PARIS

For the week between the two footy games, Cam, Jodi and myself visited PARIS! Our hotel was near la Place de la Republique. It was a pretty full on week there... didn't really stop! Ticked a lot of essentials off the list.

First up was the famous Cimetière du Père-Lachaise. Here there are a number of celebreties buried... notably Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors and poet Oscar Wilde. I probably would have recognised more names if I was a bit more into French poetry.

Notre Dame... with Cam the hunchback in front of it ha ha ha - ha
We went to the Moulin Rouge show! A really good experience. Haha heres a story: We reserved the seats earlier in the day because we were already out at Montmartre. Here they said to us that we couldn't attend in the clothes we were wearing (i.e. jeans). It was quite a long way back to the hotel to change, so we looked around for a cheap clothes shop. Found "Sympa" (translation: "Nice") haha where we got all dressed up... My grey suit pants cost about 7€!
The worst part of the story is that when we arrived at 11pm for the show, there were bus loads of Japanese tourists walking in, wearing jeans!! How annoying is that. But I'm sure we had a better time because we were all dressed up anyway.

Sacré Coeur lit up at night, it is in the same area as the Moulin Rouge, in Montmartre

The three of us dressed up for our night out at Moulin Rouge

For two of the days we got around on l'Open Bus tour, it's a good way to see the city it stops at all the major points.

One being the Eiffel Tower.... a week in Paris wouldn't be a week in Paris without seeing the Tour Eiffel! We climbed it at night. (on foot of course, to the second level at which point you HAD to take the lift to get to the top, otherwise we would have taken the stairs all the way up)

This photo gives you a good impression of the IMMENSITY (word or not? i'm losing my english over here!) that is the Eiffel Tower. Honestly it's so impressive. One of those things you walk past in a staring daze, just so taken by it!
The view from the top. Photos not very good quality, but here you see the Seine river, with it's bridges.... all of the big avenues ...

On every hour, these lights flicker on the tower for about 10 minutes, just magic!

Eiffel Tower shot during the day, right thats enough of the tower

We did a boat trip on the Seine... This photo is the Ile de la Cité, and the Pont Neuf which crosses it. Paris was looking great, in autumn colours. We had pretty good weather too, it made for some awesome views

Next we walked up the Boulavard de Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triumph (pictured)

AAAAAND we climbed that too, heres a view from the top. The big black skyscraper is the Tour de Montparnasse and of course eiffel to the right
The crazy Paris traffic... around the Arc de Triumph is a round about - and this is how it's organised! Theres an accident every 3 minutesd apparently, it doesn't surprise me!

A similar amazing view in another direction. The hill in the distance is Montmartre, we can see Sacre Coeur

Of course, we visited Le Louvre museum... This is The Winged Victory of Samothracethe, a famous sculpture. Le Louvre was good, I'm pleased I can now say I've been there. We wandered around a lot of very early paintings, lots of religious works, sculptures etc. The Louvre may be the largest, oldest, most important and famous art gallery and museum in the world but actually I preferred the two other museums we visited - the Centre Pompidou and the Musée d'Orsay. The two most interesting things I saw at Le Louvre were Mona Lisa and Graham Henry - He was doing a bit of sightseeing before the second match.

This is Beaubourg, or the Pompidou Centre. It's the museum of modern art, for me it was a lot more interesting. Checked out a few crazy expositions (it was modern art!). The building itself is quite interesting... quite contrasting like it's just dropped right amongst all the typical Parisian architecture.

And the Musée d'Orsay. In an old train station. Here we saw a lot of impressionism paintings, a lot more recent than the stuff in Le Louvre but not modern art like at Beaubourg. Van Gogh for example!

One of Paris' metro stations

And one of Paris' huge department stores... Galeries Lafayette.

We visited the Chateau de Versailles which was nice... wasn't as exceptional as I thought it was going to be, I think it's be better in summer with all the gardens looking good. Also, there was a lot of work being done on it so scaffolding all over the place. Still good to see, walked through Napoleon's bedroom etc. The Kings of France used to live here. Saw Tana Umuga here too!

A couple of other really good things we did - visited the Catacombes, which is 1.6km of tunneling under Paris where there are thousands of stacks of human bones... They used to be old mines, and were used as a place to take human remains to, as the Cemetaries all became full.

Also saw a little Jazz concert in a bar in a lively little street between St Michel and the Latin Quarter.

BARRIO LATINO - We ate here on Friday night, a really cool bar/ restaurant. I'd recommend it for next time you are in Paris!

What an incredible week in this exraordinary city. Paris is.... Paris! Can't even find a word. La plus belle ville du monde OK I havn't seen many others but i'd believe this saying, that Paris is the most beautiful city in the world! Theres a lot to like about Paris, it has got everything! So much to do and see.