Day 29 - Paris

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We got up at 7:30am after very, very little sleep to say our goodbyes to the group that was either heading back to london or to the airport. It was so sad, as it is at the end of Contiki to say goodbye to everyone. This one there is a lot of people to catch up with in Melbourne and even Australia but there are others who we may not see again, or at least for a while. We hugged, and they made their way out to the bus, all feeling very sorry for themselves, and probably a little sad also.
After we waved goodbye we made our way in and tried to get some food in our stomachs before making our way back up to our room for more of a snooze as checkout wasnt until midday and we were knackered.
Our alarm sounded at 11:15am to get up and shower etc, pack up our crap and we left the hotel by about 12:30pm. We had to catch a cab to our new hotel for the night that was literally a 2minute walk to Arch de Triumph. It was such a stunning hotel that only cost us like 105euro for the night. We had a little balcony and it was in a very clean, safe looking area. Definately would recommend it for any one going to Paris.
We organised with Rob, Reid (Toronto) and Amy and Alex (Ontario) to meet up with them at Notre Dame at 2:00pm so we went in and did that, and took pictures. It was very beautiful inside. Mary and I had grabbed some subway for lunch and they had already eaten so after we jumped on the metro to go out to Sacre Couer. We got off at a stop that probably wasn't the closest, then got a little lost trying to get there. Walking there though we passed through a street market type thing and they had bananas for only 99c a kg! I bought one banana and it cost me just 20c! Bargain!!
We walked for ages, all up hill and eventually found the steps that lead up to the Sacre Couer. It was also very stunning, and so was inside but what we did was paid 5euro to go up to the top of it. This included climbing 300 steps, much like we did at St Peters in Vatican City. It was a tight squeeze and not recommend claustraphobic people but it was worth it. The views from the top were stunning. You could see the whole city and the Eiffel Tower. We stayed up here for a while as no one could really be bothered doing much at all today. We eventually made our way down, back to the metro and back to our hotels. Amy and Alex were staying just near Notre Dame so we decided to meet up there for dinner at 8:30pm. We were staying round the corner from the Canadian boys so we caught metro back with them and organise to meet up again at the metro at just after 8:00pm. We showered and got cleaned up and met back up with the girls before making our way round to the restaurant where we'd had the amazing lunch the day before. This time I got the entree of the salmon, the duck for main and no desert as i'd learnt my lesson yesterday. After dinner we walked around for a bit taking photos before saying bye to the girls and catching the metro back to our hotel area where we went to a cafe with Rob, Reid and Justin (all Toronto). We sat having drinks and remenising the previous two weeks and the good times we had. We left them about 1:30am and headed back to our hotel for a good nights sleep.

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