Hotel Du Casino Paris

... for dinner, talk about the people back in south Texas and people watch.

December 1, 2009

We're now in Rome, but on Sunday we woke up early in Paris and made a whirlwind tour trying to catch some of the sights we missed on Saturday. We had breakfast and a lovely lunch by the Louvre. It was a wetter and colder day so we walked briskly to keep warm ...

We began our walk down the historic Champs Elysee by taking the Metro the Arch de Triumph. The Arch is much bigger than I expected. There are more than 260 steps to climb the edifice. It features rows of medium relief sculptures depicting French military campaigns in Egypt and Italy. There is an eternal flame memorial to all the fallen French soldiers Once on the summit you are afforded grand views of the city. In one direction, looking outward from the Arch, you can ...

... about the city's parks and cafes. Apparently taking long breaks and sitting around smoking and drinking coffee is the thing to do here. Chilling with some people in the garden of some 900 yr old building with fountains and statues will do that to you I suppose. Believe me! The free tour that I've taken here and in Amsterdam are young expats who live and work here and work for tips only. So far they are very good and very knowledgable about the ...

... decision. Sunday morning, we woke up very early (it was also daylight savings time. I'm not fond of spring ahead.) and checked out. We wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower to see the sunrise, but some complications during checkout caused us to miss it. We did still go to see the Eiffel Tower, and then we headed to the metro to take our train back to Luxembourg. We had a bit of a scare, however, when the guy at the metro station gave us directions that took us ...

... once again waiting for a flight. Mexico City airport is pretty rubbish, and I am not sure at all about Air France either. They are polite, but seem reluctant to open their check-in desks early, to help passengers avoid peak times. But, they did check my baggage all the way through to Birmingham for me, so I can't complain I suppose. Oh well, only one more to go and then I am back in the UK. Horray!

... some jammies and underwear! It better show up tomorrow! Or Continental is going to get an ugly call! And in the middle of that shopping trip, I realized I had forgotten to call my credit card company to let them know I was going to be charging things in random countries. Guess how I found that out. Yeah, credit card declined! I need to go and call them. Thank goodness the nice folks at Navy Federal have ...

... d'Versailles - we didn't find French food; only average Italian food - sorry James - to inflict that on you after your authentic Italian food of the last few months. But we celebrated seeing James and Caitlin, and thoroughly enjoyed our first night in Paris. Saturday: We took in Mont Martre with its amazing artists, portrait painters and caricaturists clustered into the picturesque square; the Sacre Coeur with its vista over Paris; the ...

... We did try the traditional, well, famous dish of France which was duck paste enjoyed together with a glass of red champagne. It was good, but not very impressive to me. What I loved most about French food was...chocolate banana crepe cake. You can't miss this cake when you come to France, like you can't miss "pho" when you come to Vietnam. I was lucky to have a French guy who knew how to make the best crepe cake on earth. He invited me and ...

... Not a big area comparitively, but quiet and devoid of the hordes taking pictures of the Venus De Milo, and gawking at the Mona Lisa. I think half of them only take pics of things because the whole room is doing the same, and they're only following the leader as well. Took a wander through the Islamic art as well, but decided it was time to leave around quarter past 5pm. You really can't see it all even if you wanted to. You'd be mentally exhausted if you tried, plus ...

... among beautiful jaggered peaks. It actually turn out quite well because after spending the second night in Annecy it felt like a mini holiday before carrying on with our adventure to Jura. Instead of driving back the same route we came we did a bit of a detour through Switzerland. I know it sounds like a big detour but Geneva was only 25 minutes from Annecy so actually it saved us time. We re entered France further North near Nyon. We looked up a fantastic campsite on Lac De ...