So, this was it. My alarm woke me up dead-on-time. 6AM. I double-checked and triple-checked the list of items I was taking home. All of the packing was taken care of, and at precisely eight minutes past 6, I knocked on C+J’s door to make sure they were awake.

They were indeed, and the last precautions were taken care of. At 6:47, I took one last image of my hotel room, and locked the door behind me for the final time.

The phoe rang, and the shuttle was ready to pick us up. We made our final descent in the lift, and was greeted with a battered old tranny van, already packed with American tourists, and complete with a cracked windscreen that looked as if it was about to give way any second. In fact, this shot sums up the state of the windscreen.

See that blurry line? That’s the crack in the windscreen.

The driver, some random Japanese guy could only speak about three words of English, and considering he spoke these badly, this was going to be a fun journey. Firstly, he wanted to know what terminal we wanted… now this was easy. Terminal 2E, for the flight at 10:40 to Newcastle.

“Nono, look in the book”, he said in an accent which resembled something ripped directly from an episode of the now defunct play-along game show “Banzai”. He handed Jonathan a tatty timetable. the closest he could find was the flight at 10:20, from Terminal 2F.

Fair enough, clearly this driver knows what he was taking about. after all, judging by the state of the van, he must have been doing this for some time.

The seemingly disgruntled Americans departed at their appropriate terminals, while we strained our necks to make sure our bags were still on board. Now, imagine this. if your seat folds down to allow the passengers getting off to exit the vehicle, the normal thing to do would be to get out of the van, and allow the seat to be pushed forward?

Yes, that’s exactly what I thought too. I attempted to get up, this crazy driver said “Nono, you stay there”, and began to push the back of the chair forward so the Americans can get off, while I was still sat in it, now bent double. What the hell? Why couldn’t I have just vacated my seat temporarily?

So, after ignoring the advice given on the OFFICIAL ITINERARY OF OUR BLOODY HOLIDAY, we arrived at Terminal 2F. Amusingly, the driver also demanded that we give him a tip. Before I could say “Yes, here’s a tip, get your windscreen fixed”, Jonathan handed him a €5 note, and he happily went on his way, whilst we were just left in shock and awe at the most catastrophic journey in the whole history of airport shuttles.

We arrived at the airport in very good time. In fact, a bit too good, as our flight wasn’t even listed on the boards. We were left kicking our heels around Terminal 2F for a good half an hour, waiting for our flght to appear on the boards. With almost a sense of inevitibility, the flight appeared, and yes, we were indeed at the wrong terminal! Terminal 2E was our terminal, therefore we had to make our way over there. I had predicted this would happen, so I wasn’t too phased. Jonathan, however, appeared to be spitting blood at this point.

We reached the approprate gate, and waited in a mile long queue. Joy. Someone came over and checked our passports, Apparently, the queue was for US passngers flying out of the EU, and we didn’t really need to wait in the queue.

Therefore, we were shown out of the queue. “Go ahead, you can use the self check-in desk”.

We approached the machines. No less than five seconds after leaving the queue, we got stopped by some jobsworth… “Excuse me, but you cannot use these…”

I butted in at this point, and in the most patronising voice possible, I expained.

“WE ARE GOING TO ENGLAND. THAT GENTLEMAN INSPECTING THE PASSPORTS HAS TOLD US THAT WE CAN USE THE SELF CHECK-IN”.

Before that statement sank in to Jobsworth’s feeble little mind, we were approached by a friendlier member of staff who inspected our itinerary, and agreed that we could self check-in.

Jesus Christ. More sodding automated computerisation.

She showed us how to use it. Thankfully, this one was a piece of piss, thanks to the fact that the machines we used actually worked, unlike the ones back in Newcastle. Within seconds, our seats were allocated, we had our boarding passes, and our hold luggage quickly disappeared once again into the unknown. Cool.

We went to the appropriate gate. Again, there was a queue about a mile long. and again, we were told to join a shorter queue. Of course, I didn’t know this, and while Chris appeared to be wandering off, he was actually going in the right direction.

And once again, we were approached by *another* jobsworth who didn’t quite know what he was doing. I don’t even remembering acknowledging him, I just suddenly took notice of some argument going on, along with some French guy shouting “Merde” very loudly, and continued following Chris.

Once again, we were submitted to the humiliation of Customs. Well, I say humiliation, I passed through cleanly. So did Chris. Jonathan, however was not so lucky. He returned, shoes in hand, with a grimace that looked like he’d accidentally chewed on a tube of superglue. Let’s hope he didn’t get the “rubber glove” treatment.

Thankfully, that was going to be it for the searches. It was time to hit the duty free. I was impressed at the sight of a Virgin Megastore. Therefore, while C+J hit the booze shop, I went there.

And within 34 seconds, I was back outside of it. Megastore? Bollocks! It was absolutely tiny, and the choice of music on offer was laughable. Bugger. I caught up with C+J again, and continued to browse the duty free shops. There is an appalingly small selection at CDG airport. Annoyingly, there wasn’t even any type of bar to while away the hours. Instead, we just walked around the poor selection of duty free shops. Naturally, I stocked up on cola bottles. They taste so much better than the ones in the UK.

So, after walking around a bit, we eventually found a cafe type place. I wasn’t hungry, but instead settled for an Orangina, which cost me a cool €3.50. My word.

