Bon Jour!

Tuesday 13th September

Well we were up early today, packed, had breakfast and then on to the tour bus to St Pancras Station where we boarded the Euro Star train. We set off at 185 miles an hour, travelling through a lot of tunnels through England until we eventually went under the Channel. We seemed to quickly come out the other side and then travelled about an hour and a half through France to Paris. Immediately we were in France you could see a change in the architectural style of the houses. There is a distinct difference between English and French design. The countryside looked quite similar to England, though the natural vegetation reminded me so much of the old movies based in France. We eventually arrived in Paris, the station was far less impressive than the English one which has been modernised to accommodate the Euro Star and we had to wander through the back entrance to get to our coach. We were driven through the centre of Paris, past the Moulin Rouge, along Charles de Gaulle Avenue, onto the Avenue des Champs de Elysses, across the River Seine and on to the Eiffel Tower. We then took a double storey lift up to the second level and as we came out of the lift and looked over Paris, the reaction was – WOW!!! The view was absolutely amazing and would you believe we had wonderful weather again which allowed us to see all sides very clearly. Some details about the tower. It was built in the 1890’s as a highlight to an International Trade Show with the purpose of dismantling it after the Show as it was basically a useless structure. The engineer who built it was not happy with this and raised sufficient money to keep it functioning after the Show. Very soon after the Show, Thomas Edison invented the radio and needed a high structure in which to place an aerial and therefore the useless structure suddenly became very useful to France. The crowds visiting daily is testament to its popularity. It is an amazing structure.

Paris is an interesting city dating back to 200BC. It is one of the oldest European cities. An interesting feature is that in the old city centre all the buildings are six storeys high and when you look down on it from the Eiffel Tower, it has a flat appearance. There are no sky scrapers in what they call Paris, but there are in the greater Paris.

We drove round the Arc de Triomphe. This is a huge archway set in the middle of a roundabout. There are nine roads feeding into the roundabout. Now we all know roundabouts need rules. There is one rule for this roundabout and that is there is NO RULE!!! That was an incredible experience, watching cars negotiate nine lanes on a roundabout!! The whole bus cheered and clapped when the driver negotiated his way to the other side.

After the Eiffel Tower we chose not to have a late night, so booked into our hotel which is about one kilometre away from the Tower and went for a walk deciding to have dinner at a side-walk restaurant. With Jill’s minimal French we still managed to get what we thought we had ordered. Tomorrow we are visiting the Louvre in the morning and the Palace of Versailles in the afternoon and in the evening we are going to see a cabaret at La Nouvelle Eve, so unsure whether we will be up to typing a blog when we come home.

Our female Tour Director Wanda is English and seems pretty knowledgable and amusing, though we had a French guide Domenique to show us around Paris and she speaks English with a very strong French accent. The Americans on the trip are having quite a problem following her. There are 43 people on the tour and we have met two Australian families so far, but the majority seem to be Americans. Looks like it should be a good trip.