It's Friday morning and the last day of the tour. Yesterday, following our visit to Versailles, we visited the Eiffel Tower. It was bitterly cold up there, but the temperature couldn't dampen the experience of standing up there and looking out over the, arguably, most beautiful city in the world. Adding to the magic was a huge skating rink with many skaters making their way around. And a football game proceeding on a pitch close to the base of the Tower. In the evening we all headed out for our farewell dinner - at the world famous Moulin Rouge. Now I will admit to having my reservations about this plan, but I'm glad I went. Let me get a couple of gripes out of the way first. The food was crap (there's really no other word to adequately describe it) and we were crushed into about half the space we needed to sit even remotely comfortably.

Ok so now that's said the show itself was an true experience. The costumes, what there is of them, are remarkable. Absolutely beautiful. The show is great fun, even though it is all in French except for the comedien. The best act, from my perspective, was a couple of acrobats who so a wonderful balancing show. The sheer strength displayed by the male performer while he held the female aloft so took my breath away that I forgot to applaud!! It was the most astounding acrobatic demonstration I have seen - ever!

Of course, my phobia about snakes meant that I could not watch the girl who swims in a huge tank filled those huge awful reptiles, but the rest of the show was fantastic.

I would have preferred to see more of the Can-Can, after all that is what the Moulin Rouge is famous for. But I guess you can't have everything.

To sum up, I'm glad I've seen it. I won't be rushing to see it again.

Tonight I will be back in London and tomorrow I will be taking the train north to meet up with Rob, Fran, Emily and Oliver for Xmas and New Year.