The Louvre is open on Wednesdays ....

We made it back to the Louvre this afternoon but that was after a most delightful 3 hours with our personal guide David who took us on an historical tour of the Marais and Paris. Along the way we stopped and sampled Paris' famous Macarons. This Sacre Macarons tour was an anniversary gift from our good friends Di and Geoff. Thanks guys - it was a wonderful way to experience Paris. 

David works as a guide, volunteers at the only English language radio station in Paris and is also a teacher. 

Here we are eating Macarons from Laduree with our coffee.

After lunch we lined up for the Louvre - took about 2 mins to get in and a few more to buy our tickets. Simple. Our morning guide said that if you looked at every exhibit and picture at the Louvre it would take you nine months, so we decided on a couple of bucket list items, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. We also walked through Napoleans apartments - amazing how these guys used to live.

Tonight we're having dinner on the Champs Élysées and then a night cruise on the Seine to see light of Paris.

This is the lane where a French King was assasinated which led to the 100 Years war between France and England.

Made it this time.

Some of the statues at The Louvre are quite scary, but (warning - Dad joke coming up) this one is quite 'armless. (That one for the kids)

Notre Dame, the Pont de Arts and Merci ...

We've gotten into a good routine after 2 days, up early - I cook breakfast while Janine cuts up a baguette for lunch. The eggs here make great omelettes, Some of my best ever and then we head to Rambateau Metro.

We planned to visit the Louvre today, arriving about 8.30am to no people or queues.

Great, we thought. But then we saw the sign, 'Closed Tuesdays'. At least we had lots of empty space to get some pics in the early morning sun.

Oh well - off to the bank of the Seine to head to Notre Dame. It's a magnificent building and the display on how it was all built was fascinating. After a coffee break we crossed the river to the Latin quarter to find Shakespeare's bookshop - within camera range of Notre Dame, we discovered. It's a well known literary landmark and we sat inside the reading room just soaking up history. 

After lunch in the garden nearby, we headed to the Champs Élysées and the Arc de Triomphe. Our final stop was Merci - department store with a difference. Some amazing furnishings, fashion and kitchen stuff. The prices were equally as amazing - but great style.

I'm sitting in our 6th floor apartment in the Marais watching the sun go down over the roofs of Paris with the top of the Eiffel Tower in the distance. This is pretty good.

Here are some pics from today ....

The Louvre - empty!

The Pont de Arts - with the padlocks signifying the love of the couple who placed them there. The railings of the bridge are starting to collapse!

Janine outside the Merci store. The Fiat is their symbol.

The Eiffel Tower and Montmatre ... The highlights of Paris

Today I fulfilled a promise I made to Janine a long time ago ... ThatI would take her to see the Eiffel Tower and the artists quarter at Place de Tetre at Montmatre. I was here in August, 1961 with my parents and brother and today brought back great memories.

There have been some changes of course, getting up the Eiffel Tower is made a lot easy by more lifts and far better crowd control. But the area was surprisingly quite when we got there at 9.30.

We ate lunch in the gardens across the Seine from the Eiffel Tower and then did something we have never done before - we both needed 'to go', so we both hopped into a street side 'facility' - one of those automatic ones that cleans itself after it has been used. We figured, hey this is France and no-one would mind.

With then got the Metro to Montmatre and spent a wonderful couple of hours walking around, visiting the Church of Sacre Couer and watching the artists paint. 

We had some fun working out the Metro, but all in all, a great day.

We're off now to find a little brasserie for a quiet beverage before dinner.

Our usual Sunday afternoon ....

Today being Sunday, we had our usual Sunday afternoon .... Went for a walk, had a coffee and looked at the sites. OK - there was one difference. Our coffee was at one of the hundreds of outdoor coffee shops round the square in front of the George Pompidou Art Gallery in Paris and our walk was around Rue de Rambateau and Rue DeTemple in the Marais.

We ventured into the markets and bought a small slice of Gouda cheese. It tastes divine but at $12 a small slice, it would want to.

Today was really a day of getting settled, buying some food at Mono Prix (supermarket chain) and checking out the best coffee and eating places. Not hard to find those in the Marais.

The Pompidou Art Gallery has some Marc Chagall and Picasos, so there's plenty to see and it's architecture, with all the support beams, pipes and plumbing on the outside is back on trend. It was built 30 years ago.

Tomorrow, the Tour de Eiffel and the sites of Paris.

 

Settling into the Marais

You forget how far away we are from Europe, but 26 hours after we left we're now checked into our apartment in the Marais district. The streets were pretty quiet at 7.30 in the morning but our driver told us they'll come alive this afternoon. We planning on doing some shopping to stock the larder and get to know the area today. Here's a quick pic of the apartment, which has a view of the Eiffel Tower over the roof tops.

After 12 months of planning ...

After a day of packing, organising the house (thanks Vicki) we're sitting, waiting for our flight. Hard to imagine that we'll soon be in the city of 'lurve', as the customs guy said to us. 

One more sleep!

After almost 12 months of planning, we're just one sleep away from heading off to Europe, spending our children's inheritance! Spent the past few days making sure we have E-copies of all our bookings, day trips etc. loaded to the iPad. 

I'm sure the 5 weeks will go by like a flash, but that's what video and stills are for.

Plan is to post once a day to this blog with a couple of images to show what we've been doing each day. We're really looking forward to our day-long tour of the WWI battle fields in the Somme Valley next Friday. 

Hope you enjoy our daily posts.