I amused myself by checking some of the error messages on the broken advertisement displays. Even these weren’t remotely interesting. all they were was the time, an IP address, and some code number. The rest of the time, I was wondering whether the airport lounge was lit by Philips QL lamps. No seriously, this is how boring waiting for a plane can get.

Eventually, after what felt like an age, we made our way downstairs to the appropriate gate for our plane. Well, I say plane, I actually meant bus.

A bus would take us from the terminal building to the location of where our plane was taking off. Now, you remember the boarding pass we printed out only a few hours before? It was useless. Absolutely useless. It got scanned in, by the desk at the gate, and a NEW boarding pass flew out of the machine. Apparently, the plane that was going to take us back… er, wasn’t. Therefore, all of the seat numbers had changed. I don’t know, and obviously will not know the reason for the change in plane.

At this point, I didn’t expect any delay, so I phoned Daddykins and let him know everything appeared to be in order.

We were then kept on the bus for what felt like a fortnight. Obviously, there was always going to be a bit of waiting to do, but personally, the less of it I did, the better. I’d been awake 5 hours by this point, and hadn’t done a single thing. It felt like such a waste. Still, we’d be gaining an hour when we landed in Blighty, so it wasn’t too bad.

The bus circled through the airport, slamming the brakes on for every single little thing that happened to cross its path, meaning that the unlucky ones who were standing up got thrown forward. Luckily, I got a seat, and wasn’t going to give it up for anyone.

We left the bus, and climbed on the plane. Now, this plane was brand new. According to the brochure stuffed in the back of the seat, it was only a few months old, and it actually smelled like it. All of the seats were leather, there were entertainment units in the back of the seats (sadly not powered on for such a small journey) and the whole thing was immensely immaculate.

Unfortunately, we were kept waiting once again, and by this time were roughly 45 minutes late. I was sure Daddykins would have been waiting in Newcastle by this point.

Now, this is where Daddykins used a bit of ingenuity (probably spelled wrong) that I didn’t expect from him. He had used the trip to Newcastle airport to kill two birds with one stone. He had an errand to run, and also had to pick me up. So, he went and did the errand, and after completing said errand, he sent me a text message.

At this point, it was likely I was still sat on the tarmac in France, with my phone switched off…

Daddykins knew that the first thing I’d do after we landed was switch my phone back on.

Anyway, after what felt like an absolute age, we were making our way around the airport whilst being sat in the plane. Eventually, we got told to prepare for take-off. And off we went. The plane left the tarmac, and I was prepared for the whole spectacle of flight.

It was the first time I’d flown on a relatively clear day, and I’d bargained with Jonathan and Chris to get the window seat. It was awesome. Words can’t describe it.

Pictures, however, can. This was my 6th flight, and the first proper one where I’d actually managed to remember to take my camera out of my hand luggage before getting on the plane.

I think overall, I took 80 photos just out of the plane window. I’m overjoyed that I was able to document it.

Coming into land was my favourite part. We flew over Whitley Bay. I was able to point out to Chris.. “Look! That’s what’s left of the Spanish City!”. Very little, by the way.

We kept getting lower and lower, until we eventually touched down at Newcastle airport. Obviously, as previously mentioned, I switched my phone on, and the text message Daddykins sent was delivered. This meant that he knew we were close. I rang him as well, just to inform him of the safe landing, and the fact we were about to collect our bags. We were to meet him on the outskirts of the airport, as he was NOT going to get stung for those extortionate charges like last year…

Within minutes, we were hurling down the A1, back towards Hartlepool. Our holiday was well and truly over, and unbelievably, there was no major disaster. All luggage was intact, and not stained.

C+J got dropped off at their abode, I returned back to Mercuryvapour towers, expecting to be slobbered to death by two dogs who hadn’t seen me for a week. Instead no, they just slobbered over Daddykins, while gesturing that they wanted to go out. Bah.

So, all in all, Paris is a very nice place. Most side streets and the metro smell of piss, the beer is extorionate, the view from the top of the EIffel tower is amazing, the french can’t drive for Toffee, the most popular car is the renault Twingo, the pigeons look even stupider, and I have been informed by Marko who occasionally leaves comments on this site that Lidl’s do own-brand cherry Jaffa cakes…

This is now the end of the 15,352 word essay. If you want to find out more, you can check out all of the pictures I took here:-

Paris Day 1
Paris Day 2
Paris Day 3
Paris Day 4
Paris Day 5
Paris Day 6
Paris Day 7
Paris Day 8

I might stick sections of the video I took on Youtube in the coming days, but as far as the blogging and photos go, that’s your lot! Normal service, about how much I hate work and dull crap like that will return shortly

As I awoke for the last full day, I looked out of the window. The weather had, once again, turned out for us. It was absolutely glorious. This was a nice surprise, considering last year, and the torrential downpour that greeted us on the final day.

We wanted an early start, to be up for 9. Therefore, I went and woke C+J up. At 10:05, I was still sitting in my room, taking photos of the ceiling.

EVENTUALLY, they both surfaced, and we headed off to La Terrasse, for our final awesome brekkers, consisting of the usual tea, baguette, OJ and croissant. Oh, and I forgot to mention, you get a little biscuit with your hot drink too.

Thankfully, it was Monday, so the Shoppy was open, so we were able to stock up on supplies and bottled water for the day out. We planned to stay in the hotel for this final night, seeing as we had a very early start the next day, so it was a case of stocking up on food-like supplies for the night. I was especially looking for biscuits, similar to what we’d just had for breakfast. Unfortunately, I didn’t find any, but I’ll tell you what I *did* find…

Cherry Jaffa cakes.

