Paris here we come.

Friday 27th April

Our final day of the cruise and some sad goodbyes all morning. We had to vacate our cabins by 9 but were then able to sit in the lounge till our taxi for the airport. Lunch at the airport and one last portugese tart.

An uneventful trip to Paris, arriving at Orly airport. We decided to take the easy option of a taxi to the hotel and it turned out to be the right move because the french trains are having rolling strikes over the next couple of months and there were no trains.

Saturday 28th April

Our hotel is in a very vibrant part of Paris - the 11th arrondisement - and there are a lot of eating places nearby. We are only 100mt from a metro station so the whole of Paris is at our doorstep. The hotel is pretty basic but the bed is comfortable and the shower is hot with good pressure.

Hey, we got stars on our hotel. Lovely staff here.

 First job was the laundry which for us was no drama - not so for another guy there, problems with his machine which wouldn't wash and then he couldn't open the door. Arrggh!!!

We ventured out after the laundry to do a walking tour of the covered arcades in Paris - think the block arcade in Melbourne, tenfold. Some beautiful architecture dating back to the 1830s, and some beautiful and unique shops.

When we started our walk it was very quiet
- it was a Saturday and both roads and pedestrians
were thin on the ground.
By lunchtime there were a lot more people about.

Beautiful ceilings and mosaic floor tiles.

This building is the Bourse. We hadn't seen the
building before so i had to look it up.
It is the stock exchange.

I'm getting plenty of exercise - seems like every metro line we want to use is the deepest down and we have lots of steps everywhere we go. (The metro is operating as usual - different company to the airport and country trains.) The Paris metro is not friendly to those with limited mobility.  At least the steps are regular (unlike roman steps). With the myriad of lines criss-crossing it makes you wonder what is holding up the buildings of Paris - seems it would be like swiss cheese underneath.

We are both making a real effort with our french though sometimes it seems like we are just using s'il vous plait and merci. We've had short conversations with waiters and a couple of shop keepers where the main topic is where we come from and how long we will be in France. It is all good fun.