On our final day in Paris the sunshine came out again and we spent the day strolling down the tree-lined Champs Élysées. This time we walked nearly the full length, starting at the Grand Palais which is used as a convention/exhibition centre. Although the Grand Palais has a little bit of interesting history e.g. used as a hospital in WW2, occupied by Nazis as a truck depot etc, no one was really in the mood to go in. After such a busy few days of monuments and ...

After three jam-packed days, Monday was relatively chilled. We attempted to sleep in, did some laundry and grocery shopping, had a massive cook-up for breakkie (potatoes, gravy, sausages and onion...why not) then sat in Maccas on facebook, emails and banking for a little while. Ben and Gem are getting perfect wireless in our apartment most of the time, but for some unknown reason Mark and I get absolutely nothing on our iPad or netbook. Actually, I do know the re...

Sunday has marked our first rainy day in Europe. We got a bit of a shock when we stepped outside, after yesterday's hot summery weather!It was cold, wet and windy and I really wasn't dressed appropriately (I might need to go jacket/shoe shopping in Paris, what a pity) and our little overpriced Kathmandu umbrella really wasn't a match for the wind. Undeterred (we will need to get used to this after all), we set of for the Palace of Versailles. We left a little l...

We woke up early but slowly this morning at about 5:30am. It's Saturday, but I have a feeling we will quickly lose track of weekdays vs weekends and in this new life of leisure it's unimportant! The streets were lovely and quiet with the beginnings of a perfect clear day, so around 8am we jumped on the metro to the Eiffel Tower. We've mastered the metro now, not that it's hard to do! Getting around is so easy and we are getting great value out of our daily passe...

"Bonjour!Comment ca va? Parle vous Anglais?" "Merci" Day one in Paris and these couple of phrases have managed to get us by so far. Just as well because we are fast approaching the limits of my French ;-) We landed at Charles de Gualle airport at 7:30am feeling pretty weary but certainly well fed and happy after a very smooth flight. Thumbs up Etihad! Signage was great and we managed to pick up our luggage and hop on the train to Gard de Nord hassle free, surpr...