One last morning in Barcelona and then we had to catch the bus back to Girona to catch our plane back to London! Phew! Don't need to see the inside of a plane or airport for awhile after this holiday!!
We got to London late in the arvo and checked into our hotel in Kensington, just down from Kensington High Street. We were all excited because our room was one of those cool downstairs (below ground level) ones and it felt very English to be staying down at that level :o)
That night we had tickets to go and see Avenue Q (which is kinda a musical/puppet show for adults) in the Westend so we went for a bit of a walk around the local area and then headed towards the theatre. We decided to catch a cab because we left a bit late and didn't want to miss the start and ended up getting the coolest cabbie ever! His name was Jack and he chatted to us the whole way towards Picadilly Circus. He pointed out some sights, told us about local culture and we even talked about Aussie and UK soap operas (his wife and I are both addicts so she sounds awesome!!). Jack was about 70 years old and had been driving a cab for about 50 years. He was really proud coz his granddaughter was halfway through her year-long cabbie's course (Yep! You actually have to do a year's worth of qualifications to get your cabbie license over there!!) and was carrying on the family tradition! Said he wanted to visit Australia but it was too far away and "his Sheila" wasn't too well these days and probably couldn't handle such a long trip. But he knew a fair bit about Oz since his son had spent his gap year there and had loved it. Seriously one of the most entertaining cab rides we could have hoped for!
We got to the theatre on time and it was one of those awesomely decorated gorgeous old-school theatres. Very tres chic! The show was funny and the singers and music were really good but we were super tired so just headed straight home to bed afterwards! Still, I got my West End experience in! YAY!
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Barcelona Day 3
*Caz's tip for travelling* Don't go to really awesome places like Barcelona at the end of your trip when you're totally buggered and can't necessarily make the most of it! ;o)
Day 3 in Barcelona was another exquisite day. Sun shining and about 23 degrees! YAY! We were being super lazy (just for a change!) so had a mad sleep in and then got up for some lunch. We asked the super lovely hotel reception dude where he would recommend that we go and he gave us the name of a nearby family-run restaurant which he and his family (who own the hotel) eat at a lot. Oh my god! Seriously one of the best meals we've ever had and all for less than 20 euro including a bottle of wine!! We found the restaurant and settled at one of the two outside tables in the sunshine. The menu was totally in Spanish so we decided just to pick our two courses each using the few words we recognised and boy were we rewarded for our efforts! The first course for me was a divine salad with fresh sardines. I've never really eaten sardines before but the fresh variety are delish! I ate every last bite! Matt had a cheese flan which was to die for and the wine was quite quoffable (don't know if that's how you spell it!) as well. Our second courses were pretty much tailor made for each of us! Matt had some sort of meat with bones in the middle (his fave!) in a delish sauce while I had a great piece of fish with a tomato ragout on top which is one of the best sauces I have ever had! All of this food was served by the lovely Spanish family that own the restaurant and we stayed their eating lazily for a couple of hours! Bliss!!!
After lunch, we just meandered around for awhile, trying to walk off our indulgent meal!
LOVE LOVE LOVE Barcelona! GO THERE OR BE SQUARE!!!!
Day 3 in Barcelona was another exquisite day. Sun shining and about 23 degrees! YAY! We were being super lazy (just for a change!) so had a mad sleep in and then got up for some lunch. We asked the super lovely hotel reception dude where he would recommend that we go and he gave us the name of a nearby family-run restaurant which he and his family (who own the hotel) eat at a lot. Oh my god! Seriously one of the best meals we've ever had and all for less than 20 euro including a bottle of wine!! We found the restaurant and settled at one of the two outside tables in the sunshine. The menu was totally in Spanish so we decided just to pick our two courses each using the few words we recognised and boy were we rewarded for our efforts! The first course for me was a divine salad with fresh sardines. I've never really eaten sardines before but the fresh variety are delish! I ate every last bite! Matt had a cheese flan which was to die for and the wine was quite quoffable (don't know if that's how you spell it!) as well. Our second courses were pretty much tailor made for each of us! Matt had some sort of meat with bones in the middle (his fave!) in a delish sauce while I had a great piece of fish with a tomato ragout on top which is one of the best sauces I have ever had! All of this food was served by the lovely Spanish family that own the restaurant and we stayed their eating lazily for a couple of hours! Bliss!!!
