Euro Day 1 - Paris - so French!!

Monday, 24 June 2019

After an eternity spent in planes, we finally arrived at CharlesDe Gualle airport at 8am today. With a bit of bumbling around we found our way on to the appropriate city train and then slogged the kilometre or so from the main station to our hotel (a fancy youth hostel really) where we were allowed to leave our luggage but not check in yet.  

With a day to kill before we could get into our room we'd already decided to do the easiest activities possible for brain-dead travellers... the hop-on-hop-off bus (without too much actual hopping off), and the Seine river cruise. Easy. We just had to walk a few zillion Parision blocks to pick up the tickets we'd prebooked.  As it happened it turned out to be a great walk through what seemed to be the most parisian streets and markets possible. Being a Sunday the traffic was pretty quiet for a while which made the journey lovely, if a bit hot.

We stopped along the way for baguettes and cheese from the supermarket and pain-au-chocolate for lunch dessert.  We ate these in a lovely little park along the way.

Once down at the ticket place we hopped on the next bus and drove past every tourist site possible (or so it seemed).  It was getting really warm, so whilst it was lovely when the bus was moving, when it stopped it was pretty hot!  Anyway - the sites were all amazing..

I could go on for pages and pages but you get the idea.

We eventually got off near the Eiffel tower and walked across the river to check it out a bit closer. It's booked out for taking the lift up it for months so tomorrow morning we'll get there early to walk up the stairs.  

After walking around the tower we went down the river to take the cruise, which was very nice and easy too. It was getting really really hot so the breeze by water was really nice.

After the cruise we hopped back on the bus and headed home, finally getting back by 5:30 - pertty good given we'd all been up for a good 36 hours or so by then! Our accommodation is really cool, and we have a great balcony looking straight up at Sacre Coeur.

And it has a teeny tiny lift that only fits 2 people. So its that or the very old staircase.. 

After a brief rest and regroup we went out for crepes for dinner, then visited the Sacre Coeur with the thousands of other tourists..

It's just a 10 minute walk away from the hotel so we're back now and ready to crash. It's been a long but fun day1