FRANCE - DAY 4 - PANTHEON Since we were on a Roman theme the next stop was the Pantheon. We were lucky here as they are just beginning a 7+ year restoration on the building and it will soon be totally encased in scaffolding as they work on restoring it. We are once again back to grand architecture. This place is HUGE! Inside it is just one room in the shape of a cross that is 82 metres high in the middle. Below it, down another winding staircase, are the crypts...

FRANCE - DAY 4 - NOTRE DAME Oh my God! It's snowing! could it get any colder? Who would have thought that half way through Spring we would be seeing snow. We were off to see the residence of Quasimodo, Notre Dame. It seemed like our luck was holding as we arrived and managed to walk straight in without lining up. Once again the scale and detail of the interior and exterior of this building is 'se magnifique'! We headed down into the crypts of Notre Dame and di...

FRANCE - DAY 3 - ARC DE TRIOMPHE After the opulence of Versailles, we needed to come back down to earth so we thought, why not climb the Arc de Triomphe? 284 steps later, up a spiraling staircase, we were at the top. Awesome views. The scale and dimension of these monuments throughout Paris is mind blowing. Nothing the French seem to have built in the past was small. The detail in each structure is hard to describe. You can't believe it until you are standing un...

FRANCE - DAY 3 - CHATEAUX DE VERSAILLES ET DE TRIANON -1 degree this morning. The days are getting colder instead of warming up. We are going to run out of warm clothes very quickly if the weather doesn't change soon. After a hearty breakfast of croissants and hot chocolate we headed off by train to 'Chateaux de Versailles et de Trianon'. The extravagance of the rooms was mind blowing. As we wondered around this amazing chateau we were adamant that we spotted s...

FRANCE - DAY 2 - EIFFEL TOWER Today was the first time we went on an organised tour. We boarded the double decker bus and headed off on a tour of the city. They zipped past different historical sites at break neck speed which made getting photos a challenge, however we managed to get several good shots. Then we saw it. The Eiffel Tower. It's amazing to think that a structure that was built for the World Fair in 1889 and was only suppose to be temporary is still...