Paris Day 2

Big day ahead today. Kim's birthday too.

We got up early and took the metro to meet our tour bus. We had a bus tour through Paris, a boat tour of the Seine and then lunch up the Eiffel Tower.

The bus tour was ok, but the commentary kept dropping out. We checked out the Louvre amongst other things. Again Paris is stunning and one of those places you just have to see to do it justice.

The boat trip was something a little different and very enjoyable. You see a different side to a city from the water. Got spectacular views of Notre Dam and other notible buildings that I can't remember.

The highlight of the tour was lunch at the Eiffel Tower. Word of advice. If you are coming to Paris and want to go up the Tower, pre book. The queues were massive. We managed to jump to the front. We had a couple of hours to explore before lunch so we took the chance to get some snaps and look around. The one surprising thing about the Tower is that it is Brown. For some reason I thought it would be grey.

Lunch was good, although we had to share our table with a couple of rude Americans. They were the first Americans I have ever met who DIDN'T want to talk. Bonus was they didn't want to drink so Kim and I got to share a bottle of nice French Red.

We also got to see a massive lightening storm from up the Eiffel Tower. Very cool.

After lunch we walked from the ET to the Louvre. We were running a bit behind time so went straight to see the Mona Lisa. It's a little smaller than I thought, but tres cool, except the massive crowd of Americans taking photos. I wanted to see the Egyptian artifacts so we didn't get a chance to look at all the paintings before it closed. We planned to go back and do that on Tuesday - more on that later. Again, a word of advice : it would take a day or two to get around the Louvre so you have to pick and choose what you want to see. I would recommend setting side a whole day and get there early. We unfortunately didn't see much so will have to go back.

Tickets are cheap at 6 Euro per pavillion, of which there are 3 or 4.

Very tired after our big day, so back to the Hotel for a rest and tea.