After lunch, we just meandered around for awhile, trying to walk off our indulgent meal!
LOVE LOVE LOVE Barcelona! GO THERE OR BE SQUARE!!!!
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Barcelona Day 2
A beautiful day dawned in Barcelona (well, I can't say that it dawned beautifully because we had a bit of a sleep in but it was bloody nice by the time we got up!!)
We decided to check out the markets up on Las Ramblas which had been recommended to us by the guy at Ryanair who checked us in for our flight to Gerona (and didn't charge us for our extra baggage wait! Go nice man go!). His mum lives in Barcelona so he goes to visit her about 6 times a year (glad my mum doesn't live in Barcelona because I don't think I'd be able to afford to visit her anywhere near that often!).
We walked down the big street near us (Paral-lel) towards the port and found ourselves down near the statue of Christopher Columbus. HUGE statue! I suppose he was a pretty cool and influential dude so probably deserves a mad big statue but I was pretty impressed by the sheer size of it! From there, we headed towards Las Ramblas which is the main shopping street. At the foot of it is a huge square which is THE spot for drug dealers/drug takers to hang out in Barcelona and do their business (no, I don't mean that they use the square as a loo or anything! They just buy and sell drugs!). Also, it's a fave haunt for pickpockets to pick on tourist pockets so we had been warned by the awesome guy at our hotel to be on the lookout for dodgy characters! We had wanted to make it up to the tapas bars at the markets for lunch but we were starving by the time we got to the square so found a bit of a touristica tapas bar there and sat down for some lunch. How freakin' great is the concept of tapas? You get to have small amounts of heaps of different foods so you don't have to be too picky about what you want (as in "oooh the chicken looks nice but maybe I feel like beef or lamb or fish or something?!), you just get a bit of everything! We settled down with a San Miguel beer each (YUMMO! Spanish Cerveza is the bomb!) and waited for the food. It was delish when it came and the square proved to be quite the sport for people watching entertainment! There was this one guy standing around near the tapas bar trying to look casual and inconspicuous! HAHAHAHAH! So not doing a good job of that one buddy!! He was pacing around and sending various signals to his crew so it took us about 5 seconds to work out that he was a dealer and waiting for his deal to go down! It didn't help when the his crew, consisting of about 6 people, all "bumped into" each other a few times in the space of 15 minutes to have a quick chat! Anyway, this guy was particularly interesting because he was a mad nose picker! YUCKO! Seriously, this man was mining for gold in the worst kind of way! I swear he was up to his elbow for awhile there and inspected the fruits of his labour quite regularly to see what sort of quality he was getting for his excavation investments! It was like a car crash situation, you don't want to look because its icky and ghoulish but you can't look away because its also strangely fascinating!!! Thank god we'd finished eating by then and were just finishing our beers or we might not have been able to keep the tapas down!!
We got the bill for our lunch and, not surprisingly, being a tourist joint, it was a bit overpriced, and headed up to the markets. Holy coolness Batman!!! Most awesome markets I've ever seen. There were lolly stalls, chocolate stalls, cheese stalls, olive stalls, meat stalls, fish stalls, you name it, it had a stall! There were people everywhere buying food for their dinner and there were all these awesome (and annoyingly well priced!) tapas bars everywhere selling divine smelling food and beer on tap. There were some freaky things for sale such as whole sheeps heads with eyes intact (EW EW EW! Pardon the pun!) and a fair amount of freaky offal but the colours and sights and smells of most of it were just awesome! Great place to wander around even if you don't intend to buy anything and I would definitely suggest you check it out next time you're in Barcelona (you know, for one of your 6 times a year visits to see mum or whatever!).
