UK and France: Leg 2 - Paris

After our time with Angela in the UK, we boarded the Eurostar, to travel to Paris for 3 nights, on the way to Euro Disney. The Eurostar was a great way to travel very easy. On arrival in Paris the rain met us again. Still a novelty so no problems.

We walked to the Eiffel Tower the first morning and had a lovely picnic in the sun on the grass. Kids and Dad ran around like nuts on the grass - bit of a theme for the trip really - being on grass was almost as much a novelty as being in the rain! The queue was 2 hours for the lift, so we ambitiously walked up to the second level. Many, many flights of stairs later, and a fair bit of carrying of one of the unnamed child, we arrived. The view was great until within minutes the rain and wind started and it was awful. We climbed down as quickly as possible. We saw 2 men getting arrested for selling umbrellas at the bottom, they got thrown roughly to the ground, hand cuffed and dragged away. Saw our first 'authorities' wandering around with sub-machine guns too - quite nerve wracking really.

The kids liked taking photos so they took a shot each. Not a bad result. The jandals were lethal in the rain on the tiles.

Jack's effort.

Jaime's turn now.

Jaime seemed to find ladybirds wherever we went. Jack was too nervous to touch them though. She is smiling because she isn't being made to walk again!

We did a bus tour of Paris and had 4 routes to choose from. We managed to see 2 of the routes fully. We saw all the usual attractions. Even managed to go into Galaries Layafette. It is a huge department store with 1 side of the street for men and the other for women. Too expensive to actually buy anything. The stores were packed with people.

We saw the Louvre.

And Notre Dame (no Hunchback).

We walked along the Champs de Elysees and then up the Arc de Triomphe. Jaime managed to walk the whole way up without stopping, something I struggled with after my thighs were still burning after the Eiffel Tower stair climbing effort. Obviously Andrew isn't writing this, his thighs didn't shake for 1 hour after either.

The kids do love each other.

The kids again trying their hand at photography. Parents looking grim.

We tried our hand at speaking the language and Jack managed to order 2 chocolate mousse's. Food wasn't that great or maybe we were just in the wrong places.

We found London expensive but found Paris another notch up again.

We booked a night out at Moulin Rouge. Dinner and show package. While in Paris we thought.... We then booked the babysitter and at a cost of NZD$475 we cancelled the show. It would have been cheaper to Eurostar our friend Angela over from London. So tempting!