A week in Paris

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What a week in Paris with a population of over 13 million and many tourists! The number of people was over-whelming at times. We walked and walked doing well over 20000 steps most days. Occasionally we used the Metro which is a great transport system and easy to use.

We got a 4 day museum pass which we put to good use visiting some wonderful places including the Louvre (huge, it would take 9 months to glance at every piece of art there), Musee d'Orsay, Centre Pompidou (the modern art there was so different to everything else we saw), Chateau de Versailles (magnificent gardens), Musee Picasso, Saint-Chapelle (truly beautiful stained glass windows) and the Musee de l'Orangerie (Monet's waterlillies were in 2 big oval shaped rooms).

We also climbed the Notre Dame, Arc de Triomphe and took the lift up the Eiffel tower to see great views of Paris. Before going up the Eiffel tower at night we saw the light display which occurs for 10 minutes every hour. It took 25 mountain climbers 5 months to install the 20000 lights for this display.

We enjoyed some lovely picnics in the parks of Paris. The parks are everywhere and well used by Parisians who generally live in apartments with no gardens. The parks gave us a peaceful place to rest, eat and read.

On our last night in Paris we went for a stroll along the Seine. It was fun to see different groups of people dancing: Ballroom, Irish, Tango and Latin dancing were all happening in close proximity to each other with live music accompanying each.

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