Oh, man. I remembered these from when the short-lived “Pims” brand was over here. I mourned their passing, and was absolutely delighted to find them again. I opened the box up, took one out, took a bite, and was in biscuit heaven. It’s like all of my xmasses had came at once. I have no idea why they don’t do them over here any more, but by the time I’d gone the short walk from the shoppy back to the hotel room, the box was half empty.

So, back in the hotel room, we made the final preparations to visit the catacombs. I had my camera ready, batteries charged. We then consult the book to find out their exact locations when… BOLLOCKS! The sodding things are only closed on a Monday, aren’t they? ARGH! I must admit to being a bit gutted, as it was one of the things I was looking forward to seeing.

Never mind. It just meant that we had to revert to the backup plan of visiting Sacre Coeur, which is the big church on the hill, and was highly recommended by one of Jonathan’s friends. It can be seen in this picture which I’d taken a few days before. Sacre Coeur, translates to Sacred Heart, and is a Roman Catholic basilica dedicated to the sacred heart of Jesus.

So, off we went, leaving the hotel behind again, for the journey on the metro. this time, we all got two tickets each, just in case we came across one of those “ticket only”stations like we did before.

A long metro journey later, we arrived at Montmartre, I think. We departed the metro station, and began to walk about, in the general direction of Sacre Coeur. It soon became apparent that everything in Paris is uphill. There are no downhills to this place, and this was no exception. What was even worse, is that the side streets were packed with tourists. Argh. We reached the base of Sacre Coeur, only to find two things. a hell of a lot of steps, and hundreds more of those damn souvenir sellers, all lined up in a big row.

Suddenly, their mood changed, and one of them began shouting something loud in french, whilst walking towards somebody. I could only recognise one word… “pickpocket”. Yes, it turns out that these sellers also have the added bonus of being able to recognise the persistant pickpockets and chase them away from the tourist areas. Wow. I was so impressed, I almost bought something from them. Almost.

Up the steps we went., but not before I broke out the camera…

Halfway up the steps was another one of those sellers, but this time selling large, 6-ft long inflatable things with the usual “I love Paris” type shite printed on them. He kept throwing one in the air. Unfortunately, his location was right next to a fountain and a large pool of water. Every few throws meant that the large inflatable thing would blow off-course and land in the fountain. He would get a round of applause each time he rescued it successfully without falling in.

Further up the stairs was possibly the best street entertainer I’ve ever seen… now this is the first time I’ve embedded video from flickr, so apologies if it doesn’t work right, but here it is…

We stopped off for a good 20 minutes whilst slowly sipping the afore mentioned bottled water. Looking at that small 30-second video clip, you can just see how many kids put money in his hat (probably because their parents didn’t want to look like idiots). If he could keep doing it all day, I’m sure he’d be making a fortune.

Of course, there was also some scruffy idiot approaching him and pretending to dance very badly next to him.

Next stop was the actual building itself. Thankfully, unlike the tourist trap outside, it was a lot less busier on the inside. In fact, you weren’t even allowed to take photos or video. Following on from how touristy Notre Dame was, this felt a much better place to see. It was also a lot smaller on the inside than ND, so it didn’t take too long to see all of it.

We went back out, and had a little bit of a walk around to see if there was anything worth seeing. We made our way into the market square, and walked around. the place was filled with painters trying to sell their paintings. Now, these were genuine sellers, as you could watch them painting them if you wanted to. We kept walking, and came across a nice little food eaterie place on the corner. I got a croissant, and C+J got sarnies. I can’t believe how much I love croissants.

We found a seat to sit on, and watched as a British car attempted to get up the hill, then deciding against it entirely, and reversing back down, causing temporary traffic chaos. Oh, the hilarity.

After we’d sseen everything that the area had to offer, we headed back down through the side streets and throngs of gift shops. I noticed that one of the stores were selling french CDs, lo and behold, the Gilbert Becaud CD I’d purchased was amongst them for €10! Baaahaha! I’d got mine for half of that price! Awesome!

A quick reverse metro ride from whence we’d came meant that within a short time, we were back at the hotel. You know, I believe that’s the worst sentence I’ve ever written. Never mind.

Either way, what I was trying to say is that we got the metro back to Le Hotel Splendid. It was about 3PM at this point, so there wasn’t much point travelling far, and I wanted to see the interior of the Hotel Invalides. After all, a building with such an impressive outside was bound to have something special on the inside. It’s only a quarter of a mile from the hotel along Avenue de Tourville. We walked over, and I got Chris to take some cheesy shots of me…

The entry fee was €8. Now, there didn’t appear to be a ticket booth in sight. Instead there were two ticket machines in a little cubby-hole. Oh, now this was going to be fun.

I inserted my card, hoping to be told that it couldn’t be debited, or something like that. Surprisingly, it went through successfully. I almost let out a cheer as thre little tickets plopped into the tray beneath the machine. The American tourists next to me didn’t have so much luck. Apparently, Chip+Pin hasn’t reached across the pond yet, so their card wouldn’t work in the machine. I thought they were out of luck, until I spied an actual manned ticket booth ahead. I pointed them in that direction, and they were eternally grateful for my help.

Some of the exhibits were closed on Mondays, which seems odd. Mondays would appear to be more of a rest-day than Sundays. Still, we’d paid now. The first stop was, of course, Napoleon’s tomb.

It’s staggeringly impressive.

