Day 3: Up bright and early to get into the Notre Dame before the madding crowds - 2 blocks down the road. Massive and impressive church - 8 centuries old. No sign of the noted Hunchback of Notre Dame! Quite an interesting story on the evolution of the church over the centuries which was told in pictures and words on many billboards in several different languages. Saw the statue of Jean De Arc, visited the Treasury with all it's treasures - many diamond encrusted. Had to tell John to keep his voice down.... a church after all. It's a very impressive landmark as you know - and we're glad we saw the inside of it. With it being so close to where we're staying we see it often with huge crowds. From there we caught a ... read more

Bon Jour! Day 1: We have a lovely apartment at the Citadines in a very lovely central spot across from the river Seine. What an amazing place the Seine is with it's restaurants, pop up shops on the pavements, kids areas with games painted on the grounds, e.g. hopscotch and many other games I've never seen before but look intriguing. There are some buskers, and oh, the padlocks locked onto the bridges - this is where lovers buy the padlocks with their names engraved and lock them onto the bridge fencing and throw the key into the river. This seals their love for one another. The boats on the river are varied with a lot of houseboats, tourists boats, commercial ones and people being ferried here and there - it never stops and is great to ... read more

Monday, Tuesday & Wednesday. Bacchus next door now and what it looks like in Winter time. Red doorway on left is door to our apartment on the 1st floor. Waiting for the subway train - almost have it mastered!! Reproduction of lunchtime for the girder workers for the Empire State Building. Ellen's Stardust Diner - a must for every visitor to New York - all the waiters are very good singers - of all types of songs - apparently they have to do some in the 50s & 60s and some opera - we had the best time in there for a couple of hours or so. The waiters, or servers as they're called are waiting to be 'discovered' or working around auditions for acting around Broadway or films. Helicopter ride around Manhattan and over and ... read more

Thursday was not a quiet day! We did a bit more shopping after catching the subway into town and then had some lunch - had a late start. We bought tickets to Mama Mia the Broadway show and ended up there later on that night - which meant filling in 5 hours before the show started. We went to the huge department store - Macy's where I had a makeup session - great fun and then moved on - we did a lot of walking and subway travelling in between times then had dinner at an Irish pub - yum - had Shepherd's Pie - just beautiful. Off to see Mama Mia which was really great but we all agreed that watching the Movie that we had been spoilt by that but still great to see. ... read more

Yesterday we bought a subway pass and went downtown like a local on a Sunday afternoon. First we went to Central Park Station - which is now 100 years old! Very large place with a lot of shops, supermarket and of course trains. Times Square was mad through the week, Sunday afternoon was just as busy as they had a parade. We think it was for some Polish holiday. The police had barricades up to control both the parade and the crowd. A lot of people weren't happy with the barricades as they had to walk back to go to a temporary walkway which meant going back a fair way to get to the point where they were told what they had to do. We went through a few shops around the parade, like Zara, and ... read more