Paris - Yay! Our fifth visit to this fine city and we really did think we'd be scrabbling for things to do. Hah! Never! The train from Brussels was a breeze and we were reminded of the ever present security threat as soon as we jumped off the train in the Gare du Nord and a young male of middle Eastern appearance with a small suitcase was immediately pulled aside for a 'random' check. We considered treating ourselves to a taxi to the hotel, only 1.5 km (thankfully not 10!) - it would have been worth it with the bags. And 200 odd other people were in the queue thinking the exact same thing. Never! We hiked to the hotel (3rd stay there) and it only took an hour to check in and find a suitable room - what we in the permanently-travelling business call the 'er' room. There's the first room, which is often perfect (stop there) or, if it's dire then you aim for the 'er' room (bigger/airier/nicer). Very happy in the end - the reason we keep returning to this hotel is the excellent breakfast (great ham, cheese and baguettes) and the lift. It's small, it takes 2 people (or 1 and a bag) but it works (so far), and of course the location in the 10th arrondissement. Not flash, but not horrendous (and not the 20th where we stayed on our first visit... though excellent spot for tagines and cous cous). Most importantly our wonderful little hotel is just down the road from Hitomi - our all time favourite, all you can order for €15.90, Japanese restaurant. We don't bother paying for sushi anywhere else in the world... just save the cravings for Paris (hence our mantra... "When we think of Paris, we think of sushi). Fortunately the forecast torrential rain held off long enough for us to reach the hotel and check in, but once we headed out and across town on foot, the storm arrived right over the Louvre and the downpour commenced. Wowee. We gave it a brave few minutes then hid in a doorway with everyone else before we were thoroughly drenched. The purpose of the pre-dinner cross-Paris hike? Shopping. Which given the weight state of the bags sounds counterproductive - but it was an affair of the heart. A year or so back I found a lovely bag in a thrift store in central France, brand new for only 4 euro. It had a nifty and colourful zip off flap. That day I discovered a new brand - Papa Pique & Maman Coud - since then I've hankered for a new flap purely for variety (since carrying multiple bags isn't feasible). Somehow, we've never really explored the 6th arrondissement and enjoyed the shopping venture immensely... and realised that the difference between areas can be extreme to say the least - the 6th is to the 10th, what the 10th is to the 20th... worlds apart. After the long walk, the rain, and the shopping we jumped on the metro and used tickets from our last visit over a year ago to cross town and reach sushi-nirvana. Then had a relatively early night for digestive purposes if nothing else. Saturday we took our time, breakfast, and made a plan for the day to visit the city of the dead beneath Paris. James was a good sport about this, as it was definitely on my bucket list, not his. He became an even better sport when we made our leisurely way to the Catacombs entrance - and saw what turned out to be a 2.5 hour queue! Usually we would book anything this popular online then cruise immediately into the 10 minute 'pre-booked' queue - but we weren't 100% sure we were going, let alone what day. It was a very weird experience, but definitely worth it. Basically Paris was built with stone from quarries under the city. Eventually the dead from the city's cemeteries got out of control (definitely the 'too many' meaning... not the 'flesh-eating zombie' meaning) and eventually 6 million skeletons were disinterred and artfully stacked through many kilometres of tunnels beneath the city. The visit only takes in 1.5 km roughly after a long climb to the bottom and again to the top (exit via the gift shop of course). It's a sad, sad situation, but one of the 'FORBIDDEN' activities in the catacombs is stealing bones... must happen often enough that they have signs up addressing the practice and also fairly rigorous bag checks before you exit... you know, just in case a skull fell in your handbag when you weren't looking. We can't think of anything worse. Truth to tell I backed up a bit far when I was taking a photo then realised exactly what was poking into my back... Brrrrr... We emerged from the depths conveniently near a Patissier/Boulangerie (skull shaped meringue anyone?) and snaffled some luscious quiches for lunch before strolling back towards the 6th for some window shopping (faire du leche vitrine in French - or 'window licking' to be literal). We realised we were within a hop and a skip to the Luxembourg Gardens - another attraction we'd never quite made it to before. The gardens were created by Marie de' Medici (the widow of King Henry IV of France) in 1612 to compliment her new residence, the Luxembourg Palace and are the 2nd largest public park in Paris (talk about big hat and lots of cattle). Had a great time watching the little sail boats on the pond and enjoying the flowers - not enough colour in Queensland... not even in winter when it comes to floral displays. There was even an art show in the Orangerie - so a good wander about had by