First thing we had to do today was put the L of GTL into action - that is, we had to do our laundry as a matter of urgency as Brendan had run out of clean undies! We walked our big bag of dirty intimates down to the local laundromat and spent approximately 15 mins trying to decipher the french instructions. After a bit of disagreement and a lot of frustration, Brendan finally figured it out so this gave us 45 mins to find ourselves a meal nearby. We once again f...

Dear readers, After yesterday's action packed itinerary, today was going to be much more relaxing. We made an early start to the Rue de Rivoli (the street the Louvre is on) to meet our tour group and head out to the towns of Reims and Epernay in the region of Chanpagne. This area is approximately 150kms north east of Paris and took us 2 hours to get to. Being an early start and sitting in a warm and comfortable double decker coach made sleep a fait accompli. T...

Dear loyal readers, We started the day by grabbing a quick snack from the local boulangerie (bakery) - it was very tasty and the deserts looked tempting but we were on a mission to see some of the big sights so we couldn't be slowed down so early in the morning. First stop was the Louvre. The first thing we noticed was that this was not your typical gallery. It was a massive palace that had been converted into a labyrinth of corridors displaying some of the wor...

No alarm was sent for this morning for obvious reasons (see previous blog entry), so we woke up at our leisure and found ourselves a quaint little French cafe where we sat down for a Sunday Brunch (big thing in Paris apparently). Both Brendan and I were really surprised by how the tables and chairs are arranged at all the restaurants. Everybody sits in long rows facing the street, not their company just like you're in a cinema - very ideal for people watching! B...

Ahhh Pariii - we meet at last! I've dreamed of visiting this city ever since I can remember, and now that I'm finally here - it has absolutely lived up to all my expectations. Our first few hours in the city were spent trying to find our hotel - it certainly isn't as easy to navigate around as London is, but at least you're in gorgeous surroundings whilst trying to figure it out. We were so relieved once we had checked into our hotel as the rooms are just beaut...