Landed in Paris at 2pm on a very wet and miserable looking day. Jen met me at the airport and drove me back to her Mum's place where she was staying for the weekend and invited me to stay. After settling in and having an awesome lunch cooked by her Mum, Jen and I headed into the city to visit the Notre Dame cathedral. The line to get in was long but actually only took about 15-20mins. It may not have quite been the most impressive cathedral I've seen on this trip, but its age and size certainly make it worth the visit and fame it has. Back when I was travelling with Saul and visited the cathedral in Milan he had a bit of a discussion going about the largest cathedrals in the world. According to Wikipedia Milan's was number 3 after the ones in the Vatican and Seville. Notre Dame was down at like 6 or something. Now obviously being Wikipedia I have no idea how accurate that is all even what values were used. Saul however was insistent that Notre Dame was larger than Milan's. Having not been there myself I couldn't do anything but point to the article. Now that I have been there I gotta say, it's pretty freak'n huge. I'm not sure it is larger than Mian's, but perhaps has higher ceilings making it look larger. Then after visiting a bridge which took the whole padlock thing to a whole new level we went back home and watched some movies. Oh, and I learned that two of the metro lines in Paris are driverless. Pretty cool. The future is here!

The second day was another pretty crappy one weather wise. So we decided it would be a good idea to do the Louvre. Unfortunately due to the huge line and the the second less known entrance being closed we didn't bother going in. But at least I've seen the outside of it. So since this was a bust we decided to head over and check out the Arc De Triomphe. Along the way we got some incredible hot chocolate and it bit later on some even better fresh Macarons. Fresh Macarons in Paris, yummo! As always when it comes to looking at monuments the arc was half covered in scaffolding. But the line to go to the top wasn't very long at all. And although due to the renovations you could only see over one side, it was at least the side with the Eiffel tower. Some poor lady lost her hat over the side when a huge gust of wind came along. That's the kinda thing I thought only happened in movies and tv shows. Then after that we went up to the Sacré-Coeur. A basilica at Paris' highest point. Along the way to this is also the Moulin Rouge, which I didn't go to as it costs an arm and a leg. Then we stopped for a happy hour beer; the only time I'll ever buy a beer in Paris. Turns out it's more expensive than even Perth.

The third day was the day I visited the Eiffel tower. We got there in the afternoon and walked around it taking pictures etc. Went across the river to get a few shots from further away and then we left to go watch a movie. The lines were way too long to go up the tower so our plan was to kill some time and come back at night. I wanted to see it lit up at night anyway. So we saw the Grand Budapest Hotel which was a pretty charming movie, very enjoyable. Then after that we got something to eat, had a couple of beers and headed back to the tower. Lit up at night it is really quite something. Just completely golden with huge search beams spinning around up top. The lines now were much smaller so it didn't take too long to get to the front. Unfortunately the top had just closed so we could only get to the second floor. It was a decent view, but rather underwhelming to be honest. At least I had already got to see Paris during the day from the top of the arc, even if it's not as high as the tower.

The fourth and last day in Paris I was catching a train with Jen at 6pm back to her place in a town called Amiens about an hour and a half north. I planned to stay there a few days while I sorted everything out getting to Belgium and finding accommodation or couchsurfing hosts etc. So we only had a few hours to kill this day and Jen took me to a small theme park just outside of Paris. It wasn't Euro Disney, but it was pretty cool all the same. I rode a roller coaster and did an 80m freefall and that's all we really had time for.

I spent something like 4 days in Amiens, mostly doing very little. Sleeping in, sending out Couch Surfing requests, catching up on this blog, catching up on some tv shows and watching movies. It was all very relaxing. As far as being a tourist goes Amiens doesn't really have a whole lot, though it was a nice town to walk around for an afternoon. The cathedral there is actually more impressive than I expected it to be. There was even an Australian bar there which was surprising, though the only actual Australian beer they sold was Fosters, and even that's stretching the definition (of both Australian and beer). Jen was an awesome host however, cooking dinner and even dessert and made some delicious crepes. Her neighbour even repaired my jeans which had come back from the Camino a lot worse for wear.