Paris - October 9 (Geoff) Hi everyone, this is our final blog entry for the adventure that we have just experienced. I am writing this on the laptop whilst sitting at the kitchen bench at home (Oh its so nice to be home!). But now I need to update you on our last day in Paris and the trip home. We had to check out of our hotel so organised ourselves (packed the bags yet again, moving stuff around till it all fitted and hopefully the bags came in under our weight allowance on the planes). Then, after leaving the bags [View Full Entry]

---

---

Paris (Amiens) - October 8 (Geoff) Sue and I decided before coming on this trip that when we were in Paris, we would see some of the country where Australians fought in the great war. So today it was off by train to Amiens to meet up with our tour guide and then spend the day around the Somme. When I worked with DVA, I had heard the names on a regular basis and now we were really here seeing where it all happened. We were met at the train station by our guide, Sylvestre, and along with 6 other Aussies, [View Full Entry]

---

---

Paris - October 6 (Geoff) Sue has big plans for us today - lots of things to do starting with a visit to the Louvre. We head into town expecting lots of crowds and queues but are surprised to find that the queues are quite small. Might be a result of having the museums open free of charge on the first Sunday of the month. We go through the security and show our Paris Museum passes and we are in. So its get hold of an information brochure, orient ourselves and immediately head for that most famous of all paintings - [View Full Entry]

---

---

Paris 7 October (Sue) What can I say about today.... eventually life catches up with us all. We had planned to jump out of bed, catch the metro and then a regional train to Versaille to see the palace and grounds. Instead we woke feeling extremely tired and decided to have a lay day. After all we have seen the odd palace or 2 in the last 7 weeks. We found a shopping centre and cruised the shops. Geoff was very indulgent letting me have a shopping fix while he walked and waited. I only have one negative comment, not enough [View Full Entry]

---

---

Paris - October 5 (Geoff) We had breakfast in the hotel and then got organised to get our Paris passes. This meant getting ourselves organised on the metro to get to the Hard Rock cafe in the 9th Arrondissement. If I do say so myself, we managed this quite well and got there well before the 1:00 o'clock cutoff. Then off to the Gare St Lazare to organise TGV tickets for Amiens on Wednesday. We still have to organise tickets to get us to Versailles but we can do that tomorrow. We decide to walk into the city centre from here [View Full Entry]

---

---

Paris - October 4 (Geoff) Wow what a day and what a girl!! We left Amboise this morning at 11:20 and caught the train for Tours. This was only a short trip so that we could connect with the TGV to Paris, Montparnasse (Paris has lots of Railway stations in different parts of the city, we are finding out!) There was a short changeover time and and bit of pidgin French till we finally confirmed we were on the right platform and then it was on the train and away to Paris. The TGV is France's high speed train (I'm not [View Full Entry]

---

---

Amboise - October 3 (Geoff) Today was C day. C is for Chateaux. When we arrived in Amboise, Sue contacted a little tour company by the name of Acco-Dispo who specialise in touring the area by minibus to arrange a tour of the outstanding Chateaux in the region. We enjoyed a leisurely start to the day and sauntered down to the Tourist Information office to meet our guide, one Pascal Accolay at 10:30. He was a youngish guy who spoke pretty good English, thankfully. We really appreciated not having to wait long as the air temperature here is pretty cold and [View Full Entry]

---

---

Amboise - October 2 (Geoff) We explored the town this morning. Amboise is not a huge place and its city centre is about the size of Manuka. Still it was nice to start the day quietly and spend some time shopping and window shopping (more of the latter than the former). We finished our wander and then strolled along the banks of the Loire river - very peaceful, though the day was a little cool. It was then time to have a look at our first Chateau -the Chateau Royal in Amboise. This was the country retreat of the French Royal [View Full Entry]

---

---

Amboise, Loire Valley 1 October The trip to Paris on the night train was uneventful, but a disturbed night of sleep. The night trains are fast which means they rock from side to side and are noisy. Not the best conditions for sleep. We woke around 7.30am expecting to arrive at Paris by 9am. Somewhere in the night we had lost 2hrs and were informed we would arrive at 11am. Our next train from Paris to Amboise was at 11.40am. When we looked at our ticket we noticed it left from a different train station. As it was an open ticket [View Full Entry]

---

---

Florence - September 30 (Geoff) We were unable to go to either the Uffizi Museum or the Galleria Academia yesterday as they were shut for Monday. So we thought we would try to get into at least one today- the plan was to head towards the Ponte Vecchio and if the Uffizi queues were too long, we would continue across the river and check out the Palazzo Pitti (one of the many Medici palaces in Italy) and the Boboli gardens next door (also Medici heritage). At 10:30, we casually sauntered down to the Piazza del Republica and on to the Uffizi, [View Full Entry]

---

---