Blogs from Île-de-France, France, Europe - page 463

Woke up 5 am, went to meeting place for the beginning of the tour. The rest just made the bus, by a solid 10 seconds (we were driving out of the place when they turned up). A few hours of driving, and we went to the white cliffs of dover (self explanatory) and then across on a massive ferry from dover to france. Another few hours more driving and a short break before we arrived in paris. Entered our hotel, unpacked a bit of stuff, then went on a tour around the city at night. This was quite cool, cause there was a ton of places to see and they were all lit up and looked fantastic. So we went around the place getting a short history of each building. As we went up to one ... read more

We possibly had too much to drink our first night in Paris, because we somehow slept through breakfast today. We blame it on our new french-polish friend Hans from the La Fourmi and our unhappy bartender who relunctantly served us another drink. Refreshed by an unexpected COLD shower this morning and free tickets from a generous french couple, we spent today at the Louvre (amazing and overwhelming). We are so resourceful that we were able to give our canadian friend, Kevin, a guided tour of the french sculptures because he was a bit lost. It could have been a ploy for his dinner invite, but we caught on quickly and sent him politely on his way. We encountered our first rude french person at the RER train station to the Eiffel tower, which Heather handled with ... read more

Hey all. Just want to drop a line to let you know that we made it. Our very long travels warranted a long nap after we filled our bellies with parisian pizza. It just happened to be right across the street from our hostel otherwise we might of looked for something more parisian. We are now rested and showered and on our way out for some more grub and cocktails. No pictures yet, but it would of been fun to get a pic of us walking down the street with our 30 lbs packs. Lets just say that the complaining has already started, at least for me, and we have only been here less than 12 hours. We will write soon with better stories and pics. Au revoir!... read more

Geo: 48.8567, 2.350992 January - "The best laid plans... hey, they worked!"Today's plan was to head down to the "buffet breakfast." After 7 minutes outside the elevator, we gave up and headed down 5 flights of stairs to the breakfast room to find all sorts of croissants, cheeses, and jellies. €9.50 seemed a bit excessive for something so meager, so we decided to set off and find something closer to the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, we didn't have our coats, bags, etc., so it was up 5 flights and back down again. What's up with all of the spiral staircases in Europe? They are everywhere. Most all are-indeed-not anti-clockwise. (We miss you, Jane.)We Metro-ed our way to the Tour Eiffel area and stopped into a café for breakfast. Everything was great-croissants, bread, omelets, banana and nutella crepes, ... read more

The final day of our trip was our visit for the kids to Disneyland Paris. The weather was the worst day of our trip which was OK considering we're coming home tomorrow and we actually had more opportunities to be inside than some of our other days. We're glad we had such nice weather for most our D-Day touring. Disneyland Paris is much like the Magic Kingdom or Disneyland CA, though slightly smaller. We have a couple of pictures of the castle and Diana with Minnie and Mickey, but we're having trouble loading them now, so we'll try once we're home. One advantage of this resort being newer than its US counterparts is that the rides are all newer and better. Space Mountain here (called Space Mountain Mission 2) is much more exciting than those in ... read more