Paris pour Amys Anniversaire

SAMEDI

We flew to Paris from Birmingham international airport at 9:25 on saturday morning landing at Charles de Gaulle airport just outside Paris approximately an hour later. France is an hour in front of the UK so in effect we landed 2 hrs later. After a 30 minute taxi ride from the airport we arrived at our hotel which was called the Timhotel on Boulevard Jean Jaures, Boulogne Billincourt on the outskirts of Paris in the western suburbs, a short walk from the Siene River but a bit of a way from any attraction's.

The weather was good. The sun was shining and it was about 20 degrees so we decided to go for a walk and see what was around. We walked along by the river where we found a cafe and had something to eat. We had Tea, Coffee and baguettes before continuing our walk. We could see the Eiffel tower from where we were and knew you could get to it by following the river. We walked and walked! Little did we know at this stage that it was actually 7 or 8 miles away!.

We walked through some parks and Garden's past a few bridges, over some and under others. We crossed roads and nearly got run over a few times expecting the traffic to be coming in the opposite direction. It felt like a marathon!. For ages it didnt seem to be getting any closer, eventually however a couple of hours later we arrived at our destination!.

The Tower is pretty big believe it or not!. Perhaps this is why we didnt think it was so far away!. We opted not to take the 600 steps to the top and instead hobbled around it whinging about how much our legs ached we took a few snaps before contemplating how we were going to get back to where we were staying.

We eventually managed to find a bus map and caught the bus most of the way back before getting lost again and walking a couple of miles in the wrong direction. We found our hotel at about 10:30 at night. We were all so tired from the walking that we all we wanted to do was sleep.

DEMANCHE

After yesterdays antics we decided on Sunday that we needed a plan of action if we were to make the most of the time we had left. 

We knew which bus to catch to the Eiffel tower and we knew there were tour buses that stoped there. You could purchase hop on hop off day tickets for these buses. 

We got off the tour bus on the Champs Elysees at the Arc de Triomphe

We paid to go in the Arc de Triomphe and climbed the steps to the top where the view was magnificent.

After climbing back down the 275 steps that we had counted on the way up the Arc de Triomphe we stopped off for lunch before getting back on the bus to see more of the city!. We quickly realised we had made the right decision by taking the bus tour as there was so much to see.

Academies national de musique

La Madeleine

Hotel de invalides

Jardine du palais-royal

Musee du Louvre

Obelisque de la concorde

 Amy really wanted to go to Love lock bridge and Julie wanted to stop at Notre Dame so we decided we would get off again and visit them both as they were fairly close together

Notre dame

Julie and Amy AKA Mario and Luigi

Ryan and Amy sharing a moment. Ryan is conscious of his baldy but Amy loves him anyway.

Me and the wife. I'm a bit sceptical of the whole padlock thing. 

Love lock bridge is the Pont Des Arts, a bridge across the river Siene where couples go to lock a padlock to the railings symbolising their love. The keys are thrown into the river once the padlock is locked. A perfectly good waste of padlocks if you ask me but the girls seemed to like it!.

We had obviously had enough of France by this time as we then had a quick drink in an Irish bar before eating in an Italian restaurant after which it was time for bed!

All in all a great weekend!