Ingrid & Smithy do Paris!

I love having visitors who want to see and do everything, think they might have regretted this as I think I wore them out a lot! Smithy and Ingrid are old friends from uni days (seems a long time ago already!) and were travelling around Europe with first stop in Paris for the long weekend. Unfortunately France work on Good Friday so I had to be at work for their first day but they went out to Versailles for the day and I met them after work to take them up to Sacre Coeur to watch the sunset :) After we got through a bottle of wine we headed out to dinner and then down to Moulin Rouge before I finally let them go home to bed!

They were up early to get up the Eiffel Tower, so I met them afterwards and we went to see the Arc de Triumph and the bloody staff were on strike - Quelle Surprise! So didn't end up going up. Walked down Champs Elysées and a lovely picnic in the Tuileries, before having a photo stop at the Louvre :)

Got icecream at Ile-St-Louis and ended up having to put up Ingrid's umbrella (bad tour guide didn't bring one!) Such a brief little storm, was funny but we needed it as it was so hot. We were planning on doing a night bike tour but ended up going on an evening cruise along the Seine with snacks and more wine!

I forgot my camera the next day so you get repeats of Day 1! Ingrid and Smithy were very keen and got us a place in line to go up the bell tower at Notre Dame - I still hadn't been up so was nice to have someone there to get in line for me! Was a nice view from there but wouldn't have waited in line for it. They can only let a group through at a time as there is a small set of stairs to get up the top that you couldn't have people going up and down at the same time. As it was Easter, we didn't make it into Notre Dame as there were services on the whole time and they closed the doors.

It was easter weekend so Paris was overflowing with people so decided we should head to a less touristy place - Jardin des Plantes, another place that I hadn't yet been to in Paris. All these firsts. We had lunch there in a little restaurant with a rude little french waiter so got that ticked off the list too. It was a pretty aprk but still not allowed to sit on the grass so crossed off my list of places to go. We ended up sitting on the banks of the Seine in the outdoor statue park. We got more ice-cream- I love Berthillon ice-cream, not sure I am going to cope without it at home!

Then I had to leave them as I had a train to catch to Amiens for the ANZAC dawn service! So nice to have vistors and so glad I could show people around my city. Thanks for visiting guys!