all. We were in the neighbourhood (rather conveniently) so tested out the 'drop in' concept of the Happy Culture hotels... and tootled into the one that charges closer to €300 a night vs. ours (that doesn't). Had a lovely sit in the tiny hotel lounge with a coffee and macaroon. Only fly in the ointment were the two American guests with a couple of French friends (honestly just two... but sounded like 10 - quiet Americans, they were not). The bloke was under the impression he was a) famous (might have been. World famous in Miami or something), b) funny (nope) and c) interesting (definitely not). The French friends were getting quieter as the American couple got louder - to the point of playing (hilarious) renditions of this guy singing on Youtube. What can we say, maybe his mum posted it. We were risking serious ocular injury with the amount of eye-rolling we were doing and figured, though these people were around 70, that we are turning into grumpy-olds who for some daft reason expect a bit of peace in a hotel lounge (albeit... not strictly our hotel lounge). We continued our ongoing exploration of the St Germain neighbourhood and ended up finishing our 'to do' list from Brussels - we had moules frites and a beer at Chez Leon - a Belgian chain that specialises in mussels. Funnily enough - the meal we had was only €13.90 each - €2 less than the identical meal in Brussels (never, ever pay retail...) We even had the most agreeable waiter - we wanted to sit outside and we think they were closing it off... so he opened the front door and plopped us in the doorway - perfect! Except some people were complaining about the fresh, 23 degree air and wanted the door shut again... so we got to sit outside where we wanted to in the first place. Luscious mussels. Nice beer. Good chips and a perfect early dinner (it was 5 pm... in southern Europe that's still lunchtime). But we had a plan - straight down the subway and 40 minutes later we were back in our hotel and having a rest for half an hour before hoofing it up to Montmartre, near the Moulin Rouge for our first ever Paris Cabaret/Burlesque show at Le Nouvelle Eve. Absolutely brilliant show - singing, dancing, comedy, acrobatics, naked breasts artfully displayed and regularly featured throughout the show. We felt like we were in a ship's cabaret lounge (minus the motion of the ocean of course). Even more brilliant was the saving of about 40 due to the new system Bookingdotcom is using with a code emailed through prior to your stay and a selection (70-80) different activities with special discounts. Really worthwhile (mind you - that's the sort of progress that occurs now that AirBnB is flogging experiences as well as room nights). Utterly tuckered out after capering about the city all day (and night), we set the alarm and hit the sack and before we knew it it was Free Day. Or as it's also known "First Sunday in the Month and free entry to most museums day" (though not the Louvre until November). That was OK though - our target was a revisit of the Musee d'Orsay and as many Van Goghs as we could devour. We were much more on the ball today and left the hotel at 8.30 am to walk across to the Left Bank. There was already a reasonable queue at 9 am when we arrived but nothing compared to how many had joined the queue by the time the doors opened at 9.30 am. We were in within about 10 minutes as there was nothing in the way of tickets, just a security check. Lovely couple of hours enjoying this gallery. Speaking of lovely, we took our chances that the Americans had left our new hangout (we knew that they had a car and driver arranged for the airport... but they hadn't informed us of the exact time) - we played a hunch. As it was, the lounge was completely empty and the gent on the front desk seemed resigned to the poor cousins turning up. Since no one was around it was time for our ham & cheese baguettes, followed by a couple of coffees and macaroons. We are huge fans of Nespresso in situations such as this - coffee as you like, when you like. And there were no other guests in 'our' lounge! After lunch we continued to enjoy Free Day and visited the Museum of the Middle Ages/Musee de Cluny to see, specifically, The Lady with the Unicorn - a series of stunning, life size red tapestries that were recommended to us by our friend Barbara in France (now when people recommend a tapestry - we definitely go as we've always regretted not seeing the Bayeux Tapestry in Normandy years ago). The building itself is stunning and we were chuffed to have a walk about for free instead of €8 each. The building was originally started in the 1300s and has been through many incarnations - including being owned by a doctor in the 1800s who used the stunning chapel as a dissection room! We had grand plans of also making it to the Pompidou Centre / Modern Art Museum - but were tuckered out after all the walking and gawking (the beauty of the English language eh... that those two words actually rhyme). So it was back to the digs for packing (sigh...) and down the road to Hitomi for endless Japanese food as the easy dinner option and an early-ish night. The agenda for tomorrow? (Monday. Arrgh.) Off to the Gare St Lazare bright and early to take the 10.10 am train to Normandy. Dang... that's another alarm clock morning.