Sorry for the large burst of photos there, I think it’s justified in this case.

After being suitably impressed with the interior of the building, the next step was the war museum. Now, this was interesting, though I failed to take any photos while I was in there – I didn’t know whether cameras were allowed or not, and I didn’t fancy taking my chances. Obviously, it expained a lot about the past two world wars, though it seemed to tone down Britain’s part in these conflicts quite considerably. There were some very impressive exhibits, however.

It seemed to take ages to get through the full three floors of exhibitions. And that’s because it did. We spent nearly two hours in that exhibition alone.

By the time we got out, it was 5:45… and the doors closed at… a quarter to six. There was absolutely no chance of being able to squeeze anything out of it. a bit of a shame, as it looked like there was plenty more to see.

We took one last visit to Shoppy, and I picked up some Leffes, With these, I was guaranteed a good nights sleep. Therefore, my last meal in France cosisted of this…

Crisps, cherry jaffa cakes and the all important Leffes. Wonderful!

Now, something I haven’t mentioned about this holiday, is that I took a copy of the Hartlepool Mail with me. They do a regular feature called “Put us in the picture”, where they invite you to take a copy of the paper on holiday with you, and then send them a photo of wherever you are.

I was originally planning to do this, but seeing as we were on the last night, I thought we’d never get it done. And, to be perfectly honest, I wish I hadn’t!

We set off from the hotel, after I’d knocked 4 bottles of the Leffe back, in order to take some hilariously ironic photos of me doing silly things with the paper, including reading it upside down. Despite the fact we were absolutely pissing ourselves laughing whilst taking the photos, it was very windy, and they all turned out to be abysmally bad. This is possibly the only publishable one…

Note how fat I look, that’s just my shirt billowing up, honest.

I have added the word “Arse”, and saved it with 83% compression, just to make sure it doesn’t actually appear anywhere else, such as in the Mail itself!

We said goodbye to Le Tour Eiffel, and I took one more “serious” photo of it, before we headed back to the hotel one final time…

We entered the hotel, and the next time we would exit through these doors, we would be leaving our keys at reception for good. Shortly after we returned back, I retired to my room to pack away the final things that were going home with me. The black bag which had carried water and cameras for the last week was going to be used one last time for my hand luggage. I set my alarm for 6. Earlier in the week, we had arranged for a “shuttle service” to pick us up. It would cost €17, but at least we knew it would get us there in good time, and exactly where we wanted it…… wouldn’t it?

With only two full days to go, it was time to hammer the metro and get as much seen in the next 48 hours as humanely possible.

The day started with Breakfast once again. Now, let me just explain about the breakfast. You’ve seen me mention it many times, but I’ve yet to explain in great detail what it consists of. And, seeing as we’re in our penultimate full day, I might as well tell you.

Just over the junction from the hotel was a lovely little eaterie called La Terrasse. You may have noticed I’d mentioned it a few days ago, when discussing Chicken Brochettes. Anyway, this was our chosen breakfast spot too. For €8.50, you get the Fench Breakfast, consisting of half a baguette, crossiant, (including jam / marmalade if required) orange juice and hot drink of your choice. It really is a perfect way to start the day, even if it is a little expensive. I’m considering taking it up as part of my daily ritual. It surpassed the breakfast we had in Berlin by some considerable margain.

Before I’d gone away, I’d been informed of a few must-see places. These mainly involved around dead people. The two places that immediately sprang to mind were Jim Morrison, and the Catacombs. But seeing as Bastille Day had been on 14th July, we thought that we might as well go and see Bastille to start the day off. After all it, was on the Metro Map, and considering we knew how to use the Metro now, there was no harm in giving it a quick try out on a lovely Sunday morning.

Tickets were purchased, thanks to the machine on the Ecole Militaire platform. Once again, we entered through the automatic gates, and awaited our train. There was rarely a wait longer than 5 minutes for every train we waited for. This was ideal.

So, after swapping trains, we reached Bastille, expecting something immense like what we’d seen the day before in Le Grande Arche. So, as we exited the Metro station, our collective thoughts were…. um, is this it?

Considering Bastille Day is so widely celebrated, we expected to find more than an admittedly large statue, and something that may, or may have not been some type of ticket office.

The ticket office isn’t featured in that picture, before you question me! In fact, after a quick Wiki, I was right about the ticket office. It was indeed a ticket office, for the Opera Bastille, and that structure you see before you in that photo is known as the July Column.

We took a walk about, considering it was a stupidly hot day. We walked past Bastille itself. Or at least I think we did. All of the historical point of interest signs were in French, and Google Maps wasn’t much help.

We ended up by the side of the river again, and I broke out the camcorder for the last time in this particualr holday, meaning that the tapes I’d bought from the Louvre were completely useless. They’re still sat in my suitcase, wrapped in their cellophane. Ah well. They’ll do for next year.

After deciding there was little to see or do here, we headed back to the hotel in order to pick up my Lonely Planet guide, and also so that I could use the “room facilities”.

I began to read the section on graveyards in my little book, knowing that Jim Morrison’s grave was somewhere in Paris, and thanks to the Metro map given in the afore mentioned guide, we pinpointed it to the exact location. Within minutes, we were back in the metro station, buying tickets to feed through the machine. I bought two, as I understood that we would need to return. C+J only bought one.

Once again, the metro trip was like one of those things where your brain switches off, waking up every few minutes to see which station you’ve stopped at. As expected, the correct station was located, and we exited the urine soaked rat-tunnels.

