A week in Paris - Day 2

 **Warning - this is quite a photo intense post**
On Tuesday morning we hopped on the metro and made our way to the city centre.

And as luck would have it, we chose the carriage with the most annoying occupant on it...A middle aged French woman singing at the top of her lungs. I really wouldn't have minded (AT ALL) if she could hold a note and sing in key, but this was not the case. It was rather amusing since we had no idea what she was singing about and the two ladies opposite us smiled and snicked every now and then, shaking their heads. As the train came to a stop she made her way through the carriage asking for money, when she got to us she decided to give us a brief and very incorrect history lesson about the Eiffel Tower. It was an interesting train ride to say the least!

 

We started our day at the top of the Champ Elysees by the Arc de Triomphe. It surprised me because it was A LOT bigger than what I had imagined...("That's what she said" - Sorry I couldn't resist - this is a general response that I can expect from our group of dysfunctional friends for such a sentence! I miss you guys!!)

We strolled through the city towards the Eiffel Tower, passing Hotel Shangri La - one day when I'm big I will stay there for a night or two!

 

The Eiffel Tower dominates the skyline as it comes into view, 324m high, made of wrought iron, it's hard to not be amazed at the architectural genius that went into building this beauty. 

After admiring the tower from up close, we made our way up to the second floor, despite the cold winds, and looked out over beautiful Paris, the view from up there is amazing.

Unfortunately the top floor was closed for maintenance, so we made our way down the stairs to the first floor, they had an ice rink set up where youngsters were gracefully gliding across the ice and right next to that was a little booth where we watched a very interesting short film about the history and construction of the tower.

We strolled through the Champs de Mars, took a few touristy photos, made our way past the Hotel des Invalides, towards the Seine, we took a slow walk along the Seine, past the National Assembly, the Pont des Alexandre bridge and crossed the river to the Place de la Concorde.

It was drizzling as we walked up the Champs Elysees, we browsed through random shops, and then it started to rain, heavily, so we dashed into the Mercedes Benz showroom much to Riaans delight.

Once the rain subsided we walked up the rest of the Champs Elysees towards the Arc de Triomphe, stopped for an early dinner and then we made our way back to the Metro. It was time to go back to Montmartre, we had one last stop for the day - the Moulin Rouge. After walking up and down the risqué Boulevard de Clichy we were dead tired, we covered approximately 20km for the day, and decided to make our way back to the hotel where some more french red wine and a comfy bed awaited us.

If you missed day 1 you can read all about it here.