Yesteday was the day when Mum and Dad finally arrived and we surprised them by meeting them at the airport and with a bottle of champagne in their hotel room! It was great to catch up after a couple of months apart and needless to say we had a lot of stories to tell each other.

After a good nights sleep for them we headed out today to explore the area near our hotel. We are staying right near the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees which was a great place to start. We started with a leg burning climb up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe to get our bearings and a great first view across Paris. Then we entered the busy Champs Elysees, which was luckily not as busy as yesterday when we tried to find a bottle of champagne - it took us ages as almost every food shop was closed on a Sunday which we were not at all used to! Thankfully after two hours going up, down and around the completely chaotic Champs Elysees and surrounds, we found one shop open for us and our plan wasn't ruined!

After all the shops we continued to be wowed by all the emerging buildings and famous sights such as Pont Alexander III, a bridge on the Seine flanked by golden statues, the Grand Palais, Place de la Concorde and finally the Jardin de Tuileries and Louvre.

After enjoying a lunch inside the Jardin de Tuileries and planning the rest of our week at the Tourism Office we made our way to the famous Lafayette shopping centre. It's an amazing and very busy place with a beautifully decorated inner dome and shop after shop after shop. The highlight was definitely the food section we found at the very end. It is an indoor market of sorts, that the David Jones food court is modelled on, and is delicious! Meats, cheese, fruit, coffee, sweets and wine - we had great fun taking it all in and less fun trying not to buy it all. The wine shop was amazing with big sections for all the regions of France and a historical section with really old wines and wine from important years in history. They also have a collection of giant bottles of wine such as a magnum and even what looked like a Salmanazar!

After only one day in Paris, with so much walking, including all the way back to the hotel, we are already exhausted!