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Published: August 30th 2009
Paris
Beautiful Eiffel Tower at the stroke of midnight on New Years Eve! - Since Hannah and I both had quite some time off work over Christmas and New Years Eve we decided to head across to Paris for the New Year Celebrations. We made our way to St. Pancreas train station in London and caught the Eurostar train straight into the centre of Paris. The trip took almost two and a half hours, most of which was spent sleeping. We arrived in Paris in the early afternoon and once there we queued for metro tickets to get to our hotel. Suddenly I heard my name being called, I turned around to find Cath and Michelle from our Topdeck tour, standing right behind us. After a brief catch-up we decided to meet up with them on New Years Eve to Celebrate, we got our metro tickets and made our way to the hotel. Hannah had booked us a room in a fancy hotel called La Bourdonnais which was located only minutes walk from the Eiffel Tower, it was fantastic. We dumped all our gear in the room then set off for a walk. It was a beautiful day in Paris today and I took some amazing photos of the incredible Tower as the
Paris
Around Paris on the sightseeing bus sun slowly set behind it. Shortly after we headed back to our hotel room to have a rest before a big night tonight.
A few hours later we were readying ourselves for a night tour we had booked through viator.com. Tonight we were going on an illumination tour around the beautiful city of Paris, followed by seeing a show at Moulin Rouge, the most famous cabaret in the world. We actually couldn’t book tickets through the Moulin Rouge website but instead found a tour company who could take us there for a little extra. We headed back into the city and to the meeting point where a coach was waiting for us. Since we were running out of time we had a quick stop at McDonald’s on the way for dinner. The illumination tour took us on a similar route as the night tour we did on our Topdeck trip, however the Topdeck one was a lot more interesting. We were told on the way around that we couldn’t get into the 21:00 Moulin Rouge show so instead we would see the 23:00 show. To kill time and for no extra charge we were taken on a boat ride
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Beautiful Paris on an icy cold day in winter down the River Seine, which was much more entertaining as it was something I had not yet done in Paris.
Finally after already quite a long night we made our way across to Moulin Rouge and after a long wait in the freezing cold we were allowed inside. The place was huge and every single seat was taken, it was packed. We sat down and poured the free champagne and the show shortly began. It was incredible, really really good, both Hannah and I loved every minute. It wasn’t just the dancing and the can can girls but there was also quite possibly the best juggler I have ever seen, this guy was crazy, he was so good. After a fantastic night and amazing show at Moulin Rouge, the tour group jumped back into the coach and we were dropped of at our hotel, we went straight to our room and straight to sleep.
30/12/2008 - This morning we woke up quite early as usual but were still very tired from the night out last night. We got ready and headed out to explore Paris in a little more detail. It was absolutely freezing outside today, and quite
Paris
Snowing in Paris! a miserable day as well. We decided to jump aboard a sightseeing bus today so we could spend the day visiting all the various sights. It was an open top bus and I tried my best to stay out top to get some good photos, but it was so incredibly cold outside for the most part I was trying to keep warm inside the bus like everyone else. As we made our way around we stopped at Notre Dame Cathedral, the Opera House and the Arc de Triumph before jumping off to have a look around the Arc and Champs d’Elysees. We stopped to have a warm drink and a snack before browsing through the fancy shops and eventually getting back on the sightseeing bus.
We were so tired and cold today, we headed back to the Eiffel Tower on our way back to the hotel. As we walked back it began to snow, it was the first time I had really seen heavy snow and in Paris it was beautiful. I took loads of photos of this wonderful scene in front of the Eiffel Tower then slowly we continued back to the hotel. Hannah and I both had
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The Arc de Triomphe at the end of the Champs-Elysees a rest in our warm hotel room before eventually heading back out to the Champs d’Elysees for dinner. When we were in Montpellier last year we ate at a restaurant called Entrecote which was an amazing steak restaurant. We had found one in Paris and once again had a delicious meal in this fantastic but pricey restaurant. After dinner we had a bit more of a look around the beautiful Champs d’Elysees at night then headed back to the hotel room for a good night’s sleep.
