Day 22 – Sunday 12 June 2016

Up at 6am & packed our bags before breakfast at 7am so that we could catch up with our fellow travellers before they all went their separate ways. The first batch left for the airport at 7.30am & Piero was back before 9am to take the 2^nd batch of travellers to the airport. We left at 10am & walked the 700 metres to the Amsterdam Railway Station, a grand building in the middle of town on the waterfront. We were catching the 11.17am TVG high speed train to Paris. We caught up with two of our fellow tour group also travelling to Paris on the same train & had a lovely chat until the train arrived & we got onto our respective 1^st Class carriages & allocated seats, very comfortable indeed.

The train is fast and quite, the first part of the journey was a little slow as we made our way out of Amsterdam, not long after we stopped at Rotterdam & Antwerp, then Brussels a little later. After that it was high-speed non-stop to Paris. To our surprise they handed out refreshing towelettes, snacks, like small pastries, sandwiches, coffee or other beverages. Later lunch, a lovely vegetarian (the one I had) or fish with salads & desert – it was better than the aeroplane meals. Most of the countryside we passed through in Holland & Belgium was very flat with farms as far as the eye could see, with occasional small villages dotted around. In France there were some small hills, lots of farmland & less villages – it seems more spread out. There are lots & lots of wind farms generating power. Unfortunately we had some loud & drunk Irish football (soccer) supporters travelling to Paris for the European Cup who sang loudly, joked & blew whistles all the way. At least they were happy & not violent.

It was a long walk along the platform in Paris to the exit & near the exit there were around 20 police & 3 or 4 armed soldiers (they looked very capable with machine guns in the hand) ready for any trouble. We found a taxi & had a nice chat to the driver (after we made it very obvious that we were Australians, he became friendly) as he drove us to our hotel near the Pont Neuf, a prominent bridge over the Seine River near the Louvre. Our hotel is a very quaint boutique hotel, we are in a private area out the back of the main building, complete court yard, sitting area bed room & bathroom with spa bath. The place is painted in at least six colours, not counting black, white or wood. I wish I would be game to colour our home like this one, the place has so much charm & pizazz. After unloading the bags we went for a walk.

Notre Dame Cathedral was our 1^st destination & as we walked over the Pont de Neuf we had a look at the thousands of padlocks that couples have locked onto the fence on the bridge to signify their ever-lasting love (surprising the bridge hasn’t collapsed under all the weight). The Seine River has dropped its flood level since 2 weeks ago, though it is still high & running fast. The Louvre Museum is imposing along the opposite bank. We turn right & walk down past the Paris Courts, another imposing building, then as we get closer to Notre Dame the souvenir shops give its presence away before we see it. There are thousands of people in the square in front of the church & after a few photos we walked towards the entrance to see about going inside to have a closer look. Forget it, the queue is hundreds of people long, so we walk past & down the side there is another entrance with another long queue.

We walked through the park behind Notre Dame before walking over yet another bridge to the Isle of St Louis in the middle of the Seine. This island is full of the most expensive houses in Paris as it is isolated, quite & right in the heart of Paris. The place has a feel like old Paris. We walk down the narrow shopping street through the middle of the island & find it is full of interesting shops, so we spend a fair bit of time slow walking & looking, with an obligatory gelato of course. After we walked back up past Notre Dame it started to rain a little, lucky we had our coats on, suddenly the skies opened & it started to bucket down, we took shelter along with a lot of other Parisians & tourists next to a shop that sells potted orchids. After the rain lightened off we made our way slowly back to our hotel, thankfully finding it easily down the narrow lane it is tucked away. Tereza then took advantage of the spa bath & had a nice long hot bath & massage with the spa jets.

We reflected back to the paintings we seen of Paris & most of them had rain & umbrellas in it. That’s all we have seen of the weather in Paris, light rain interspersed with heavy rain, with a preceding – its about to rain or, its just stopped raining. Its now past 10pm & it is still daylight outside.