After the markets, we walked up the shopping part of Las Ramblas which was pretty crazy cool! People everywhere and lots of great shops with awesome prices. Didn't end up buying anything but that's only coz my backpack was getting pretty full and heavy by this stage of the trip! If I had a huge bag and unlimited luggage allowance, my credit card would be maxed out for sure!
After that, we caught the Metro back to our hotel for a bit of a read and rest break but headed back out in the late afternoon for a walk. We headed in the opposite direction from where we'd been exploring and ended up finding some less touristy spots. We found this awesome little bar where we stopped in to have a quick refresher of Vermouth and soda which was quite lovely. The waitress was super nice and gave us some lovely nibblies to have with our drinks. There was a businessman father with his gorgeous little girl in there having an arvo drink so we played with the lil cutie for awhile so he could enjoy his bevo. After our drink, we found this big hill and decided to walk up. At the top, we found this amazing park (which we had to walk up about 5 billion steps to get to) which had a fantastic view of the city. Unfortunately, we didn't take our camera with us so we can't share the awesomeness with you guys but just take our words for it! We just sat there for awhile, taking in the view and watching some cute dogs have a play (and missing our babies back home!) before we headed back to the bar (a glass of Cava for me and the same as before for Matt) which we enjoyed with more delish nibbles on sticks from the lovely waitress.
What a great day! Barcelona rocks!!
We decided to check out the markets up on Las Ramblas which had been recommended to us by the guy at Ryanair who checked us in for our flight to Gerona (and didn't charge us for our extra baggage wait! Go nice man go!). His mum lives in Barcelona so he goes to visit her about 6 times a year (glad my mum doesn't live in Barcelona because I don't think I'd be able to afford to visit her anywhere near that often!).
We walked down the big street near us (Paral-lel) towards the port and found ourselves down near the statue of Christopher Columbus. HUGE statue! I suppose he was a pretty cool and influential dude so probably deserves a mad big statue but I was pretty impressed by the sheer size of it! From there, we headed towards Las Ramblas which is the main shopping street. At the foot of it is a huge square which is THE spot for drug dealers/drug takers to hang out in Barcelona and do their business (no, I don't mean that they use the square as a loo or anything! They just buy and sell drugs!). Also, it's a fave haunt for pickpockets to pick on tourist pockets so we had been warned by the awesome guy at our hotel to be on the lookout for dodgy characters! We had wanted to make it up to the tapas bars at the markets for lunch but we were starving by the time we got to the square so found a bit of a touristica tapas bar there and sat down for some lunch. How freakin' great is the concept of tapas? You get to have small amounts of heaps of different foods so you don't have to be too picky about what you want (as in "oooh the chicken looks nice but maybe I feel like beef or lamb or fish or something?!), you just get a bit of everything! We settled down with a San Miguel beer each (YUMMO! Spanish Cerveza is the bomb!) and waited for the food. It was delish when it came and the square proved to be quite the sport for people watching entertainment! There was this one guy standing around near the tapas bar trying to look casual and inconspicuous! HAHAHAHAH! So not doing a good job of that one buddy!! He was pacing around and sending various signals to his crew so it took us about 5 seconds to work out that he was a dealer and waiting for his deal to go down! It didn't help when the his crew, consisting of about 6 people, all "bumped into" each other a few times in the space of 15 minutes to have a quick chat! Anyway, this guy was particularly interesting because he was a mad nose picker! YUCKO! Seriously, this man was mining for gold in the worst kind of way! I swear he was up to his elbow for awhile there and inspected the fruits of his labour quite regularly to see what sort of quality he was getting for his excavation investments! It was like a car crash situation, you don't want to look because its icky and ghoulish but you can't look away because its also strangely fascinating!!! Thank god we'd finished eating by then and were just finishing our beers or we might not have been able to keep the tapas down!!
