Well, things are going well here. Yesterday I walked up and down steep hills and lots of stairs, and today I have walked about 10km but on the flat, all the while seeing amazing sights, smelling amazing sells and every so often stopping to eat amazing food (I am fast running out of stomach!).

Yesterday I did Montmartre including the Basilica du Sacre Coeur and the Place du Tertre. Quite a workout! The Basilica in particular - when buying my ticket to climb up to the dome I was vaguely aware in the back of my mind that there would be stairs involved, but hadn't figured that they would be so tightly winding and relentless. You pay you 5 euros and go through a door and immediately find yourself climbing an ancient stone staircase. It spirals up and up and you can't see how far you have come or how far there is to go. After a while the air gets colder so you figure you must be near a door, and that's about the only clue you get as to how much climbing there is left to do. But when you get to the top it is an awesome view. I took some great photos which I will upload when I can find an internet cafe where this is permitted. On the climb down I remembered to count the stairs - there were 317!

Having earned it, I went to the famed Cafe des deux Moulins on rue Lepic for lunch. It is not quite the same as in the movie, my table was were Georgette's tabac would have been, but the vibe is right and the service good. The food was great and I ate more than I possibly needed to - a delicious and fresh salade nicoise with pink grapefruit juice followed by a raspberry clafoutis and great coffee.

If food has been a focus for me across the rest of this trip, in Paris it may well become an obsession. Everything is amazing - fresh, tasty, high quality... Yesterday I had two (was spoiling myself) delicious canneles from La Grande Epicerie (which makes the David Jones food hall look like Aldi), today I started my walk by going to the Fromagerie Lepic and buying myself a small goats cheese which I carried with me on my walk as far as the Tuilleries where I bought a small baguette and I sat by the fountain and broke the cheese into pieces, stuffed it into the baguette and went to heaven.

Today's walk has encompassed a lot. I started in Montmartre and muddled my way without a map across to l'Arc de Triomphe. From there I strolled the Champs Elysees (of course), down to the Tuilleries before then turning back along the river and heading to the Eiffel Tower. Decided to take the lift rather than the stairs and stood in the queue for an hour, then went to the second floor as the summit was closed due to bad weather. I froze on the second floor, and you can see a fair bit of fog in a number of the photos I took. After the Tower I walked along the Champs de Mars, and then cut a path across the 7th and 6th arrondissments to arrive at the Jardins du Luxembourg. I think I may take the Metro home!

There is a lot to happen upon in Paris - people painting on canvases in the streets, antique markets, organic food markets, jazz bands... I saw them all today. This place really is alive.