The Père Lachaise Cemetery was just over the road, so we negotaited the traffic, and entered through the most unstable steps I’ve ever seen.

Now, over here, graveyards are roughly the size of postage stamps. Tiny little things with 3-foot high headstones, where you can easily see from one side of the graveyard to another This wasn’t the case here. This graveyard consists pretty much entirely of huge crypts where whole families are laid to rest. I guess “burial real estate” is at a premium in this particular capital city. According to my handy little guidebook, there are roughly 1,000,000 people buried here. There are maps on the entrances and exits, but the whole place is still confusing. Everything is split into divisions and roads, of which there are about 90.

After walking about for about half an hour, with not a clue where Jim Morrison’s grave was, we consulted one of these maps. It wasn’t much help. Another half an hour later, we eventually found it! And it’s very, very small.

For someone with the status of Jim Morrison, I was expecting one of the large monuments to be his grave. Nope. In fact, this is it…

At this point, my phone rang for the first time on the entire holiday. It was Daddykins, wanting to know what time we were arriving back in Newcastle on Tuesday. It felt weird saying “Can’t talk now Dad, I’m at Jim Morrison’s grave”… In fact, walking around a graveyard with a camera felt really weird anyway.

Aother person buried in the same cemetary is Oscar Wilde. As you’d expect, however, his grave is a little more… erm… “impressive”. Covered with lipstick, with little poems left on it.

There’s a story about this paricular gravestone. Now, the angle I was stood at when I took this photo makes it hard to tell, but the large angel on the gravestone was once complete with a full set of male genitals, which were lopped off at some point and used as a paperweight in the cemetary office.

It occured to me that both of these foreign trips we’d made have had unintentional links to Oscar Wilde… In Berlin, there was the Oscar Wilde Irish Bar, and here we were, standing outside his grave. Ironically, his grave was busier than what the bar in Berlin was.

Edith Piaf’s grave was also there, again for someone so famous, hers was almost unnoticeable. in fact, I wouldn’t have seen it if an american tourist hadn’t said “Gee, look, Maw! It’s Edith Pee-aff’s grave!” (They didn’t really say that, did they? – Ed)

Um, no.

There was one grave which wasn’t mentioned on the map, but I would have liked to see… the grave of Gilbert Becaud. You may remember I mentioned him yesterday, and even purchased one of his CDs. I knew he had died, but it wasn’t until I got home I found out that he was buried in that very cemetary. I might have even walked past it without knowing. Bah!

After walking around the cemetary for what must have been two hours, we began to head off for something to eat and drink, eventually settling for a little café a few hundred yards from the cemetary. Something I did notice about Paris, despite most of the shops being closed on Sundays, the butchers were still open. This is obviously the complete opposite of here.

Anyway, this particular café was the only one where we actually needed to speak French, as the owner didn’t speak a word of english (alledgedly). For fear of ordering something completely different than what I wanted, I just stuck to a drink, while C+J went for a sandwich of some description. We ate and drank up, and now it was my time to shine. The only French I’d managed to learn in my entire time there was how to ask for the bill…

“Le addition, sil yous plait”.

The whole bill came to €15, or something like that.

So, we headed back to the metro station, only to find that the stop we got off at was unmanned, and therefore, you needed a ticket to get back in. That was fine for me, obviously, as I’d bought two, but for C+J, who only bought one (and used it up), it was a bit of a problem. therefore, we had to get on via another nearby station. Thankfully, this didn’t alter things too much, and we quickly found the way back to the hotel.

By this time, we’d left it a bit late to visit the catacombs, as by the time we’d have got there, it would probably have been closed. Instead, we decided to stay closer to home and take a quick look around Hotel Invalides. You may remember this as the impressive structure we walked past on the first day, and also took photos of on the 2nd day.

It looked even more stunning in the sunshine. We entered the main complex, and after only a few photos of cannons, we were informed by the security guard that they were closing tonight, and to make our way to the nearest “sortie”. Fair enough, at least we knew where the place was.

It was 7PM at this point (it felt much earlier if I’m honest), so we continued to have a bit of a walk. We even retraced our steps of the first day, and our agonisingly long journey through the back streets in entirely the wrong direction. Obviously, this time it was a little more relaxed, as we weren’t carrying half-ton bags with us.

There was a camera crew in the area outside the “national assembly”. Don’t know what they were about to record / broadcast, but I’d hazard a guess at a news report of some kind…

We walked towards the Invalides metro station, where we got off on the first day, just to have a bit of a look round, and see if we can pinpoint exactly where we went wrong on the first day, and where we should have gone. We also took a walk towards some buildings that looked interesting. At this point, I don’t think the other two were that keen on going any further, but meh! I wanted photies, and photies I got.

Suddenly, as we got up close to them, they began to look very familar. It became apparent that we were at exactly the same spot where the 90-minute boat trip dropped us off at a few days before. Aaargh. It became apparent just how much of a waste of time that particular boat trip was!

Anyway, with my photo bug satisfied for the night, we began to head off for something to eat. We were going to try another one of the cafés near the hotel, only to find that we should have checked the prices and the menu… this means we had a little bit of a walk to see if we could find anywhere to eat, before eventually settling for La Terrasse again. I had the chicken brochette again, as it was really nice, C+J had a burger each.

