P A R I S - Day 1

Our trip to gay Paris started with a very comfortable and hassle-free three hour journey on ze Eurostar. Getting there was tres easy and we have already decided we will go via train again. It was snowing in Kent and in the north of France as we blitzed by, so we had a very pretty view out the window. We arrived at Gare du Nord at mid-day from where we caught le Metro to our hotel. This was located on Rue St Lazare just down the hill from Montmartre and near the big shopping centres Galleries Lafayette and Printemps.

After checking in we headed to a nearby cafe and had onion soup for lunch. After this we caught the metro into town to the islands, picked up some crepes to warm us up (Paris being several degrees cooler than London) and proceeded across the bridge to check out Notre Dame, the massive gothic cathedral on the central island.

Fran having a very yummy crepe (with about half a jar of Nutella inside!)

Front of Notre Dame

The huge central chandelier of the cathedral (currently being restored)

Some of the wooden carvings

Having checked out the cathedral, we headed north east to the Centre Pompidou, a big exhibition centre for modern art. We spent about two hours there but only got around two levels. There were some very funky installations...The one below is a fish tank with floating mirrors which has a spotlight on it and the whole thing reflects on the black wall behind.

This one consisted of a number of suspended coloured plastic discs and a moving projector light, which created interesting coloured shadows on the wall.

And this room featured very trippy and colourful floor to ceiling patterened carpet and a central sculpture.

We then wandered back to the hotel and had dinner at a chinese restaurant (we were too tired to explore any further afield for real french food!) just across the road.