It's a pinch myself day today. We're in Paris!!!!!

Loved our Very Fast Train ride from Marseille this morning.

David wouldn't let me sing Sur la Pont Avignon as we passed through Avignon!!!

The buildings in the countryside were all pale fawn/apricot/grey/dirty with very old looking dirty orange roofs. The closer we got to Paris though the buildings appeared to be better maintained.

The soil in the paddocks started off being very pale dusty pink/grey but became darker as we travelled further north. There were lots of ploughed fields and some with germinated crops - oats I think and some turnips too. There didn't seem to be any cattle but think they're probably still in their barns. We were surprised to see significant broad acre farming just south of Paris.

We'd expected to see more grapevines. Am sure they'll rock up somewhere along the line!!! What grapes we did see seemed to be espaliered. There were orchards of gorgeous peach blossom further south.

There were lots of solar panel farms. Also some panels covering parking shelters in railway station car parks. There was even an old stone building sporting new solar panels on its roof (looked quite weird). There were quite a few wind farms.

The valleys along the way were filled with small communities for as far as the eye could see. Some of them were obviously very old and were beside rivers - to aid transport of their produce in the past I guess.

We arrive in Paris just after lunch and caught a bus close to our hotel - a very old, very cute hotel. It's clean and comfortable and just south of the Seine adjacent to La Louvre and within easy walking distance of Notre Dame.

We left the sunshine back in Marseille but, while it was overcast and cool, it didn't rain when we went exploring the streets of Paris. The queue to go in to Notre Dame wasn't huge so we ticked that box. What an impressive building that is?!!! They started building it in 1163. Hard to get my head around that long ago.

We wandered the streets and marvelled at the architecture - something new and different around every corner.

Back at the hotel tonight we can hear a street jazz band nearby. There are so many people around. Lots of traffic too. The heavily armed gendarmes are ever present and there's police cars flying around everywhere too.