By the time we’d finished, it was getting late, and we left La Terrasse at 10:15PM. We gave up completely on trying to find somewhere reasonable to have a cheap beer, so therefore headed back to the hotel and had a relatively early night. With only one day to go, I didn’t want to spend the whole day packing, so I forced everything in my suitcase apart from the bare essentials.

I then spent the next hour in the bath. It was glorious. But what was even better was the shower. I normally don’t like showers. I prefer long hot soaks, but this particular one had some type of healing quality on a body which must have walked the length of a marathon in the previous six days.

With the majority of my stuff packed away, I was ready for my final full day in Paris, expecially looking forward to seeing the catacombs…

This was probably one of my favourite days. It was the day that we started using the Metro, and it was also the day that we returned to the Pompidou centre..

Once again, the day started the same way… Breakfast (maybe), shoppy, and then make our way to the destination of our choosing. However, this time we weren’t going to be surrounded by the calmness of a smooth river tour up the Seine. Ohhhh, no. This time, we were to use… THE METRO!

Before we entered the station, I got some money out, and took the following photo…

You know, I think “Ramasse” might have a different meaning over there…

The nearest metro station to our hotel of choosing was Ecole Militaire, which is literally just over the road from the hotel. It also translates into “Military School”, in case anyone is wondering…

So, after Jonathan negotiated the tube map and found out our destination, we had to actually get into the platform. C+J both had a ticket which they’d bought on Tuesday, which was supposed to be for all week. I had, cleverly, thrown mine out. D’oh.

this meant that I had to attend to the ticket machines, which use a complicated and fiddly “roller” system. You roll a roller to move up and down and choose your option via a faded green button. Seems easy enough. And it was! Before I knew it, I was €1.60 lighter, and in possession of a tiny little ticket with a magnetic strip on the back. Hurrah!

I inserted it in the machine. Within seconds, it came whizzing out of the other side, and a little green light pleaded for me to enter through the gate. Awesome! I’d cracked it! The gate closed behind me, and C+J attempted to insert their tickets… “Whoosh, BEEEEEEEP, red-light”. Oh, *my*. So, there I was, one side of the barriers, while C+J were the other. Frustratingly, I couldn’t even tell them what I’d put in the machine to get my ticket, mainly because I wasn’t able to remember without seeing the machine, and there was the big fence in the way. Bugger.

C+J contacted the woman behind the desk, and purchased a ticket each. Theirs were €8. something… wait, there was something up here, what’s the difference between theirs and mine? Why was mine roughly €6 cheaper?

Turns out, they’d bought a day ticket, whereas I’d bought a single journey ticket. Seems a bit of a waste, unless you’re going to make more than three journeys.

Oh, something I must mention about the metro is that it’s pretty much an open sewer. I don’t think there was one concourse or stairwell that didn’t smell of piss. Of course, this isn’t a problem with just Paris, in fact every underground train network I’ve ever been on smells of piss.

We arrive from out of the fluorescently lit rat tunnels at our destination, or at least close to it. Chris’s pigeon-like instincts picked up the scent of the Pompidou centre, and we walked in the exact direction, and within minutes we were outside its wacky 70s exo-skeleton design again.

Now surrounded by all of the classic architecture that surrounds the centre of Paris, this building is a nice little breather…

It was at this time I spied a record store. Right on the corner of the place. Now one of the reasons I was there was to pick up a song. You may remember I did this last year, with one of the reasons I went to Berlin being that I wanted to purchase a song called “Manner” by Herbert Groenemeyer.

This time, it was a song called “Marchand De Ballons” by a guy called Gilbert Becaud. I have this on record, and to be perfectly honest, I absolutely hate it. Yet, I can’t stop playing it. I own it on a very scratchy EP dating back to the 1950s, so I thought it would be nice to update my version to one released on CD. After a short flick through the CDs, there it is! I’d found it!

The Cd contained 24 songs by Monsieur Becaud, track 20 being the afore mentioned song. And it was only €5. Cor! How could I resist? Well, clearly, I didn’t.

I went in and handed over my monopoly money, and within seconds, I was in possession of it. Hurrah. Just for the record, and because I like posting photos, here’s a photo of the shop I bought the CD from…

So, after C+J demolished a “Jambon Et Fromage” toastie-type thing, we went in, but not before I almost got caught out by the street traders, who seemed desperate to draw a characature of me. I bypassed their very kind offer to do it for free, and caught up with C+J who had polished off their toasties by this point.

We stopped outside at this point for a few minutes while we had a bottle of water each. I was happy at this, as it made my bag that little tiny bit lighter.

We entered at this point, and the first thing on display is this…

Don’t ask me what it is, for I do not know, but the whole thing spins round at a cracking pace. We couldn’t work out if the chain was welded in that position or whether it was in that position thanks to the centrifugal force… I’ve probably spelled that wrong.

The entry fee wasn’t cheap here either. It was €12. Eeek. Still, the size of the place means that you could probably make a whole day of it. Unfortunately, cameras weren’t allowed in most of the exhibitions, so you’ll just have to imagine “modern art”.

There were a few stand-out bits for me. The first was this room showing a video. The video was of a camera, driving around somewhere like India (the exact location escapes me) with people in view of the camera, holding up pieces of cardboard, with the names of western “celebrities”, painted on them, but written in arabic. The room itself, instead of being laid out in a sterile form, had about 100 random small chairs, all different, scattered about the place, which you could sit on and watch the video. Once you had finished watching, you leave the room, and there are all of the cardboard signs stuck to the wall. I *liked* that one.

