And the sun came out.

Monday 30th April

Another rainy day in Paris but undeterred we put on rain jackets and ventured out. Not only was it wet but it was also only 9deg. We had to go to an electronics store first up to try and sort out an issue with the tablet. Not a lot of luck there so I'll just persevere with what I know works.

We don't often pick a hotel with stars. This hotel was
really well located only 100 mtrs from the metro station.
The staff were fantastic and very helpful.

We visited Galleries Lafayette shopping complex again this visit. There are great views over parts of Paris from the rooftop but they were brief looks this time because of the miserable weather. The inside of the shopping centre is just beautiful. There were hundreds of people in the store - I guess escaping the weather like us.

The dome over the shopping centre.
The photo really does not do it justice
- the whole place is magnificent.

Sacre Coeur from the rooftop of Galleries Lafayette.

View of guess what?

We headed for a restaurant in Montmartre where we'd had a fabulous french meal on our first visit in 2014 - disappointment; the restaurant was still there but the menu was totally different and the prices had skyrocketed. But we did end up having a lovely Italian lunch nearby.

Final stop for the day was Ateliers des Lumieres which was an exhibition of the work of Gustav Klimt. The queues were extremely long and with the freezing weather we decided to go back to the hotel and book online to visit tomorrow.

Tuesday 1st May

Good! No rain today, a little blue sky and sun, but still pretty cold.

When we headed out this morning the streets were really quiet - we finally figured out that it is a public holiday. It is Labour day, also May Day. There were a lot of street vendors selling lily of the valley which is the flower for the month of May. There were huge protests against the government here today which we caught a bit of, and it's all over the news because of the violence.

We hit the gallery by 9.30 after breakfasting on the way. Good move buying tickets online - by the time it opened at 10 the queues were huge. This exhibition was a sound and light show of the works of Klimt projected on the warehouse walls. We have been to a similar exhibition in Provence on previous visits. The exhibition was just wonderful with the music complementing the art.

We thoroughly enjoyed this exhibition and look forward to a
similar one of different artists later in our trip.

Our afternoon was spent on a cruise on the St Martin Canal. This cruise started in a part of Paris we'd never been to before. The area is a huge entertainment complex containing many performing arts venues. It was a lovely open area and very modern. It was definitely not part of the historical Paris that we are used to. We really enjoyed the cruise which went along the canal from the north east of the city along the canal to finally join up with the Seine. The guide on the boat was great giving a good English commentary with a little humour along the way. The one sad side to the cruise was passing through an area with hundreds of tents housing refugees from the middle east.

This huge silver ball was in the performing arts park complex.
Not sure what its meaning/purpose is.

Canal St Martin. We were lucky the sun came out
and it warmed up to 11deg for our final day in Paris.

Of course, a collie. Because it was a holiday in France
there were hundreds of people enjoying their day off
all over Paris.

One of the 9 locks on our journey down the canal.
At every lock there was always a small crowd
watching the boats pass through.

The boat goes into a 200m tunnel passing under the streets
and the Bastille. Most of the tunnel was built
in the 1830s by hand.
The white blur in the centre of the photo is actually
a giant crane that lives in the tunnel.

The rear of Notre Dame from the Seine.