Bonne nuit, il est neuf heurs et dix.... heh, heh. This is a two cup of coffee or teas and possibly a lie down epistle. Where to start. You will all be relieved (or not) to hear that I have not lost myself since Florence!!!! I have just read all your comments to date as every time i tried to in Italy it flicked into Italian and then cut out. I wasnt sure whether anyone else was out there. Well, Paris -as I am more of an antiquities girl, I flet a bit ho hum when we arrived yesterday - Paris felt a bit too new LOL after looking at things that have been around BC. Our guide met us at the hotel at 8pm after I had finished my last post and we set off into Paris via the metro. What a dirty, stinking piece of work that is. You dare not lean against any wall as you can see places where there may have been a contest to see how high one could spray...... - not for the faint hearted. Once again there were a trillion stairs (small homage for the clean with escalators of Greece metro) as we descended into the bowels of the earth. All 44 of us jumped into one carriage which was mercifully mostly empty and off we went into PARIS. An observation - not all French people are chic! or look as though they have stepped out of Louis Vuiton. We came up in front of the LOUVRE! I started to get a smidgen interested at the Oh my God I recognise this place and its AMAZING! There were the glass pyramids and the statues and the fountains and then OMG again, there is the Arc de Triumph and OMG there is the obelisk down the end of the Champs Elysee!!!!!! I am sure you are getting the picture. We walked through the jardain de Tuilliries, through the Arc de T. and of course there is the Eiffel Tower. At 10pm the lights were on and for 10 minutes there were lights all flickering on the ET. We walked the WHOLE of the Champs Elysee to the Arch at the end where the tomb of the unknown soldier lies. There were bouquets of flowers on the tomb and there is a flame that never goes out. By now it was 11.20pm and we were wilting (remember we started in the bus at 6am - i hope you are all impressed). Our guide got us back safe and sound at midnight.
Today we went by metro back to town again to see Notre Dame cathedral. There was a full sevice going on in the centre while visitors walked around the entire inside with the service going on in the centre. There were side chapels all around the body of the church all with their little stations where you could light a candle. No holds barred here, €2 to light a tea light and €5 to light a candle in a fancy glass. Yes, I did light one here too but chose the more modest variety. Most bizarre of all was the shop set up inside the exit door for souvineers. The story of Jesus driving the tax gatherers out of the temple came to mind!!!! a strange combination of worship and mammpn working at the same time. I would love to have sat for a while in the service and soaked it all up. There are parts of this trip Which feel very like the KFC approach to travel - you walk in one end and keep walking and co,e out the other end not sure of what you have just seen entirely - drive by tourism except it is walk by and at times with a certain amount of speed. We walked to a little market not far away looking for morning tea - it was a market for pets! There were goldfish, canaries,cockatoos, pigeons, rabbits, chipmonks, a ferret to name a few that I saw plus all the food and accoutrements to look after said beasts. There was a cafe alongside so had a hot chololate that was delicious. I have given up asking for coffee in Europe although i am learnig so,e tricks. In Greece and Italy in the hotels the coffee could have been used with stone chips instead of tar for roading. Milk is put on the table hot and frothy and after one ghastly taste experience I tried putting 3/4 cup of milk into a cup ane then topping it up with coffee and that worked. I forgot and ordered one today and a coffee here means something the size of an eyebath, strong enough to kick start your heart from a flatline position on the heart monitor and it comes with a sugar cube that you could feed to a small pony. I digress. After am tea we ventured forth to the Louvre and despite the forebodings of queues fro, here to Africa, the queue was no longer than one at the supermarket and it was quick moving. There were official type people moving you through smartly. Once inside you can go to a machine, dial up your language, tell it how many tickets you want, put your money in and it will spit out tickets and change. I armed myself with an English translation of where to find what (they have as many languages as the tower of Babel) and off I went. Learning by experience, we decided to meet at 3pm at the info desk to decide what to do next and so off I went on my own. I wanted to go at my own pace and just soak it all in without feeling I had to pace myself to someone elses speed an enjoyment or lack of. This was another OMG experience. I started off with the Greek statues and there was Apollo, Hercules, Diana, the huntress, Athena, Julius Ceasar, the three Graces and on and on. Bliss. As I wended my round these - they were on the bottom floor, I also saw some of the Egyptian exhibition - statues, mummies, funeral masks etc. The second floor up started with more statues - Venus de Milo being a feature. Then the paintings - Botticelli, DaVinci, Canelleto, Ruebans, Rembrandt,Utrillo, Carravagio, Delacroix, and so on and so on. On this floor was the Mona Lisa and I did see her though not right in front close but close enough, I think she looks better in real life than pictures do her justice but there were others that stopped me much more in my tracks. Opposite the Mona Lisa is a wall sized painting of the Zedding qt Caanan which is simply breath taking. I want to buy books on everything i have seen but they weigh so much and it doesnt make sense to pay exta to bring them back. I will have to go on line when I get home to see whqt I can find. At 3pm I checked in with some others from the group and decided I needed to see more instead of moving on to the D'orsay museum. Many had given up and gone off shopping and to ride of the ferris wheel, however, i was a woman on a mission! i grabbed a baguette for sustenqnce on the run and kept going. I went back to some of the paintings and turned a corner through the etruscan exhibition as you do and there were the crwn jewells!!! Josephines pearl crown, her set of emeralds and sapphire necklaces, ear rings, brooches etc. Louis' crown almost looked fake the jewells were so big. Totally awesome that these are still able to be seen and not broken down or lost. I went through Napoleans apartments OMG and kept going to the Dutch painters; By noW I was under pressure so whizzed through some rooms trying to see as much as I could before meeting up with everyone again to come back to the hotel. Another trip on the metro and I had been on my feet without a break since 11.30am arriving back here at 6pm. To cap off a day of bliss, I had dinner in the restaurant with some of the others. We have been eating vile tour type food most nights so here was a chance to eat somthing a little more French. I had smoked salmon drizzled with lemon olive oil, followed by a salad thqt included goats cheese, tomatoes, bacon and lettuce again drizzled with olive oil and the piéce de resistance - cream caramel! It came out as a huge wedge (like a flan piece) with the toffee sauce lapping all around it. ( €13) I hqve taken a photo of it plus Hein's profiterals which resembmed a small everest! News on the ankles - yesterday after the bus trip and walking for four hours they again felt like an alien was about to split the skin and escape - they were of epic proportions. I decided i needed to be proactive so went to bed very attractively wearing my anti clot stockings and with my feet up on the spare pillow. While i did not quite have gazelle ankles this morning they had creases again and I could see my ankle bones, Yay. The plus was I have been on my feet all day with no problems.
Whilst I was ensconced in the Louvre today it rained - quell horreur. It was drizzling tonight on the way back so decided not to go back into town to do the Eiffel Tower in the rain, hence the very long blog. Tomorrow several of us are setting out early - 7;30 ish to Monmartre (the cemetary where many famous are buried and to Sacre Cour which is part of a two hour walking tour - I hope you are all very impressed by the miles I am doing. The plan is to come back into town and maybe do the Eiffel Tower then and whatever else springs to mind. The weather is predicted to rain but at this stage we are going anyway. Did I tell you that temps went up to 47° after we left and there were deaths from the heat.
Had better go and get ready for the great expedition tomorrow. Glad things are going well over there except for the weather - I keep thinking of you all at various times and yes, I have tqken masses of photos and video - there will be something of interest for everyone as I have taken some very random ones. This place is about to close so bon nuit, Love from moi.