Nice Monday 8th Sept

 Sunday 2nd and Monday 3rd May - Paris 

Sunday was grey and although it was supposed to get to over 20 degrees, I didn’t really have warm enough clothes on, luckily I did have my jacket, which helped to keep out most of the wind from the North! 

Managed to find the bus stop for my tour about 30 minutes walk from my hotel by the Opera Garnier

Drove towards the Seine past Le Louvre - I didn’t realise quite how big it is, such long buildings!

The traffic was a bit horrendous because of  preparations for the Olympics, a lot of which are going to be held in the centre of the city, have cut off lots of road and spoiled a lot of the buildings with hoardings and temporary constructions. Added to this there was a big bicycle ride through along the Seine which also stopped traffic.

You can just see a few of the stragglers in this photo, luckily we were stopped right next to Notre Dame which is supposed to be completed by December this year, looks like a lot still to do, but then again a lot is under scaffolding 

We moved slowly through a bit more of the city, the drivers seem to have a lot of patience, with motorbikes and bicycles cutting in front. I got out by the Eiffel Tower to take my cruise along the Seine. Interestingly people were lined up along the middle of the road to take photos of themselves - slightly dangerous- look at the nutters!

The cruise was for an hour and went up river past the Ile de la Cite which is where Notre Dame is and Ile - of St Louis which is mostly residential, around the islands and back again, really enjoyed it partly as I sat inside out of the cold, unfortunately that meant I have a few window reflections in my photos, but what price is comfort?

Part of the Louvre, from the water

A different view of Notre Dame with an indication of the work being done.BElow your can see some of the bridges - through the bridge.

Museo d’Orsay where I’m going there on Wednesday - it holds a lot of the Impressionist paintings, I learn’t today there is  another Museum that has a lot more of Monet’s work, not sure if I will have the time to go. This building below has nice pointy towers, apparently Marie Antionette was kept there. The Conciergerie.

Time for a quick spin around the Arc de Triomphe and that was Sunday, wanted to get back to the hotel and get warm.

Monday a different day, there was blue sky and I wore my merino, I walked down to les Jardins Tuileries to spend some time before my Eiffel Tower appointment, Nearly got bowled by a cyclist, when I had the green crossing sign, they seem to make up their own rules, and rarely stop for anyone.There are constructions and deviations as they call them at the Tuileries too, but still enough to enjoy.

The more formal part, but it seems wildflower growing has his Paris as well, Contrary to Spain there has been a lot of rain in Paris so the grass is very green and rich - I think they are ravens??

There were some really cool sculptures too - I particularly like the fallen tree one and the bright scary one below as it was so unexpected amongst all the classical surrounds.

Then it was a walk further on to the Eiffel Tower, A guided tour.  The tower is being painted a new bronze colour for the Olympics - apparently it was supposed to be gold, but only looks gold under the lights at night, and as it takes three years to paint, too late to change. The original colour was red - yuck. The new colour is much better.

So we went up, right up to the top, in the lifts of course, changed lifts at level two then went up

View from the top was amazing, lucky it was a relatively fine day, pretty sure that is Sacre Coeur in the background, may try to go there Thursday 

You can see some of the construction for the Olympics 

At the end of this island towards the west, Paris has a smaller Statue of Liberty and it faces the one in New York, Mr Eiffel designed the inner structure of the statue. He was very wealthy he owned manufacturing companies that made the metal that went into the tower, They believe it would have cost 36 million today, although it was supposed to be temporary it was saved by his friend Thomas Edison who gave him an antenna to put at the top, so since then it has also been a communications tower, and was used as such during the world wars, they had a war office at the top. 

Took the stairs down from the second level,it seemed to take forever, and the ground was still a long way away.

But made it down and met Joy’s friend Helen by the bridge, We walked together to the Arc de Triomphe, went around in a circle to start with but eventually got there,we walked down the Chanmps Élysées, stopped for an expensive drink in one of the cafe’s. I had an iced tea with rose, raspberry and lychee, it was beautiful, but could have done with one twice the size, We consoled ourselves about the price as we got free napkins, little but fabric, and then we used their toilet, never pass up the chance to use a toilet in Europe, and we were able to try some hand cream on the way out!! We continued our walk, past Charles De Gaule 

And went as far as we could go before more deviations, one thing about the deviation is that we could stand in the middle of the road and take a photo back towards the Arc !

Through some more gardens then it was back to the hotel! 

I forgot to mention I found a chai latte this morning, what a treat that was, to celebrate I bought an Italian salad from the same place on the way back, that was yummy too with roasted peppers, prosciutto, artichoke hearts, buffalo mozzarella, etc etc.

Breakfast Nom Nom!