Day 20 to Day 22 - Paris

Hi Everyone, we are now on the plane to Newcastle to stay with Gaynor, Harry and the boys, but we are stuck on the tarmac while they deal with a "computer issue" so I'm taking the opportunity to bring you back up to date on the Adventure. So lets see, where did I get up to? The first day in Paris I think. We have done so much in the last few days that everything seems so long ago.

Sadly, our second day dawned as cold as the first, although with a forecast to improve which made us hopeful for the rest of the stay. It seemed an ideal day to go shopping. We all had different places we wanted to go and had also all paid the extra 3 Euro for a second day on our Hop On Hop Off tickets, so we decided to make plans to hook up later in the day and all went off to do different things. C and A started off with us on the train to La Vallee (the designer outlet mall), but returned to town while we were still shopping to do a bit more sightseeing. They and T and T saw a bit more than they had expected to as well - when Portugal won their World Cup match the supporters went crazy, tying up the Champs Elysee and bringing out the mounted and then the riot police. Brettt and I were oblivious to this out in the burbs, but it played havoc with getting around town sightseeing. C and A were stuck on a bus that took a half hojur to move the kilometre of the Champs Elysee and T and T were on the metro when the line ahead had to be closed and they got sent back to where they came from!

Anyhoo, we all made it back to the hotel safe and sound and in time to have a shower and head off to the Moulin Rouge for their 9pm show. The building and interior are very interesting, they look just like you would imagine an old, sumptuous theatre to look (although it was dark, which hides a lot of the wrinkles). We were greeted by a doorman and then some very crusty French seaters. Man they pack em' in! We arrived just before show time and the room was jammed solid. They had already done an early show and there was a late show after us, so it must be a money making machine.

The show itself was a bit odd, although probably not really helped by the fact that all of the lyrics of the songs are in french, meaning that we couldn't follow the 'story' of the dancing. However, the acts between each of the big numbers were great! An amzing juggler, then a pair of incredibly strong acrobats and finally a ventiloquist that I especially found very funny and clever (not at all naff like it sounds!). The show girls and guys were not so impressive. They had great voices, but I think that they hoped you would be distracted enough by the costumes (or lack of) so that you didn't notice the limited choreography and poor timing. Still, it is a tick in the box - we can now say we have been to Moulin Rouge in Paris.

After the show (and our bottle of bubbly per couple) we weren't quite ready to go home, so we wandered down the street to the famous Chat Noir cafe. There was a bit of a glitch when we ordered frites and had a couple of bowls of rice put down in front of us lol (it sounds the same in a noisy bar huh) but Chris soon had that sorted. Monday was also the night of the Parisienne Festival of Music. There is literally a band playing on every street corner (sometimes more than one on a single corner) and there are free concerts to suit every taste in music. Sounds fab doesn't it? Actually it was, the streets were really alive and it was a wonderful atmosphere. The only trouble was that the corner beside our hotel room had the grunge band playing. Not so exciting and fun when all you get from within the room is white noise and the doorman has told you that the music goes until 5am! Thankfully they called it quits about 1am, but not early enough to stop it being very difficult to get up the next day - an early start at that.

DAY 21

After dragging ourselves out of bed to leave the hotel by 7:45 (I know!!) , it was off on the Metro to get to the Place de Concorde where we hopped on a bus tour to Versaille. The day was a glorious summer day and I was really looking forward to this as it was something we ran out of time to do last time we were here. Sadly, it turned out to be a bit of a disappointment. Not because of Versaille itself - which is gobsmacking! - but because the place was jam packed, noisy and shovey. Unlike the chateaus we visited, there was no way you could relax and imagine what it must have been like way back then, it was like sheep in a shute - albeit a very impressive one. It took so long to get through the King and Queens apartments that there wasn't enough time to get into the garden before we needed to leave. Note travellers: Don't go to Versaille on a Tuesday - the Louvre is shut so it gets all of those tourists and also Versaille isn't open on Mondays, so you get all of the people who wanted to go then but thought "we'll go tomorrow instead".

