Day 25 - Friday 6th October - Paris

Slow start to the day because we'll be hoping to cover a little more ground today. Jackets on because the weather is a little cooler, especially in the mornings, and we set off to find Tour Montparnasse. This is the tallest tower in  Paris with a panoramic observation floor with 360° views over this beautiful city. We had to change Metro lines a few times to get there which meant MANY steps up and down but we finally got there, bought our tickets. The young girl who sold us our tickets asked where we were from. When we told her she said she loved Australia and her brother lives in Perth so she'd been there.  She told us she had a tattoo of the map of Australia. We got into the lift and sped up to the 56th for in 38 seconds. We couldn't even tell we were moving.  From this vantage point we had the most spectacular views over Paris you could ever imagine. It was hard to stop taking photos. We walked all the way around and then back again. What a beautiful city this is.There was also an outside terrace 3 floors up. ..... by stairs. I took a big breath and slowly but surely made it up to the 59th floor. Took lots more photos and then even more slowly I made my way down with John's help. Going down is more painful so I take John's arm and he helps me down. We caught the lift down, went back to the metro and plotted a route to the Arc de Triomphe and got out at Charles Degaulle Etoile. Photos with the Arc, then a nice slow stroll down Avenue Champs Elysees. When we were here two years ago it was pouring with rain when we walked here. Today a beautiful sunny day. We were getting hungry so we decided to eat somewhere on the Champs Elysees and at random picked one of the many restaurants, this one was called Deauville which had a nautical theme with the waiters wearing striped jumpers and little sailor caps. We both had very delicious omelettes, mine was cheese and ham and John had mushrooms too. Next door to our restaurant was the beautiful Laduree café and store. The was a queue to get into both but I got a few sneaky photos of the gorgeous interior. Walking along we passed some enormous black and gold gates with extremely well manicured trees lining a path inside. We followed people inside the gates and along the perfectly manicured gardens, then into a building with doors to match the gates and found ourselves inside an Abercromby & Fitch department store. The interior was elaborately decorated and beautiful restored. No idea what the building used to be. From here we caught the Metro to Trocadero to see the Tour Eiffel from across the river. Once again the Trocadero fountains weren't working. It seems we are always here when they are being cleaned. We have only seen their spectacular display once. Took lots of photos with the tower and then took the steps down to the gardens where we sat on a bench to rest my foot and watch all the silly photo taking antics of the hundreds of tourists. We wanted to go somewhere for crepes so we decide to catch the Metro at Trocadero and find our way to one of our favourite places, the Luxumberg Gardens. These are the loveliest gardens. They are always full of families and people of all ages sitting in the hundreds of chairs provided, or watching the ducks in the lake, or enjoying the colourful flowerbeds, or having a drink or coffee at the outdoor cafe. We did all of these things starting with coffee and crepes with flambée Grand Marnier at the cafe. So much Grand Marnier! It was delicious. After relaxng in these gorgeous gardens for a while we headed home via the supermarket so we could eat dinner at home after much walking and rest my feet. We had a very relaxed dinner without having to decide where to go and after dinner we decided to head out for a walk to see what was happening in Place de la Republique for Nuit Blanche (White Night). As it turned out, absolutely nothing so we caught the Metro to Bastille. Well this station is very big and we ended up down there for quite some time trying to get out! We missed the exit and I think we went up and down every Set of steps in the place before we took the right path out. By this time my feet were killing me but we continued on and decided to walk to Place de Voges, a lovely square and gardens we'd been to on our second visit. Wouldn't you know it, the gates were locked in the evenings! So back to the Metro and many steps. We gave up and just headed home and just sat in Place de la Republique for a while to watch kids on their skateboards and then took my poor feet home.