Day 2 in Paris

Is it possible to have a double foot transplant?! Because I need one! And it's not just me with aching feet and legs!

No time for a lie-in here, we were sitting down to breakfast at 7 am this morning, so we could catch the metro train to the Eiffel Tower and be queueing up by 8:30 am for the 9:00 am opening. This was the advice of our Rick Steves travel book on Paris. And it was excellent advice, the queue was already 200 metres long! Jan and I waited almost an hour and a half before we got in the elevator to start the journey to the very top. I'd looked at booking online, but that option was booked out days in advance, and I'd also wanted to be sure to visit on a fine day - no ability to predict that! In the meantime, David and Steve queued separately to walk to the second level, 720 steps! Both pairs of us had interesting conversations with some of the others in our queues as we waited.

We all thoroughly enjoyed the incredible views on what was a gorgeous day at 26 degrees celsius. After being a bit wary at first, Jan and I were pleased to have gone to the top of this amazing tower. Interestingly, the guys were starting their journey down as we were starting up! We couldn't believe the extent of the queues when we left (far worse than when we had arrived), with crowds of people on the footpaths, all heading towards the Tower where they would make the queues even worse, and in the heat...

We caught the train to the Musee d'Orsay, stopped for a lemonade, then headed our separate ways around this beautiful art museum in what had been a railway station, with Rick Steves as our guide again. David and I got a bit lost here, trying to follow Rick's directions, because there was some building work and we couldn't find some displays. Nevertheless, we saw some amazing art work. We then headed separately to the Louvre.

David and I grabbed some lunch in the very crowded Carrousel du Louvre shopping mall. Then we bypassed the queues with our Museum Pass (as we did at the Orsay) and followed Rick's tour around a small part of the museum. We did tend to shortcut it a bit, partly through exhaustion, and partly because we'd heard and seen a lot of these sorts of arts in our 2009 trip (especially at the Vatican Museum and in Venice). We might go back and look at some more on another day. We did manage to get as close as 5 metres away from the Mona Lisa, but my photo is poor because she has glass over her as protection.

I was more excited to find the Apple Store just after we left (don't say a word about my taste!) and got some photos of it to show Andrew, who is as bad as me when it comes to visiting the Apple Stores in cities around the world. The place was packed and flat out.

Next, we headed back to the hotel via the metro, where I had a long soak of my aching legs in the bath.

Tonight we've had a lovely dinner out with the Barrows at a little restaurant recommended by our hotel. It has been such a beautiful warm evening with no Canterbury north-easterlies or nor'westers to spoil it, although we haven't forgotten the earthquakes and periodically look at each other when we imagine we feel one! Andrew and Ross will be impressed that so many French meals get served with French fries! We all chose a French dessert, mine being an island of light meringue floating in a creme anglais custard. Very decadent! I talked David out of the boring and healthy sorbet and fruit salad, and he chose a lovely apricot tart.

Jan and I strolled back to the hotel well behind the guys, and had the unpleasant experience at one point of some nutcase man loping after us like the hunchback of Notre-Dame, very close and threatening and snorting like a pig! Luckily he only followed for 20 metres or so - quite bizarre and rather freaky!

David has dropped off to sleep at his usual bed-time of 9:30 pm (as indicated on the clock), even though we're 10 hours behind NZ time. I'm wide awake as usual! Another early start in the morning, as we hope to head out to VersaiIles.