We got the bill for our lunch and, not surprisingly, being a tourist joint, it was a bit overpriced, and headed up to the markets. Holy coolness Batman!!! Most awesome markets I've ever seen. There were lolly stalls, chocolate stalls, cheese stalls, olive stalls, meat stalls, fish stalls, you name it, it had a stall! There were people everywhere buying food for their dinner and there were all these awesome (and annoyingly well priced!) tapas bars everywhere selling divine smelling food and beer on tap. There were some freaky things for sale such as whole sheeps heads with eyes intact (EW EW EW! Pardon the pun!) and a fair amount of freaky offal but the colours and sights and smells of most of it were just awesome! Great place to wander around even if you don't intend to buy anything and I would definitely suggest you check it out next time you're in Barcelona (you know, for one of your 6 times a year visits to see mum or whatever!).
After the markets, we walked up the shopping part of Las Ramblas which was pretty crazy cool! People everywhere and lots of great shops with awesome prices. Didn't end up buying anything but that's only coz my backpack was getting pretty full and heavy by this stage of the trip! If I had a huge bag and unlimited luggage allowance, my credit card would be maxed out for sure!
After that, we caught the Metro back to our hotel for a bit of a read and rest break but headed back out in the late afternoon for a walk. We headed in the opposite direction from where we'd been exploring and ended up finding some less touristy spots. We found this awesome little bar where we stopped in to have a quick refresher of Vermouth and soda which was quite lovely. The waitress was super nice and gave us some lovely nibblies to have with our drinks. There was a businessman father with his gorgeous little girl in there having an arvo drink so we played with the lil cutie for awhile so he could enjoy his bevo. After our drink, we found this big hill and decided to walk up. At the top, we found this amazing park (which we had to walk up about 5 billion steps to get to) which had a fantastic view of the city. Unfortunately, we didn't take our camera with us so we can't share the awesomeness with you guys but just take our words for it! We just sat there for awhile, taking in the view and watching some cute dogs have a play (and missing our babies back home!) before we headed back to the bar (a glass of Cava for me and the same as before for Matt) which we enjoyed with more delish nibbles on sticks from the lovely waitress.
What a great day! Barcelona rocks!!
Beautiful Barcelona!!
We left Marseille for Barcelona. It ended up being much cheaper to fly from France to London Gatwick and then take a flight 2 hours after we arrived there to Gerona, about an hour from Barcelona! Phew! What a day of travel! We made it to London with awhile to spare and checked in for our Ryanair flight to Gerona. However, we must have lost track of time or been tired from all the travelling because, whilst we were strolling casually towards our departure gate we hear "This is absolutely the final boarding call for all passengers travelling to Gerona Barcelona with Ryanair"! CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAP!!!!! Cue to a ridiculous scene of Matt and I sprinting through the airport like crazy buggers towards the gate. Luckily, one of the ground staff was looking up the corridor and saw us sprinting so gave the word to the flight team. We finally made it out of breath and all of the staff were having a good giggle at us! But who cares! We're off to Spain baby yeah!!
We got to Gerona and it was really warm compared to what we were used to at about 22 degrees (at 7pm no less!!). We knew we had about an hour bus ride ahead of us and were starting to get a little bit tired but still excited to be somewhere new! YAY!
When we arrived at the Barcelona bus station we thought we'd be all types of good, save a bit of money as we'd done in a few places recently and catch public transport to our hotel. I asked the guy at the information booth and he said the Metro was the best way to go and gave us a map showing where we needed to walk after we got off at the right station. Cool! Looks easy enough! No worries right!!?? Hmmmmm..........Cue Matt and I walking around in the relative heat with our huge backpacks (both now well over 16kgs in weight!!!) and finding our street! YAY! That hadn't taken long. However, of course, when we got to the street, we went totally the wrong way! AAARRGGGHHH! We walked for about 15 minutes down this really long street before we worked out that the little numbers I'd scribbled down the bottom of the hotel address were actually the street number and we'd walked super far in the wrong direction! Eventually, dishevelled, buggered and a only talking in monosyllables, we got to the hotel and somehow managed to make enough sense to be able to check in! We walked up to our room and it was HUGE! Probably the same size as half of our bloody house! For some reason, we'd been lucky enough to get a four person room but we got it all to ourselves! WOOHOO! We could stretch out (however, I did double check with reception that it was all ours because we'd had a pretty tiring day and it'd be just our luck that some drunk 19 year old English blokes would stagger in at 4am or something!! ALL OURS! WOOHOO!!)
