Today we made a day trip to Lyon. The weather was perfect and we spent our day finding food markets and wandering around the heart of the city. First we went to the Saint Antoine street market that has made us very jealous as it is open Tuesday to Sunday with delicious food that the locals clearly make great use of. After lunch we headed up to the Notre Dame Basilica on a huge hill in the middle of the city. We could really get a feel for just how big Lyon is....

Yesterday we travelled to Burgundy, stopping in Dijon on the way to our country château in Chorey-les-Beaune. Dijon housed the Dukes of Burgundy and their palace, which is still used today as the town hall and an arts museum. It has a lovely town centre where we found the Maille mustard shop with more types and flavours of mustard than we could have imagined! We also visited the basilica. Chorey-les-Beaune is a tiny village north of Beaune in a stretch of lan...

On our last day in Paris we wandered around our local area between the Louvre and Marais and escaped from the 32 degree heat by doing some shopping. Then on Sunday (4th September) we drove to Reims, the biggest city in Champagne, and even managed a tasting at a local family producer south of Reims. That night we also attended a fantastic light show at the Reims Notre Dame Cathedral to celebrate its 800th anniversary. We weren't expecting much but were really sur...

Today was finally the day we visited the Louvre. We had planned it originally because it was supposed to rain but instead it was a good day to go because it was so hot - 30 degrees! We joined a fantastic guided tour in English that took us through the labyrinth that is the Louvre to all the famous works. We saw the walls of the original Louvre fortress, the Venus the Milo, Napoleon's ancient Greek statues room, the Mona Lisa, the giant David painting of Napoleon'...

This morning we walked across Pont Neuf onto the Ile de la Cite to see the Notre Dame Cathedral. It is a beautiful church with intricate stained glass windows, the height of the ceiling seems to go on forever and there is so much history woven into all of it. There are so many chapels inside the cathedral itself, my favorite being the chapel for students. It was a beautiful place to walk around for a while. We moved underground next, down into the crypts where w...