Day 8 - Oui Oui Paris!

It was a very early morning as bid farewell to Munich and we headed off on the TGV, the fastest train in the world, for our trip from Munich to Paris. Breakfast is provided in first class to “international passengers” i.e. if you are crossing the border!! I have never had smoked salmon on a pancake for brekkie before.

Our first introduction to France was the increase in graffiti and the changing style of houses as we got further into Paris. Arriving at Gare d’Est we hit the first of many stairs at railway. Eeeek. Nowhere near as user friendly as Germany. We had to lug suitcases up and down 1000’s of stairs and find the right exit from the metro before finally finding Novotel des Halles, our home in Paris . It is a typical Novotel, but roomy and comfy and that is great for our 6 night stay.

With little time to prepare, as the train was a little late this morning, we hopped into a tiny Citroen CV for a one hour guided tour. OMG . Mum and Anne-Marie will know what I mean when I say memories of Maccau! I saw my life flash before me as this manic French driver took us on a whirlwind tour of Paris Monuments. It was fantastic scooting around the Arch de Triomphe twice, but would have been better if we had not been attacked by tourist buses everywhere!!! And the cobble stones on the Champs Elysee… how those TDF cyclists do it is beyond me! But we have crossed the finish line of the tour so that was a moment!!

Back to the hotel for a quick shower and off to Eiffel tower for dinner on level one . Having a dinner reservation is great as you do some serious queue jumping!!! Fast pass of the century as we avoid a line that stretches for about a kilometre as it snakes back and forth under the tower. Dinner was so yummy. Wine mineral water salad, chicken, raspberry desert + coffee. Next to us we met some nice Americans from Illinois.

After dinner we decide to go to level 2. Again, the queue jump for dinner has its advantages as we could hop into the lift and head up without requeing. There are very beautiful views from here. Des Invalides, the war hospital built by one of the Louis that houses Napoleon’s tomb glistened in the evening light. We waited for sunset. Awwwww! How romantic!!! We met a lovely English mum and her daughter and we waited for the light show. At 10pm the Eiffel twinkles.. just a huge WOW Moment. It was a reasonably long wait for lift down: there are queues everywhere in Paris!

We headed down to the ferry by the Seine which was part of our dinner package deal. By this stage it was almost 11pm and with a 5am wake up it had been a long day. We decided to check exchange for another night and headed back to the metro only to discover Trackwork!!!!! ARGHHHHHHH!! Difficult to get back to hotel but we managed (not so keen to go anywhere in Paris in cab after our Citroen experience of earlier in the day !!!) We fell into bed exhausted. And I thought holidays were supposed to be relaxing. Couldn’t think of a better way to be exhausted!!