We had a bit of rest for awhile and then realised we were starving, having eaten bugger all that day! The surly but attractive guy at reception gave us a tip on a local restaurant that was awesome but when we got there, it was closed (it was a Monday so I forgive them!). So we headed back towards our hotel and went to one of the restaurants/beer bars on Paral-lel, which was right near our hotel.
SPAIN! TAPAS! YAY!!!!! We decided to get some delish looking mini spicy sausages and then Matt had a veal steak the size of his head while I had a great tuna salad! Busy and tiring day but ended well with a nice meal on a beautiful Spanish night!
We got to Gerona and it was really warm compared to what we were used to at about 22 degrees (at 7pm no less!!). We knew we had about an hour bus ride ahead of us and were starting to get a little bit tired but still excited to be somewhere new! YAY!
When we arrived at the Barcelona bus station we thought we'd be all types of good, save a bit of money as we'd done in a few places recently and catch public transport to our hotel. I asked the guy at the information booth and he said the Metro was the best way to go and gave us a map showing where we needed to walk after we got off at the right station. Cool! Looks easy enough! No worries right!!?? Hmmmmm..........Cue Matt and I walking around in the relative heat with our huge backpacks (both now well over 16kgs in weight!!!) and finding our street! YAY! That hadn't taken long. However, of course, when we got to the street, we went totally the wrong way! AAARRGGGHHH! We walked for about 15 minutes down this really long street before we worked out that the little numbers I'd scribbled down the bottom of the hotel address were actually the street number and we'd walked super far in the wrong direction! Eventually, dishevelled, buggered and a only talking in monosyllables, we got to the hotel and somehow managed to make enough sense to be able to check in! We walked up to our room and it was HUGE! Probably the same size as half of our bloody house! For some reason, we'd been lucky enough to get a four person room but we got it all to ourselves! WOOHOO! We could stretch out (however, I did double check with reception that it was all ours because we'd had a pretty tiring day and it'd be just our luck that some drunk 19 year old English blokes would stagger in at 4am or something!! ALL OURS! WOOHOO!!)
We had a bit of rest for awhile and then realised we were starving, having eaten bugger all that day! The surly but attractive guy at reception gave us a tip on a local restaurant that was awesome but when we got there, it was closed (it was a Monday so I forgive them!). So we headed back towards our hotel and went to one of the restaurants/beer bars on Paral-lel, which was right near our hotel.
SPAIN! TAPAS! YAY!!!!! We decided to get some delish looking mini spicy sausages and then Matt had a veal steak the size of his head while I had a great tuna salad! Busy and tiring day but ended well with a nice meal on a beautiful Spanish night!
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Marseille
From Paris, we caught the train to Marseille so we could check out the South of France and say we'd been in Provence! Cool!
When we arrived in Marseille, we decided just to catch a taxi to our hotel as we were pretty sure we'd get lost if we tried to find our own way there using the Metro! Good choice in the end as we would have had buckleys of finding it on our own! However, I'd yet again landed us right smack bang in the middle of the shopping district! I must have some sort of retail ESP or something!
The first night in Marseille we just walked around our local area and checked out what was there. Great place! A bit gritty and dirty but so much to see and do! We walked down to the port and had a cup of tea and a beer and did some people watching (0ne of our fave passtimes!). Day two saw us getting up to more clear blue skies and lovely temperatures. We went for a walk up to St Nicholas Fort which was just amazing! Had to climb about 5 billion stairs to get up there but the remnants of the fort offered one of the best views I have ever seen! You could see out over the whole city and way down the coast and out to the ocean! We spent quite awhile just sitting there and taking in the view, as a few other people were doing also. I went shopping later in the arvo while Matt had a siesta (I was staying on the main shopping street so like I had a choice really!) and bought the coolest purple handbag for a bargain price. May not be a leather bag from Firenze but I love it!
