Day One - Paris

Arrived in Paris and made it to our hotel about 8am and fully expected to leave our luggage and wander which is exactly what happened.

I did however grab out of my suitcase, my heavy red jacket and my camera. Badly need for the jacket and its about 15 degrees and drizzle rain so a bit of a miserable day!

We are located a stones throw from the Notre Dame Cathedral and having not actually made it there last time in Paris, we wandered firstly to a local cafe for a coffee top up then over to the Cathedral.

Have to say I was a little disappointed, the building is beautiful of course but appears to be badly in need of some cleaning / restoration work. Like anything of that nature though, there would be a lot of money involved no doubt so that in itself is a huge problem.

From there, spotted the 'Big Red Bus' - Kemm and I are a fan of these as they are the best value for money to get round all the tourist venues and hop on and off your bus at while. A running commentary in any language via a headset also keeps you up to date on the venues and the information about them. As such, we usually do a full round on day one to work out what we want to see on the following days.

Headed up the Champs Elysees, then hopped off the bus at the Arc de Triomphe in the midst of its 8 lane traffic roundabout and watch the traffic entering, merging and exiting - there's an art to it for sure!! Took my photos of the Arc itself and a couple of the perpetual flame signifying the tomb of the unknown soldier at it's centre.

Back on the bus, hopped off at the viewing spot for the Eiffel Tower - had been here before on dusk and the lights coming on at twilight - that was magical then but this was middle of the day and totally different. It appeared as more of a giant 'structure' than something beautiful. Depends on your perspective and time of day of course. Took 1/2 hrs on the bus till we got back to our drop off spot at Notre Dame.

Wandered back along the Seine River and over the little bridges till we got back to our hotel, made it into our tiny room - (had tiny rooms when we were in Europe as well). Haps and heaps of TV channels - none of them in English though! So looks like it s 3 days no Tv but we can cope!

Had a shower (I'd had one in Hong Kong but Kemm was a couple of days overdue!!!) then found a local cafe for food then back to the hotel and crawled into bed fully clothed for a nap at about 4.30pm.

It's now 4 am! Such is jetlag I guess!

So another day of adventuring ahead....