London & Paris 2008

Paris

Thursday 14th August to Monday 18th August

A swift train journey from London on the sub-channel Eurostar and we were in Paris.  We were quite close to the Eiffel Tower, and I was happy to pose in front of it in the glorious cloudy weather.  The Eiffel Tower is the Tower Bridge of Paris, you'll discover.

It's probably better if you see it without me in the way, muddying the picture.

And here it is once more in a terrifying "oh my god, it's so high" close up.

"This is St Barley's church, in Coventry."  It's not of course, it's the ruddy Eiffel Tower again.  But much smaller than I remember.

I'm not sure...

...what these two buildings are, which I am sure is less than helpful for you.

But look at one of these glorious blue cannons.  Probably not operational.

We became experts in the local cuisine.  Lynne seems very excited with some sort of egg mayonnaise starter, accompanied by a gorgeous-looking pint, whilst I appear to be very much enjoying French onion soup, with a whopping great cheesy crouton.

Ladies and gentlemen, please give it up for the Eiffel Tower at night!  Blue as you like.

Onwards to the next big Parisian tourist attraction, the Arc de Triomphe, otherwise known as the craziest roundabout in the world.  Really you wouldn't like to take your driving test in Paris.  That would be mental.  So don't.

On the inside of the Arc de Triomphe (luckily, there are tunnels underneath to get you there - crossing the roundabout would be madness in a box), there are lots of names of French victories and generals from the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars inscribed on the walls (it says here).

So, it would be remiss of me not to post pictures of the Champs-Élysées.  This I think is the view vaguely westwards (and very slightly southernly).

And t'other way, so broadly easterly, plus a bit of north action in there, with I think the financial sector in the distant background.

And in the tradition of: same thing, different angle.  Here is view looking back to the Arc de Triomphe looking back along the Champs-Élysées.  It's bloody wide, innit.

More soon... very soon...  And we rejoin the tour of Paris with a statue of a man on a horse.

And here's a golden winged thing on a statue.

I should probably know what this is, but I don't right now.

This was the fountain nearby.

More golden statue action.

We headed over to the impressive-looking Notre Dame.

We got there just as there was a procession going by.

Here is the view of the side of Notre Dame.  The queue to get in was too long for us to bother with, so we never actually went up to the top of the Notre Dame.

And the back of Notre Dame.  Y'know, just for completeness.

Here is one of the restaurants we went to.  I think this was probably the old-fashioned restaurant, which looked a little like a canteen inside.  I managed to speak French to the waitress the entire evening.  Result!

I have to say that I've no idea what this is.  But it looks nice, huh.

Two guys jammed on the bridge.

Amusingly we noticed a distress signal from a couple sat on the bridge.

Time for the next Paris page.