Dinner that night was one of the most fantastic meals we have ever had! We had walked passed a restaurant which advertised rump steak for 2 with heaps of sides for $45 euro. Not super cheap but we thought we'd give it a go! Holy doolie! BEST STEAK EVER! Dad, you remember how good the steak was at Kingsleys in Sydney that time ages ago? Well this was even better!!!! AND HUGE! We must have had AT LEAST a kilo of top qual steak! I've never been so full in my life as I was after that but gee it was worth it! The waitress was this gorgeous chick who was studying in Marseille but was from South America and we chatted to her on and off all night which was lovely! Her English was excellent!
That night in Marseille was pretty interesting! There is a huge Algerian population in Marseille and there was a World Cup soccer qualifier between Algeria and Egypt on that night. The streets were full of Algerians in pre-celebration mode! They were going nuts! Singing, people doing crazy tricks on their motorbikes down the street, walking in parades down the street with flares! It was quite entertaining! Also, while we were having dinner near the port, a boat caught on fire and the fire spread to two other boats! Was a crazy scene but noone was hurt so alls well that ends well!
Our last day in Marseille was a Sunday. For those of you who have spent time in Europe, you'll know that Sunday is the day of nothingness! Nothing is open except a few random bakeries and all the tourist spots so we decided to have a pretty lazy day just walking around and seeing what was what. We ended up find our way into the Algerian and Muslim quarter which was AWESOME! People were all over the place, there were little shops selling random things everywhere and a real community spirit in the air! We walked around for awhile soaking it up! Everyone was really friendly to us and we had a great afternoon!
All in all, we enjoyed Marseille and were glad we made the trip down south! Next stop, Barcelona!!!!
When we arrived in Marseille, we decided just to catch a taxi to our hotel as we were pretty sure we'd get lost if we tried to find our own way there using the Metro! Good choice in the end as we would have had buckleys of finding it on our own! However, I'd yet again landed us right smack bang in the middle of the shopping district! I must have some sort of retail ESP or something!
The first night in Marseille we just walked around our local area and checked out what was there. Great place! A bit gritty and dirty but so much to see and do! We walked down to the port and had a cup of tea and a beer and did some people watching (0ne of our fave passtimes!). Day two saw us getting up to more clear blue skies and lovely temperatures. We went for a walk up to St Nicholas Fort which was just amazing! Had to climb about 5 billion stairs to get up there but the remnants of the fort offered one of the best views I have ever seen! You could see out over the whole city and way down the coast and out to the ocean! We spent quite awhile just sitting there and taking in the view, as a few other people were doing also. I went shopping later in the arvo while Matt had a siesta (I was staying on the main shopping street so like I had a choice really!) and bought the coolest purple handbag for a bargain price. May not be a leather bag from Firenze but I love it!
Dinner that night was one of the most fantastic meals we have ever had! We had walked passed a restaurant which advertised rump steak for 2 with heaps of sides for $45 euro. Not super cheap but we thought we'd give it a go! Holy doolie! BEST STEAK EVER! Dad, you remember how good the steak was at Kingsleys in Sydney that time ages ago? Well this was even better!!!! AND HUGE! We must have had AT LEAST a kilo of top qual steak! I've never been so full in my life as I was after that but gee it was worth it! The waitress was this gorgeous chick who was studying in Marseille but was from South America and we chatted to her on and off all night which was lovely! Her English was excellent!
That night in Marseille was pretty interesting! There is a huge Algerian population in Marseille and there was a World Cup soccer qualifier between Algeria and Egypt on that night. The streets were full of Algerians in pre-celebration mode! They were going nuts! Singing, people doing crazy tricks on their motorbikes down the street, walking in parades down the street with flares! It was quite entertaining! Also, while we were having dinner near the port, a boat caught on fire and the fire spread to two other boats! Was a crazy scene but noone was hurt so alls well that ends well!
