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Gerard's Travels
We woke up a bit earlier today, despite our big day yesterday, because there was no way we were missing out on croissants today for breakfast this morning! Great success; when we got down to breakfast they delivered them fresh straight to our table! Sitting at breakfast, we wondered just how far we would've walked yesterday, so we got the map out and retraced our steps. All up, we reckon we walked about 25km yesterday. Le holy ****! While we had an amazing day yesterday, we definitely weren't keen to repeat that walking effort today, and decided our best bet was to jump on the big double decker tourist bus again. Yes, I know it is a bit cheesy, but we did find it as a way of getting around, relaxingly, to all the sights we hadn't seen. Especially when the Metro is all in French; we'd be hopeless, and it would be stressful, getting around. So we left the hotel and walked a couple of hundred metres down to the nearest stop for the bus, which arrived after about 5 minutes. Unfortunately they only offered the bus trip as a two-day option at this time of year, which wasn't going to suit us as this was our last full day in Paris, and therefore we resorted to walking again! Even still, we knew we still didn't have as far to walk today, so it wasn't such a bad thing (and dare I say 'we're in Paris', so who really cares!). Our first destination for the day was the Basilique du Sacré-Coeue, which is a big church set on top of a hill in the suburb of Montmartre. We headed north, back the way we came, in it's general direction, and after about a 20 minute walk we were at the foot of the hill. There before us were a s***load of steps that led up the hill to the impressive looking church at the top. And of course, there before us were a s***load of people selling dodgy souvenirs, including high-quality, expensive and so very exclusive four-stringed bracelets. p****. Daniel and I toyed with the idea of stopping at every one of them and letting them make us one before declining them, but there were so many of them we'd probably still be there while I'm writing my blog (9 days later - yes I know I'm behind), so we decided against it. There was another church to see! We scaled the steps up to the entrance of the church, and went inside for a look. It was quite beautiful inside, with really high ceilings, stained glass windows, and massive paintings along the walls and ceiling. Unfortunately pictures weren't allowed inside so I can't show any. You'll just have to go there! Luckily we were able to take pictures in the crypt below the church (I think), and more impressively at the dome at the top of the bell tower, both of which we decided to explore. The crypt was huge, but going up to the dome was a highlight, as it required scaling up the century-old stone spiral staircase - in all, 234 of them (Lonely Planet told me that). At the top, it offered amazing views over Paris in the distance and Montmartre below. I was going to say it "affords one of Paris' most spectacular panoramas", but Lonely Planet also said that too. Once we'd taken that in, we headed down and into Montmartre, a really artistic suburb of Paris. It was characterised by tightly packed beautiful buildings, heaps of cafés, and winding cobblestone streets - gorgeously quintessential France! We stopped for a coffee and some crepes, which were amazing, before venturing through many of the streets. From the top of the dome, we picked in what direction we wanted to head once we were down to get us into the centre, and in venturing through the streets we set off in that general direction. It was great to see a different part of Paris on our way in, but the story remained so gorgeously the same - picture perfect streets and buildings in every direction. Even better, no sign of the Centre Pompidou. By early afternoon we had made our way to the Musée du Louvre, as I had half thoughts to go in and see the Mona Lisa, but again I decided to wait until I returned. We crossed over the Seine, and strolled around the streets in search of somewhere for lunch. Daniel and I really wanted to try frogs legs, and almost did yesterday but decided to save that excitement for today. Only today we couldn't find where those restaurants were anymore. Despite wandering around for ages we couldn't find it. It was like they'd hopped away (get it?). Our fall back was to find a pub that might show the soccer, as Daniel wanted to watch the Liverpool game on TV that afternoon. We came across a pretty decent looking one that said it was showing it and went inside. But when we got to our table, the only sport showing was wrestling. And worse, the menu was only in French, and really expensive, and as we felt bad getting up and walking out, we picked the only thing from it that we could decipher. And for the next half hour we stuffed our face full of hamburgers while watching full blown tubby men grabbing each other wrestling. At least the hamburgers were really good! As we left, Daniel realised that the soccer didn't actually start until the next hour, so it wasn't like they weren't showing it, but as it had been expensive, and he had half an hour till it started, we moved on to find another pub. It wasn't long until we had - an Irish one - so we knew they'd have it on. It felt a little weird going into an Irish pub in Paris, given in a week we'd actually be in Ireland to go to one! But they spoke English and it had a good atmosphere, not to mention free wifi, so we settled in for a couple of pints. It was never Dad's or my intention to stay for the whole game, as I was keen to go on a river cruise along the Seine, so just after it started we left Daniel there and headed off to the riverbank to get on a boat. The boat tour lasted about an hour or so, and cruised from the islands down to the Eiffel Tower and back. It was nice to see the views of the city from this perspective, and got some interesting facts along the way. For example, the 'New Bridge' to the islands is actually the oldest bridge in Paris. I think they got confused in naming that one. And, the Musée du Louvre is so big it took over 300 years to complete, and has over 16km of galleries. It has so many works on display that if you looked at each work in there for just 3 seconds each, it would take 33 days to see it all. I don't think that's that impressive though; I reckon it'd take longer to go to each dodgy souvenir seller offering four-stringed bracelets and have them make me one for me to reject. Once the cruise was done we met Daniel back at the pub. He'd have never found his way to us because 1: he's completely hopeless with directions, and 2: he was well on his way to being legless. Dad stayed for another couple of beers before deciding it was time for him to go home for a rest, while Daniel and I stuck around and watched the next game. Then the next one. In that time I called back home (free wifi I love you) which was really sweet to hear a friendly voice, got drunk, and Daniel actually did get legless. We rolled out of the pub and headed towards home, a few kilometre walk. We did want to find frogs legs still but Daniel felt he probably wouldn't last without spewing, and that was without the frogs legs being taken into account. We were both almost bursting for the toilet too, so desperation ensued and we hailed a taxi home. Daniel hurled his guts, and then repeated, before passing out in bed, while Dad and I went for a walk and found some dinner at about 10pm before calling it quits. All in a day's work in Paris (we're there)!
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Pam And........sleeping again lol
Pam OMG they are awake!!!