Day 18 - To Paris

Well, we've arrived in Paris but in some ways it's a little sad - it means that we've finished the first two legs of the journey and we've had to give our trusty van back (with the GPS that managed to get us lost a few times). However, there's still more to see and do............We started yesterday looking through the Chambord chateau - a massive estate that King Francis I initiated in 1519. The estate is so huge that the boundry wall is 32 km long and the area of the grounds is larger than the inner area of Paris - rather extravagant!

A Medieval Games day was being hosted yesterday which meant that we arrived to the sounds of hounds barking and shots being fired in the woods which added to the drizzly weather to make a very authentic experience (aside from the standard hoardes of people of course).

Because we were on a deadline (and the chateau is so enormous) we made a very quick tour through (1.5 hours) and then drove on to Orly to drop the van back to Peugeot.

Our hotel is one street off the Place d'Italie so close to the metro and actually right next door to the police station, so we figure it must be a pretty safe neighbourhood lol. Because we got so lost trying to drop the van off, we decided to reorganise our schedule and just do the laundry and eat when we got settled in. There is no free wifi at the hotel, so the blog may be a bit erratic while we are here - we will upload when we are somewhere having coffee that has free wifi.  It may mean that I will be loading less photos too, but we'll see.
 
P.S. Unfortunately Kath, we're not going to have time to visit Giverny, but we are going to try to get to the Musee D'Orsay before we leave Paris - which is apparently where the impressionists are galleried.  Miss you loads tooxx