There was also one, which was simply an old black and white TV camera, pointing at a Buddha’s head, held up in the ground by soil, and you could view it on the monitor below the camera. It was sort-of interactive, as your feet were also in shot at this point. Oh, and the camera was knackered too, though I suspect that’s one of the “points”.

A small distance away was another odd video, of a naked woman whipping the hell out of herself. It was either one of two things… a radical statement against feminism and the futility of human existence, or a chance for me to watch titties bouncing up and down and a little bit of S+M in a public place without feeling like a perv… I think it becomes clear that I just didn’t “get” that particular exhibition.

It was worth the €12 alone, however.

We moved onto the next exhibition which was more of the modern art paintings and… stuff. Now, how can this stuff be art? Painting a canvas completely black? Splattering blue paint all over the place, then leaving it to run down the wall? My “favourite” was one that resembled my favourite white shirt after I’d placed it in a full wash cycle with a blue pen in the top pocket.

I’m sure they all have deep meaning, but after watching Whipsy McWhipson for 7 minutes, I found it hard to concetrate on much else.

My favourite part, however, was from an exhibition by Czech artist Miroslav Tichý. It wasn’t so much art, but photography using home-made cameras. I found it, and the man himself, really fascinating.

On the ground floor, there was an exhibition featuring architectural designs. This was also interesting, if a little small. Some of the detail going into those things was immense, though I suppose they’d have to be, considering they were architectural models.

After we’d seen pretty much everything worth seeing (and not, in the case of the modern art paintings!) we headed off back to the hotel, just in time for me to get collared by the face painters again. This time, I just totally blanked them without even a slightest glance. They didn’t seem happy at my total ignorance. Awwww.

By this time, despite it being cloudy earlier on, the sun was blazing in the sky…

We headed back to the metro station, in completely the wrong direction, so we took the route back, and this time looked for the CD shop I’d visited earlier in the day. At least that way, we knew we were on the right track.

We arrived, and seeing as my original journey was only one way, I had to buy another ticket. If you ever use the metro, it doesn’t appear you can buy return tickets. Instead you just have to buy two tickets for your journey, one there and one back. I’m not sure if that’s common with metro systems all over the world, but it seemed to be here. The only downside of this is that you end up with tiny little tickets filling your pockets if you forget to throw them away.

We went for a very quick stop at the hotel, as we had one other place to visit this evening… Le Grande Arche. It is a structure that can be seen from all over the place, and we’d seen it earlier on in the week from the top of the Arc De Triomphe.

I bought two Metro tickets, while C+J kept hold of their day passes. Now, as this was going to be the last metro journey of the day, it means that my way of buying single tickets (4×1.60 = €6.40) actually worked out cheaper than buying a day pass. Awesome.

Anyway, we boarded the metro, and once again travelled between stations until we reached the destination of choice, We left the train and were unimpressed by the state of the station. Cracked tiles everywhere. It seems like every flat, non moving surface had been tagged. This left us expecting very little when we emerged from the station. However, our worries were totally unjustified. This thing was absolutely huge.

Just like everything else, you could get to the top of it, via the lifts, but you had to pay for the privelege. I think we’d paid enough to get up high, so we gave that a miss, instead we just stayed around the base of it, taking yet more photos.

You may notice that this year, I’ve made a bit more of an effort to get into the photos. Sometimes I just really shouldn’t have bothered.

As you can see, my sunburn wasn’t getting any better! Ah well!

It was, once again, getting late by this point, so we made our way back. Of course, we were gouing to have to eat, so the decision was to go back to the Chinese which we had such a good meal at a few nights ago.

Me and Chris settled for the chicken curry again (oh, how predictable) and Jonathan went for lemon chicken. Now, I believe this was one of the best chicken curries I’ve ever had in my life (with the exception of the beyond-sublime Blossom Garden chicken curry), yet unfortunately, Jonathan was less than pleased with the meal he was served. Such a shame.

I think we went for another desperately expensive drink after this. Or we may have just went back to the hotel. I can’t remember, and I don’t have any photographic documentation to say otherwise. I do, however, know that at 1:30AM that morning, I was sticking the camera out of the window to take some fantastic night shots…

We planned for Day 6 to be spent walking around a graveyard…

So, we’d seen the structural heights. It was time to see some of the cultural heights too. the day actually started off quite late. C+J had a sleep in, while I went and got breakfast. Well, I think I did. As you may recall, my brain simply doesn’t work on a morning.

Either way, I did remember getting some supplies from Shoppy, namely more water. You know, I’m sure the bottled water companies make an absolute killing from tourists who can’t handle the heat of certain places.

I did also spot something interesting in my random trip through the beer aisle. There were bottles of Leffe, at 9% for something daft like €4.50 for 6 bottles. Whee! I didn’t buy any, however. At least not yet, anyway.

Eventually, C+J surfaced, and we made plans for the day. I wanted to get pics of the Eiffel Tower from the Palais De Challiot, or “that big thing with loads of water in front of it” as I described it at the time. It is only thanks to google Earth that I know these place names, you know!

Anyway, my picture need was satisfied…

It was at this point, the unthinkable happened. Chris *succombed* to the temptation of buying some of those shitty little eiffel towers from one of the street sellers. Even worse, in his rush to get some money out of his pocket, he pulled out roughly €200 out of his pocket. My word. It was like one of those “Everything’s going to turn to shit right about now…”

Thankfully, and somehow miraculously, it didn’t. I had to intervene and pay with the loose change that I had.

