So - breakfast in the youth hostel ...... Took us back to when we first met in uni accommodation in 1975!!! Holding our trays, collecting our food and then eating in a full and bustling dining hall. But I don't think we're in an ordinary youth hostel - last night I met a man in the elevator - Freddie, from Namibia. He said he was here till Friday for the UN. I thought "yeah sure". But at brekky there were a few tables of very well dressed girls - professional sui...

Another sleep in today, our train wasn't until 11.11am, so we took our time getting organised. As we left the Novotel it started raining - Paris was crying because we were leaving!!! (Sorry, couldn't resist the bad taste schmaltz). So, we trundled over to Gare de Lyon with our luggage and were ready to head for hall 1 where we've seen the train to Geneva for the last three days, but no, today it would be in hall 2, so we made our way there and I asked the littl...

Up early this morning, brekky in our room (thanks to finding that supermarket yesterday) before heading off bright and early to Gare de Lyon to get the Metro to the tour company's offices at the Louvre. But no, buses were replacing trains on our line this morning - a common Sunday thing apparently. We ventured out to where the buses should be but found nothing, no-one and no signs of any sort. So we caught a taxi, which was uneventful until the driver dropped his...

What an awesome day. We were able to sleep in because the only timetable we're running to is our own. We made our way over to the Gare de Lyon where there are a number of eateries and selected our breakfast. We then people watched while we ate. We caught the metro to Concorde station and walked around the corner to Le Jardin des Tuileries. The Louvre was originally a palace but then became an art gallery and Le Jardin des Tuileries was the garden for the palace. ...

This morning we ate a very hearty breakfast - we're on our own from here. We saw more of our Insight family at breakfast and said our farewells to them, then retuned to our room to pack and prepare to move on. Checkout is not until 12 noon and check in at our next hotel is at 2pm so we will just take it easy. Of course when we went to check out just before noon, so many of our group were downstairs so we farewelled once again. We walked our luggage up to the stat...