Viva-la-France!!!

Well as much as I hate to be cliched Paris truly is a magically romantic city which J and I were fortunate enough to spend the Easter long weekend break in. We departed from Kings Cross St Pancras bright and early and I have to say I was very impressed at the efficiency of the whole eurostar train ride! When we did arrive in Paris a whole two hours and 15 minutes later we took a quick metro ride to montemarte where we checked into our quaint hotel. A lovely establishment with plumbing that ran straight through our room but had a location that could not be beaten; around the corner from Moulin Rogue and down the road from Sacre Coeur. We dropped our bags and made a beeline for the Pantheon, where we visited the crypt and saw the burial places of Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Marie and Pierre Curie. Afterwards we headed out to the Lourve for our obligatory visit stopping at Notre Dame along the way. We spent an amazing hour and a half in the freezing wind to climb to tower and look out high above the skyline of Paris and see the most amazing gargoyles. We finished the day with an amazing dinner, including an entree of snails, at the base of the Eiffel Tower, which was amazing!

The next day we woke early and headed out to the magical land of Disney, much to J's reluctance. At Disney we visited all the themed lands and rode rides including space mountain, peter pan lift off and Indiana Jones's Temple of Doom. However, was very disappointed that the small animated children for Australia in the "It's a small world" ride were merged with New Zealand and only given a brief cameo appearance in the ride. We ended the day watching as sleeping beauty's castle was lit by Mickey and Minnie to celebrate 15 years of Euro Disney.

Easter Sunday saw us head out to the Palace of Versailles, the home of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Where we were shocked by a 3 hour line wait to purchase tickets for entry into the palace. We instead opted to buy tickets to a guided tour which saw us skip the line, pay a little more, but allow plenty of time for a relaxing stroll of the gardens and an amazing picnic of cheese, chocolate, cake and red wine! After our tour we headed back to central paris to prepare for our 8pm show at the Moulin Rouge. The show was amazing! A real highlight was the older UK couple seated to our left who 10 minutes in leaned across and whispered to us "Did you know it was topless?" and "I've never seen so much TIT in all my life". At which point Bec nearly spat out her mouthful of free champagne all over them!

Our final day was spent visiting the Arc de Triomphe, Champs-Eylsees, Napoleon's tomb and slowly made our way up to the Eiffle Tower. When we arrived the top level was shut due to an incoming electrical storm so we spent time taking a few photos. We then opted to head back to montemarte and visit Sacre Couer before heading to Paris Nord for our return train ride to London. But pictures tell a thousand words so heres a few ;) from our trip...