Paris and Amsterdam here we come!

We left Perth on Saturday afternoon. We arrived Singapore 10.45 pm for our connecting flight to Paris at 12.15 am. We are flying my favourite airline, Singapore Airlines. The fourteen hour trip to Paris was going to be the longest flight we’d ever taken.

I took a gamble and selected one window seat and one aisle seat, leaving a seat in between us hoping that someone wouldn’t book a single seat in the middle. It worked! Genius! That meant Jane and I had 3 seats to share for the flight. We could stretch out for a better sleep. There was a lot of turbulence which made the ride quite bumpy. Jane couldn’t sleep very well. I got enough to be fresh when we arrived at 7 am.

I was hoping to get a view of Paris from the the plane as we approached, but of course winter in the northern hemisphere meant it was still dark. The sun doesn’t rise until 8.30 am. So we arrived in darkness.

Clearing immigration and collecting our baggage was straight forward. Now comes the interesting part – catching the train to our AirBnB accommodation. We consulted the tourist information kiosk. He said to catch the shuttle to terminal one and catch the train into Paris and change to the “6” train at Denfert-Rochereau station. When we arrived we had to navigate to the number 6 line. This proved difficult with many stairways up and down with two 20 kg bags. Its going to be a lot more difficult going home with 30 kg … after Jane’s shopping. We got to the 6 line and promptly got on the train going the wrong direction. We quickly realised and proceeded to alight on the next station, but we couldn’t work out how to open the doors – the train took off before we could open the doors. The locals on the train must have thought was hilarious. Onto the next station – success! Now up and down more stairs to get to the opposite platform.

We made it to Bir Hakiem station no problem. Our AirBnB apartment was pretty close the train station. It was now 10 am and luckily our host allowed us to check in early, otherwise we’d have to wait around until 2 pm.

The Apartment was very small as we expected, but it’s comfortable and clean.

We unpacked and changed into warmer clothes – time to see the Eiffel Tower.

The Tour de Eiffel was walking distance from our apartment, as we rounded the corner there it was – so exciting – out very first look and the tower had an Australian flag in the foreground – it was like it was welcoming us to Paris – so surreal!

We spent the next few hours walking around taking a million photos. As we were walking I realised we were half way to the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe So we continued our walk.

We took in the sites and but this time we were getting hungry for lunch. I’d heard that the Champs Elysees was a tourist trap for eats, so we made our way off the main drag and found a nice french brasserie called L’étoile Vénitienne. We ordered french wine, and a cheese platter with bread and cold meats. A wonderful first meal in Paris. We couldn’t finish it, so we took it home for breakfast the next morning.

We decided to walk back to Place du Trocadéro to check out the view of the Eiffel Tower for a photo shoot the next day. The rain and wind set in and on the way it became so unbearable we decided to catch an Uber back to the apartment. Jet lag caught up with us and we decided to have a nanna-nap. At 8 pm we got up and decided to find somewhere to eat. We walked around the neighbourhood and find a Chinese restaurant, Jia Yan and had some soup.

Back to bed, still tired.

We woke up at 5 am the next morning and decided wait for the sunrise and do a photo-shoot.