31/12/2008 - It was the last day of 2008 and we were going to spend the day exploring the famous Louvre Museum. It was another cold and gloomy day today, the top of the Eiffel Tower was hidden by thick clouds. We ate breakfast and made our way to the Louvre to find a massive queue stretching back at least a mile or two. It was so busy because everyone was in town for New Year’s Eve and the museum was closed yesterday. Once we eventually made it inside the place was absolutely packed, we only just managed to get an audio guide then began exploring this massive place. There was no way
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The spectacular Louvre museum and glass pyramid. we would see it all today, you would need to spend a few days in here to really appreciate the vastness of the museum. We wondered around following our audio guide as best we could listening to most of the commentary. We found the room with the most famous piece of artwork, which everyone came to see, the Mona Lisa. This room was insane, people were everywhere, pushing and shouting, it was like a rock concert. Hannah and I shoved our way through to have a very quick glimpse before we were pushed out of the room by the frustrating security guards.
After the chaos to see the Mona Lisa everything else seemed much quieter. We continued around the massive museum throughout the afternoon and actually got to see quite a lot. We left not too long before it closed for the day and exited via the shopping centre to have a look at the inverted glass pyramid which everyone seemed to like touching. We then caught the metro back to our hotel to get ready for tonight. Once we were ready Hannah and I set off back to the Champs d’Elysees for dinner. We choose the pizza place
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Outside The Louvre Museum next door to Entrecote, it was also a really good meal, though the prices were insanely expensive, about double the normal since it was New Years Eve. Afterwards we met up with Cath and Michelle who eaten earlier and we all decided to get some dessert at Haagen-Dazs. It was amazing, we all stuffed ourselves and couldn’t bear to see chocolate ever again.
It was getting late now, we rushed to the metro and got off at the Eiffel Tower along with thousands of others who were doing the same thing. We only barely made it there to find there was no real countdown or even any fireworks this year. All of a sudden the Eiffel Tower changed from a glowing blue to sparkling yellow, it was incredible. We picked a spot and celebrated with a few drinks under the Tower. There were so many people here, hundreds and thousands of people all over the place. We hung around for quite some time before Hannah and I slowly headed back to our hotel. We arrived back in the early hours of the morning and after another long day fell straight to sleep.
01/01/2009 - We slept in a
The Louvre
A stunning dinner room table inside the 'apartments' in the Louvre while this morning after getting in quite late from last night’s celebrations. It was our last day in Paris so we packed our stuff, ate breakfast downstairs and checked out, we left our luggage at the hotel for now. We headed toward the Notre Dame since I had not yet had a good look around inside, however once we got there, the queues were madness. There had to be thousands of people queuing to go inside, probably because it had been closed the last few days over New Years Eve, we decided against the crazy queues. Instead we had a quick walk around and found somewhere for lunch, had a good meal and once again were on our way.
We jumped on the underground metro and headed toward the Grand Arche, which sat in line with the Arc de Triumph and Champs d’Elysees on the other side of the city. It was massive, I couldn’t believe the size of this thing. Last time I came to Paris I could see it from the top of the Eiffel Tower and it was tiny, but standing up close it had to be one of the tallest buildings in Paris. It was
The Louvre
Just one of the amazing room you can find in The Louvre another miserable and extremely cold day today but the rain had held off until now. Since we still had some time before our flights and the rain was getting heavier we decided to head up to the computer museum at the top of the Arche. To get there we took an incredibly freaky see-through elevator right through the centre of the cube, it was awesome. The computer museum however was really boring, after a quick look around I had had enough. I found Hannah (who thought it was really interesting) and persuaded her to leave. We headed back down the see-through life and back to our hotel to get our luggage.
We slowly made our way back to the train station where we ran into a café to escape the pouring rain. After a bite to eat and a few drinks we headed through customs and jumped aboard the train for the trip back into England. We arrived back home late that night after a fantastic New Years break in Paris.
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