us all sorts of interesting things as we drove around the city, but I’m afraid we didn’t take as much on board as we should have…
 

We went up the Eiffel tower, to the 2nd level. It was cold and windy up there, but oh the views! We had crepes and hot chocolate to warm us up.

After the tower we headed off to the Louvre where another guide, Nicole, took us to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory and the sphinx as well as many other beautiful paintings and a couple of Michaelangelo sculptures. I am surprised at how much I enjoyed the Louvre, becoming quite the art buff!!

We then left the group. Now you’ll have to excuse me, but I just have to tell you about the loo stop we made. We saw a queue of ladies coming out of a shop that sells loo paper (one roll had a sudoku game on each square!), room sprays etc and on closer inspection, we discovered that they were queuing for the toilets. We each paid our 1 Euro and joined the queue at what is without a doubt the most impressive public toilet I have ever been into in my life! As each lady exited a toilet, a cleaner went in and cleaned the loo and sprayed it. There were perfumed sticks in little glass bowls, the most luxurious loo paper and all in all the experience was unbelievably pleasant… Our trip to the loo made quite and impression on me!

We then tried to exchange the Paris Visite card vouchers, which I had cleverly, or so I though, bought online. We tried for a full hour ……unsuccessfully. We became so desperate that the girls and I resorted to singing “Gerry I want you, Gerry I need you, Gerry I love you” a la our Rome tour guide, Carlos. It’s amazing how much you come to depend on your tour guide on tour and how helpless you feel when he is not around! We eventually cut our losses and decided we needed a drink (urgently!) and some lunch.

We found a pub and had drinks and lunch and felt much better after that. I think Dad had pretty much had us in chunks by this point, so he decided to head back to the hotel with the group. We had things to do, places to go, so opted to stay in the city. We bought new Paris Visite cards and hopped on the metro.

First stop was Galleries LaFayette – Rox’s dream come true. What a gorgeous department store and they were having a sale! Rox found a couple of bargains.

We then got back on the metro and got off at Blanche station in Montmartre.

Right outside the metro station is the well-known windmill of the Moulin Rouge and right there is the stop for a little train that takes you around Montmartre. We paid our money and climbed on the train. The commentary is all in French and we had no cooking clue what it was all about, but it was lovely just to sit back and soak in the unique atmosphere of Montmartre. We got off at the stop near the Sacre Coeur and headed into the artist’s square in the Place de Teatre. We saw some lovely paintings and watched the artists at work. We even got the girls’ portrait done. We then had some of the most delicious hot chocolate I have ever tasted, topped with a great pile of whipped cream – heaven in a cup!

I loved Montmartre, I plan to oneday spend a lot more time there. We headed back to Sacre Coeur where there were singers doing what looked like an impromptu concert on the stairs – good voices and a lovely atmosphere. It was beautiful up there with the whole of Paris laid out before us!
  We then took the furnicular down the hill and headed right at the bottom, to the Place de Abbesses where we easily found the “I love you Wall” It is a huge wall with “I Love you” written on it in every conceivable language. This wall was the one thing that I most wanted to see in Paris and I had not been at all sure that we would be able to find it. I was thrilled to bits! We found "I love you" written in Zulu and in Afrikaans. Loved it! Loved the streets of Montmartre.

Then it was back on the Metro and off to our hotel. We saw a funny little dog travelling on the Metro, these city dogs are something else. We got back to our metro stop and then we weren’t sure which exit to take – we had to sing “Gerry I want you, Gerry I need you” again, but only the once and then we found our way, all by ourselves, so proud LOL! The 4 of us so enjoyed our afternoon, lovely happy family memories!