Sunday 11th

After a good nights sleep, and our last day in the U.K, we decided to stay around Paddington and have a walk around the area, and although the main Paddington station is just on the corner where we are, we did not at first notice the line of people going into the station, only once we were heading back did they catch our eye, so stopped to try and work out what was going on, finally realising the sea of green jumpers indicated they were footy fans going to the France vs Ireland World Rugby match, now this line was no small line and they were 4/5 people wide, and this was fairly early in the morning and the game didn't start until 4:45pm, then we went into the station and this just blew our minds, there was a line of people as far as the eye could see, all going to the same match and all extremely well behaved, god only knows what time they would have got home that night. anyways eventually back to the hotel to do some packing as we were leaving around 9am the next morning for the channel train to Paris

Monday 12th

All went well this morning, a slight hitch with getting a taxi but it really didn't take too long, on to St Pancaras station, through border control and then a bit of a wait to board the Eurostar to Paris, everything running smoothly until we got to the channel border then we came to a halt and we stayed there for nearly an hour due to some technical difficulty with the rail line. finally on our way, arriving in Paris about 45minutes later than the scheduled arrival time, then the line up to get a taxi to take us to the appartment that I had booked in St Germain.

The appartment was booked through AirBNB and this is the first time I have used this, and I am not disapointed, we are in St Germain district and the appartment is on the second floor and has a very tiny lift that just barely fits two people, it has a seperate lounge room, a kitchen,dining room a bathroom and just the one bedroom, very nice, extremely clean and so convenient to everything, two streets and you are on the Seine River and can see the Louvre. a quick meal and then to bed, it was a long day.

Tuesday 13th

Today we have woken up to overcast skies, and cold, went to breakfast and decided just to start walking along the river seine in the direction of the tower, just taking our time and stopping every now and again, finally reaching the Eiffel Tower an hour later, this exceeded all of Peter's expectations, and I left him to wander around while I did the usual postcard purchases, then over to the river to get on the river cruise, which by now it was getting really cold but was still a great trip. after this we boarded the hop on bus but did not complete the whole route as it getting late in the day and getting colder by the minute, so lucky we were able to get off the bus not far from the appartment and will pick it up tomorrow.

Wednesday 14th

Overcast skies again, I think Paris is getting ready for winter, today we picked up the hop on bus again and went to the Champs Elysee firstly to have breakfast and finally Peter was able to get his fried eggs and toast, not really a staple diet for the french, then we walked to the Arc de Triomphe to watch the crazy traffic and then just a casual stroll along the streets, a bit of window shopping but it was really coming in cold so grabbed a taxi and came back to the appartment for a rest until it was time to go out to dinner.

I had booked dinner about 4 months ago at the Eiffel tower at a restaurant called 58 Tour Eiffel (Chrissy and I went there last year) and we had to be at the booking office at 6pm to pick up our ticket reservations and then you go to the lift that takes you up to the restaurant, we were lucky to get winow seats overlooking the Seine, fantastic view and to be able to watch the sun go down over Paris, Magic, glass of champagne then we chose our menu selections, Peter went for the Foie gras and I selected Salmon both of us had the chicken and then Peter had the chocolate eclair with icecream in the middle and to watch the waiter just pour all this warm chocolate over it was to die for, and I had Napoleons meringue with a cream and fresh fruit. there is not one part of that menu you could complain about, food was magnificient and the service of the staff impeccable

I wanted to stay and show Peter the light show that the tower puts on every hour but by the time dinner was finished it was really pouring rain so once again grabbed a taxi and homeward bound

Thursday 15th,

The plan today was to go over to Notre Dame Cathedral and just walk around but another really cold day, so after breakfast I headed for the underground and went over to Haussman district to do some shopping and Peter wandered aroud the district that is St Germain, hopefully the weather is a bit better tomorrow which is our last day and catch up on some last minute sights.