Paris

Wow! Our time in Paris has been amazing!

We started our week with a walk down Avenue Champs des Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. The avenue itself is very posh and upper class. After numerous photos and a lot of staring at the beautiful shops and boutiques, we all gathered up the courage to climb the Arc de Triomphe. What an effort! Climbing the 246 steps resulted in a beautiful view of the whole of Paris including the Eiffel Tower and the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. The arc is beautiful. It was constructed in 1806 after Napoleon won "the Battle of Austerlitz'. It is a huge Arc built in the middle of a roundabout. The arc is so big that a plane flew through it to celebrate the election win of current president Nicolas Sarkozy.

For dinner we went to the 'Chartier' restaurant in Montmartre. The locals like it very much and is full every night of the week. I had spaghetti bolognaise, followed by the best profiteroles I have ever tasted. It was all delicious.

The next morning we went to the Sacre-Coeur Basilica. It is the highest point in Paris. In English it means sacred heart basilica. It was built in the 1800's because of a private religious vow made at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war.

The next day we went to the Salvador Dali museum. It was a museum full of his work. He lived in the 1900's and was famous for his dripping clocks. His work was all surreal art. My favourite was a sculpture of Alice from ' Alice in Wonderland'. She has a skipping rope and is looking into the distance. One piece of his work that I found fascinating was a picture drawn on a table of a dragonfly. At the end of the table was a vertical mirrored tube. When you looked into the reflection on the tube you saw a bizarre face.

After our adventures of the last few days we decided to have a relaxing morning in the house. That afternoon we went to Centre Georges Pompidou. It is a modern art museum. There were some pictures from Picasso and Matisse which were very different. My favourite was a lump of triangular metal. I mean how does that get into a gallery? The design of Pompidou is strange because it is a modern art gallery. The building was designed like a piece of modern art, with the building being built "inside out". Brightly coloured pipes, elevators and airconditioning ductwork can all be seen brightly displayed. Inside the building there are a lot of pipes exposed on the underside of the ceiling. They are all coloured either green yellow or blue. Green is for water, yellow is for electricity and blue is for air-conditioning.

We started early the next morning with a trip to the Catacombs. There were a lot of bones and skulls. We went for a really long walk through the winding tunnels. The catacombs were created in the 18th century, in a disused underground quarry, because the cemeteries in Paris were filling up quickly and they had nowhere to put all the bones. The bones were dug up and then dumped in the tunnels. 20 years later the bones were stacked up in a decorative formation.

That afternoon was interesting with a trip to the museum of natural history and evolution. There were countless stuffed animals and display cases. My favourite animal was the cheetah. There were 4 whole levels of animals and information! After the museum we managed to squeeze in an ice skating trip after our packed day. Ivy and I were crashing and dashing with each other. Which of course was a lot of fun.

The next morning we went to a Fauchon shop, which is a famous Paris institution. It is a very expensive shop were they sell all types of exquisite foods including chocolates, cakes and caviar. One particular type of caviar cost $3500 for a tiny 100 grams!!! They gave me a chocolate and 2 macaroons to try. Heaven!

We are having a blast here and hope you are enjoying my blog!

Au revoir!