Paris a go-go

3 trains and 2 hours in Lilles later, we arrived in Paris.

So we were both a bit tired but wanted to do something for our first night in Paree so we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower. We set off a lot later than we intended so that by the time we got there it was almost midnight. And almost, therefore, Franny's anniversaire. We took some cool photogs of the lights etc before deciding to buy a (quite overpriced) crepe. Much to our excitement and delight, as soon as the nice man handed us our choco-banane goodness, the Tour Eiffel light show started up behind us, heralding the fact that it was in fact midnight. The crepes and the pretty lights led us to believe that it was in fact a birthday miracle (from God). Little did we know that there was more to come. We decided to head home so that we didn't get stranded by the metro, and we were just walking along underneath the Eiffel Tower we spotted two familiar faces: Palex and Phil. We didnt even know they were in France (we knew they were leaving Australia for Europe sometime in July and nothing more) so it was a complete coinicdence and surprise to see them under the Eiffel Tower.

Alex and Phil told us that museums were free on the first Sunday of each month, so we met up with them the next day at the George Pompidou Centre. Aside from having some spectacular views of Paris, the GPC houses the National Modern Art Museum and we saw a very interesting, if slightly draining, exhibition of female artists. After crepes salees for lunch, we went to a cafe called Angelica for what had been described to Palex and Phil as the best hot chocolate in the world. It was pretty good although possibly not quite worth €7 each...

That afternoon we went to the Louvre. We were less focused than we might have been had we actually been paying so we didnt cover much ground, but we looked around the sculptures and saw the Venus de Milo.

We went on the New Europe pub crawl in the evening which was fun, if not exactly showing us the real Paris nightlife. The last club, 6-7, was described as 'the best club in Paris' with a capacity of 800. There were probably 20 people aside from us when we arrived, but we had a fun time anyway.

The next morning, we went to the Pantheon which was amazing. The crypts underneath were a bit creepy, but we saw the tombs of Voltaire and of Marie and Pierre Curie. We walked to l'ile de la cite and went to La Conciergerie, which used to be a prison and was where Marie Antoinette was held before her execution. Next, we went to La Sainte Chapelle which was really beautiful. The stories on the stained-glass windows tell the stories of the Bible. We checked out the Notre Dame but didn't go in as we had both already been with school.

In the evening, we went to Montmatre to see La Sacre Coeur. We watched the sunset over Paris and the street performers while sitting on the hillside. A beautiful last night in Paris.

The next morning, we went to Saint Denis to see the Basilica. We walked around the markets and bought 8 nectarines which we consumed over the course our train journey to Figeac that afternoon.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is where we will leave you. I'm sure that we've bored you sufficiently for now so you'll just have to wait until our next exciting instalment.

Love from Franny and Lucy
xx