Paris

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Our last stop before heading back to Holland is Paris. Paris is all it is made out to be, a beautiful city with lots of history and charm. It really is the city of romance I guess from seeing couples snogging every couple of steps you take. This is where Pip has just joined me and speaking of romance, guess what?????? Nothing. Went up the Eiffel Tower on quite a windy day and was almost blown off. Would be a better place if they had bungee jumping. We are staying so close to the Eiffel Tower that every time we step out our hotel we have to be reminded by another tourist gasping at it that it actually exists. We are also only a short walk from the Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysee. Dad got lost grabbing the car one day and if anybody has seen National Lampoons European Vacation when the Griswalds got stuck on a roundabout for three days, just picture Dad on the roundabout at the Arc de Triomphe which has ten lanes and is the only place in the world where your car is not insured. Fortunately the car wasn’t damaged although the accidents which dad caused are another matter! The Notre Dame was a truly incredible building. Took a river cruise along the Seine but that damn Eiffel Tower stands out everywhere! Last night we strolled and rolled to the Champs Elysee where my evening cuisine consisted of escargot (snails to those of you who are uncultured - Wade and John!), frogs legs (again to the uncultured, these are legs of frogs) accompanied by a bottle of Bordeaux, then finished with profiterolls and a third chin. After dinner we saw a famous cabaret show at the Lido which apparently had lots of brilliant entertainment but I was too focused on titties to notice! Man, I love this place! Off to explore le Louvre today and see if they notice the Mona Lisa on my lap as we leave the building. Tonight we are off to the Moulin Rouge area and hopefully more titties. Have I mentioned that I love this place.

The Louvre: We spent about four hours there but ideally four days would have been better because there is soooo much to see and do in this one place alone. Don’t know what all the fuss is about the Mona Lisa as every piece you see is as spectacular, if not more so. It has probably got even more popular recently because of the hype surrounding The Da Vinci Code. Also saw the Venus de Milo which must have been recently vandalized as she had no arms. The building itself is an amazingly massive structure and incredibly beautiful, as are the gardens surrounding it.

The next day we ventured an hour outside of Paris to Versailles. Went to the Palace and trundled up a couple of hundred metres of huge cobble stones to get to the entrance which really messed up my hair with all the jumping and bumping about (fortunately all this food has added extra padding to my butt)! Took the tour of the rooms of the palace - really nice and all that stuff but the best part of the day was getting stuck down the bottom of the gardens where Pip had to come and rescue me with a golf cart!!!

After a week of lovely warmish weather in Paris, we woke on the Sunday to rain, but fortunately it was our day of driving back to Holland. Good for the grass…..

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Photos

Paris - Arc de Triomphe
Dad and I at the Arc de Triomphe. This is where Dad did the Chevy Chase impersonation around the 10-lane roundabout....

Paris - Eiffel Tower
The three of us on Level One of the Eiffel Tower with the spectacular view of Paris.