OUR EUROPEAN HOLIDAY - DAY 42 - PARIS HERE WE COME

A bit of a more relaxed start to the day today, we didn't need to leave until 8.30am...
Feeling a little sad that this wonderful holiday is almost over... and then a little excited at the same time that we are heading to Paris... wonderful wonderful city and I was so keen to revisit it.

It was such a beautiful day. so clear once again and we just enjoyed the scenery,  we traveled by the river for quite a while and the reflections  in the River Saone this morning were really lovely and worthy of a photo or two or maybe even three....  We took a scenic back route out of the city and joined up to the motorway once we were out of town.

 The drive for the first few hours out of Lyon was really lovely, very green, lots of vineyards.  We had two stops, one half hour stop for a toilet break and a cuppa and our second break of 45 minutes for lunch.

Gary treated us to some French Nougat on the bus today and we were given our tour photographs which  were taken outside the Colosseum in Rome.  It was a pretty good photo of our group..

 Most of us had a bit of a snooze on the bus after lunch before we got to Paris.  We did manage to see the Eiffel Tower in the distance on our way into but now that we are at our hotel, it is no longer visible.

Our last hotel for our tour is quite lovely.  Lovely big spacial room, plenty of light, tea and coffee making facilities which is a bit of a bonus because we have stayed in so my hotels this trip that hasn't had this. 

We are going to need to do a whole lot of repacking here in Paris before we head home.

We arrived about 3.45pm at the Pullman Hotel.  It is situated pretty much on the Seine River and the Metro station into the city is just outside out hotel.   Our room also has awesome views with two sides of it plate glass windows. 

We have a spare couple of hours before we have to be ready to go out to our Celebration dinner all together.

   Our celebration dinner was held at a wonderful French Restaurant called Au Pied Le Cochan, and once again we had our own room in the restaurant, which had several levels to it.   Our dining room was on the third level.  The restaurant was very popular had had lots of people dining in it.  We had a traditional french meal of "French Onion Soup", Beef Bouragine (slow cooked beef in red wine) served with potatoes and then for desert we had 3 traditional fresh deserts, a profiterole, creme brulee and a macaroon - all very tasty. 

We left the restaurant by 8.30pm to embark on our Seine River Cruise at Sunset and also see the lights of Paris.  We had tickets to board the Bateaux Mouches Cruise along the River Seine.  This time we had to share the boat with probably 400-500 other guests.  Normally we have had a boat to ourselves in the past.

 The cruise took us up the River Seine and around the old Paris island and Notre Dame Cathedral and back down past the Eiffel Tower which was lit up by the time we got back down the river and around another island that had the french Statue of Liberty on it.  (The Statue of Liberty in New York was actually a gift to them by the French nation). 

 For some reason they cut our cruise short, and we missed it.  I was pretty disappointed about this as I was keen to show it to Steve.  Still we managed to see it the following day from up on the Eiffel Tower. 

We were back off the boat and back on the coach by 9.45pm and we spent the next hour or more doing a sightseeing town around Paris to see Paris by night and all the landmarks lit up.  We had a great viewing point of the Eiffel Tower at 10pm when all the blinking lights came on.  Gary got our bus driver to stop the bus so tat we could get off and take photos or video's of it. 

We drove through Concorde Square and down the Champs-Elysees down and around the Arc de Tromphe, through the courtyard to the Entrance of the Louve where we saw the glass pyramid.  We drove around the Grand Palais, Paris's city Hall (the Hotel de Ville), the Palais de Justice, the Musee d'Orsay.  It was after 11pm before we got home.  We have already fallen in love with this beautiful city and can't wait to have a full day tomorrow to explore it further.

We were pretty time when we got home and we knew we had another early start in the morning so rather than update my diary we headed straight to bed.  We were at the end of our tour,  two sleeps to go and it will all be over.... We have loved every minute of this tour and couldn't recommend  Insight Vacations more highly enough.  They do a wonderful holiday, and you really don't have to worry about a thing.