Our last day in Marseille was a Sunday. For those of you who have spent time in Europe, you'll know that Sunday is the day of nothingness! Nothing is open except a few random bakeries and all the tourist spots so we decided to have a pretty lazy day just walking around and seeing what was what. We ended up find our way into the Algerian and Muslim quarter which was AWESOME! People were all over the place, there were little shops selling random things everywhere and a real community spirit in the air! We walked around for awhile soaking it up! Everyone was really friendly to us and we had a great afternoon!
All in all, we enjoyed Marseille and were glad we made the trip down south! Next stop, Barcelona!!!!
Montmarte
For our last day in Paris, we were going to go to the Lourve but we really didn't feel like looking at art so we decided to catch the metro and check out Montmarte instead! Great choice! What a wonderful day!
We wandered around aimlessly for awhile, walking up incredibly steep hills, stopping to watch a cute puppy play fetch with his owner on one of the mega slopes! It was very cool!
We got to the artist's square which is full of cafes and artists who sit in the middle of the square and sell their artwork. A few of them were also painting while we were there and it was really great to watch them work. They'd all obviously done their fair share of Paris pics in the past and were quite efficient at getting a really great paining done relatively quickly! The smells of the cafes made our mouths water but we decided to wander on a bit further and find somewhere to stop! Glad we did because just down the road we found a wonderful little cafe and , since escargot was on the menu for a measly 7.50 euro, we decided to give them a go! We were a bit nervous while we were waiting and had also ordered some white wine to wash it down and give us a bit of dutch courage! The waiter brought the escargot out and it smelled DIVINE! Honestly one of the yummiest smelling things! They were cooked in a sauce laden with garlice and herbs which Matt kept saying he'd be happy to eat a bucket of on its own! Anyway, back to the snails! I went first and it was probably pretty comical watching me trying to get a good grip on the "slippery little sucker" to try and get the snail out of the shell! Finally I got it out and took a deep breath......Pretty good!! The sauce was amazing and the snails didn't taste like much at all so quite inoffensive!
We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the shops in Montmarte and looking at all kinds of cool bohemian stuff! We loved it!
Paris Day 3 - Uber Tourists
On our 2 full day in Paris, we decided to be uber tourists and head for the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower and whatever else we could find in between!
We caught the metro to the stop right outside the Arc and got out. Wow! Crazy roundabout from hell or what?! The Arc itself was pretty impressive and cool to see but the roundabout amazed us! How were there no accidents when there didn't appear to be any lanes marked or any type of cohesion with the road rules?!
From the Arc, we walked up the Champs Elysee (which, as Art Vs Science proclaimed in their song, is indeed a very busy street!) and looked at all the cool clothes, cars and stuff that we can't afford to buy. We then headed down towards the Eiffel Tower. When we got there, it was about 1:30 in the arvo and we hadn't eaten yet. Thus, we decided to have some lunch before joining the mammoth line! Just accross the road from the Tower, we found a stall selling crepes etc so shared a fromage,oeuf and jamon crepe and a french style hotdog and a beer. They were quite delish although the number of pigeons that tried to beseige us was rather alarming!!!
After lunch, we joined the mad queue to get into the tower. It probably took about an hour but I was so excited that I didn't notice and Matt read his book to keep himself entertained! We finally got our tickets and got into the lift to go up to the 2nd floor where we had to change lifts for the top. It was a bit of a squoosh but we finally got up to the 2nd floor. The view was absolutely breathtaking!!! But we still had a ways to go yet and joined another queue to get up to floor number 3! Wow! When we got there I was like a kid in a candy shop! I LOVE HEIGHTS! And while Matt likes the view, he gets a bit of vertigo so is a bit more restrained! I ran around like a mad thing, leaning as far over the rails as I could and soaking up the view! I loved it!!!! Although it was exorbitantly expensive, we got a glass of champers each up there and toasted the great view and Paris. It was so much fun! Although, I can't imagine anyone ever actually proposing to someone up there! Even in the off season, it would be the two of you and your 400 closest strangers! Not super romantic!!!
I had a ball up there but it was getting late so we decided to head back to the hotel. We caught the metro and Matt also took some great photos of the tower at sunset! Beautiful! What a great day!!!!
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