When we got back to town, T and T headed back to the hotel to pack as they had to be off at about 6:30 the next morning so needed to be prepared before our finale in the evening. The rest of us headed to Montmartre to visit the Basilica and the Artists Quarter - the other thing that I had really wanted to do last time but couldn't. Thankfully, this wasn't at all disappointing, just the opposite. The basilica itself is beautiful, but also the steps leading up the hill to get there and the surrounding streets are vibrant and interesting - buskers, artists and just people hanging out in the sunshine on a beautiful day. I loved it! There was one guy on the steps who was doing amazing tricks with a soccer ball - so good the crowd oohed regularly and I think he got well paid in the end too. Not just talented, but with the incredible panorama of Paris as his backdrop - it was wicked.

Brett thought I should get my portrait done, but I didn't l think that a verson of me with hat-hair, sweaty red face from climbing the gazillion steps and no makeup was the image I wanted immortalised - so no. Instead we bought an oil of the Eiffel Tower, just as cheesy, but something that I am sure I will be happier to live with.

C and A had left us to it earlier in the afternoon, so when Brett and I had finished wandering the galleries, we went down the hill and had dinner in a tiny bistrot with a charming old French waiter. Then it was off to the Eiffel Tower to meet everyone else for our delayed Fat Tyre Bike Tour. The evening couldn't have been more perfect and we were all so pleased that we had made the decision to delay it on Sunday. Aside from the weather, it seemed like the perfect grand finale to our holiday in France. And so it was.

Often the sequel is doen's seem to quite match the original does it and not only had we returned to something that was wonderful the first time we did it, but we had brought our friends too. I was really hoping we hadn't oversold it and that it would match up to our memory. Actually, I think it was better the second time. We knew what to expect and not to be nervous of the traffic and we had 4 really good friends enjoying it with us - creating a solid "kiwi" contingent which made its mark of course, particularly when it came to assisting to lighten the weight taken up by full bottles of wine on the boat-cruise.

Al was asked by the guide to take the role of "Ass-Man" - yes, that is the official term, and perfectly suited to our Al lol. He had to make sure that there was no bike behind him and to take the honks an beeps fom French taxis who objected to sharing their lane with a mass of cyclists. Clearly our guide had spotted him early as the perfect man for the job. The bonus for Al was that he got to check out all the butts and get a free t-shirt, the hassle bit was that he had to hang back with the huffer-puffers rather than whizz along with the frontrunners. One of us kept him company most of the time though, and he did a fine job.

The grand finale of the tour is the cruise on the river Seine. It was light when we started, but quickly passed through dusk and into night, so lovely. It was the perfect way to end our trip, cruising on the river, drinking wine. Just as we passed the Eiffel Tower, the light show started and all of the passengers gasped as one. It was the coolest thing ever! Almost like it was on a time switch for exactly the right moment. Afterward we biked back to base and then hopped on the metro to go back to the hotel. For T and T and C and A, that was it for France. They were all off in the morning, while we had a half-day to fill in before heading for the airport. However, it would seem that the price that we have to pay for the extra time is 2 hours (so far) sitting in a plane on the tarmac at the Charle de Gaulle airport. I'm itching to get over the channel now to see Gaynor, but we did manage to do something very special in our half day.

DAY 22

After packing this morning (we bought some dead cheap carry on bags to fit our French purchases in), we left our bags at the hotel and set off for the Rodin Museum. I had hoped that there would be timeto get to the Musee D'Orsay to see the impressionists, but that will have to wait for next time.

The Rodin Museum is a lovely old house in a beautiful garden. We had seen the back of "The Thinker" when we had been on the Hop On Hop Off and it was a small enough museum that we could see in a couple of hours. What a treat it was. Not just the sculptures that everyone has heard of - The Thinker, The Kiss, The Secret etc - amongst many other works, but the garden is the most beautiful setting for his bronzes. There was a shade garden, a sweep of lawn leading down to a pond, a rose garden, an ivy walk and lots of secluded areas where people were just lying on the grass reading or families with children playing - all created as essentially a gallery for sculpture. You can even see the Eiffel Tower and the dome of Invalides as extra garden 'decoration'. All you have to pay to spend as long as you like in this gorgeous place is 1 euro. Travellers, it is an absolute must-do. It was a lovely, peaceful way for us to spend our last few hours in France, before the stress of the airport and flying - or not as it has been now for 2 and a half hours. Fingers crossed we'll be off soon.

Love to everyone, we're on the downward leg now. See you soon xx

P.S.  four hours sitting at the gate - but Easyjet allowed us to have £3 each worth of snacks free to make up for it!  Sadly, by the time they got to us there were only pringles and cashews left, but we had our £3 each worth none-the-less lol.