Today we set off on the Paris L'Open Tour hop on hop off double decker bus. We took a 2 hour loop through central Paris starting at the Louvre and passing many famous landmarks including Pont Neuf and Notre Dame and the Arc de Triomphe. We got off at the Eiffel Tower and ate a picnic lunch while the boys played in a playground in the shadows of the tower. After waiting in a queue for 30 minutes to go to the bathroom we decided to skip the queues to climb the Eiffel Tower as they were 50 times as long and moving more slowly! We hopped back on the bus and headed home via the Place de la Concorde and L'Opera. Geoff, Matthew and Oliver had a quiet afternoon at the apartment while I headed out shopping (Geoff managed to bake me a chocolate birthday cake using a saucepan as a cake tin!) I wandered back to L'Opera and to the nearby Lafayette department store where I spent a few hours buying myself a birthday present.