After that heart-stopping moment, I took a few more photos, and then we decided to head off to the Louvre, but inside of it this time.

This place is absolutely huge. You enter through the large glass pyramid which is so very famous. Like quite a few places, if you take a bag in, it has to be searched. Or rather, someone looks inside of it to make sure you’re not smuggling a dog in, or something like that. Due to the vastness of the place, we bought our tickets, and walked straight out of the exit, and into the shopping centre in there. Clever, that.

Still, it gave me chance to stock up on camcorder tapes. I only took two with me, and one of them was already full, and the one in the camera was about half full. 90 minutes of video in 4 days – impressive.

Chris almost spent something like €27 on an absolutely huge Chupa Chup lolly. Thankfully, common sense won in the end, and he walked away, sans lolly.

OK, so we made a U turn and went back into the complex itself. Once again, my bag was searched, just in case I can bought “un chien” while I was in there.

firstly, I thought cameras weren’t allowed. Well, in fact I thought that cameras weren’t allowed in the whole place, otherwise I’d taken a lot more photos.

When it became apparent that cameras were indeed allowed, I got Chris to film me so I looked as if I was being at least slightly sophisticated. Once again, it failed miserably.

You just have to take a look at that, and ask yourself, how sunburned is my neck?

It quickly became apparent that we wouldn’t be able to see all of this. One thing we did see is the Mona Lisa. Now, I was expecting something absolutely huge. You know, massive.

It is, in fact, absolutely tiny.

(Image coming soon, it appears I’ve forgot to upload it)

It’s behind bulletproof glass, and two security guards stand alongside it. What is really depressing as that the other artworks in that room obviously get overlooked, thanks to the popularity of the Da Vinci Code.

We walked around as much as we could, until we came to an exit, and then turned back. There are a lot of dead ends in this place.

I do have one question, art fans. What is this?

Every man and his chien was photographing it, similar numbers to the Mona Lisa, but I can’t see why. It’s probably a really famous piece, too.

Thanks to FraserM for identifying it as >Winged Victory of Samothrace

Now, I know I mention toilets a lot in these postings, and I apologise for that (not really), but this is an actual service annoucement, should anyone be visiting the Louvre. I will say one thing. If you have the bladder capacity of a vole, make sure you go to one of the toilets outside BEFORE you have your tickets validated, as there didn’t appear to be *any* inside.

This sort-of cut the trip slightly shorter than originally planned, but there’s a limit to the amount of art you can appreciate in one day anyway.

We left the Louvre behind, and seeing as it was still quite early, we went to find the Pompidou centre. It’s probably the most eccentrically British thing in the entire city. It turns out it’s a massive walk from the Louvre… in fact, let’s bring up google Earth… yes, it’s 1.38 miles away, or at least it is the way we walked.

Now, we don’t know what had happened, but on our way, we passed a shopping precinct with at least 20 police vehicles parked outside it.

After taking a detour down the back alleys and streets, the map led us to its exact location.

And here it is, in all its glory…

The fountain next to it was filled with even more eccentric modern art fountains…

Again, it was getting late, so all we did was examine the surrounding area for a bit and decide to come back the following day. Oh, but the next part was an absolute killer. Thanks to us having to walk 1.3 miles to get to the Pompidou centre, it also meant that we had to walk the same distance back to the boat stop. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so exhaused from walking in my entire life. Even worse is that I was still carrying three bottles of water and two cameras around with me.

The boat stop beckoned, and it was only a few short minutes until the boat arrived. By this time, and this was the only time, it started to rain. Not even that much, just a few spots on the boat’s glass. Maybe the nice weather was about to come to an end…

Despite the boat rides being nice and relaxing, it quickly became clear that this was not the best way to see the city.

We got back to the hotel at roughly 7PM. There was still time to visit the shoppy, and pick up the mere essentials, namely those 9% Leffe’s I mentioned earlier… I got 6, and Chris got 6.

Again, after a quick breather, we went out for something to eat. Now, one of the things I noticed when I picked the hotel and consulted Google Earth, was that there was a place across the road called Punjabs. Like, literally across the road.

I had held off long enough. I just had to try it.

So we made the staggeringly short journey from the hotel to the indian. I ordered Chicken madras, and it was interesting to say the least. I’ve never had a madras where the chicken was still on the bone. Although it was edible, I’d have much rather preferred actuall bits of clicken like you get over here. Strangely enough, C+J’s dishes did actually come with that, but I can’t remember what they ordered.

Now, we were still on the lookout for a cheap “pint”. It’s something that seems to be a rarity in this city. We took a walk away from the hotel in the general direction of um… well, actually, we didn’t know. We just kept walking, checking prices until we found somewhere that actually looked cheap.

This was another faulure. The cheapest “pint” we found was for €7.50. Sigh. That’s amost twice as much as we paid for the Leffe’s. So, we dragged it out, sipping slowly until the alcohol almost evaporated, and we were left with a glass of stagnant French piss. Even the waiter seemed a bit of a misery. Therefore, in our quest for cheep beer, we crossed that direction off our list and headed back to Le Hotel.

Now, the moment of truth. Were these 9% Leffe’s actually drinkable? The answer had better be yes…

I located the bottle opener, which in this hotel, is located on the bathroom wall.

6 bottles of the stuff later, I returned back to my room, switched on Sky News (one of only two English channels received) and promptly fell asleep. Who knows what the next day would bring? Well, me obviously, otherwise there wouldn’t be much for me to type…