Bruno Banani:

Above is a photo of some jocks in a shop across the road from our apartment. They are called Bruno Banani’s. These jocks are a huge source of amusement for Kristine every time she walks past them and she keeps saying I should buy a pair. I think she just wants to get home and tell all her girl friends that she has just been on an exotic European holiday and spent most nights rubbing up against Bruno’s Banani!!!!

Day 20 Munich:

What a day we have had today. It started when we woke up and looked out the window. The sky was clear blue and the forecast is for 20ºC. We started by catching the train and getting off one stop short of the central station. We decided to walk from this stop into the Marienplatz which was about a 2km walk. Munich looks completely different with the sun out. We see a cafe on a street corner just before we get to the Marienplatz and it looked pretty good with all the chairs outside in the sun. We stopped and had some morning tea. I had this apple strudel that was by far the best I’d ever had and the coffee was excellent. It was just nice to sit outside and soak up some sunshine before we continued on our way. We get to the Marienplatz and wander around for a while before finding ourselves a little further on in the Viktualienmarkt. This is a food market with little food huts and beer gardens, a fantastic little joint. The kids grab a snack and we keep going for our next destination, the Hofbräuhaus. This is a very famous beer hall and one of Munich’s oldest dating back to 1589. This is also the beer hall that Hitler used to hold a lot of his meetings including the meeting where he outlined his 25 point program of ideas which were to become the basis of the Nazi Party so this was a must for us and, they serve BEER! We head straight out to the beer garden and find a couple of empty seats coincidently on a table next to an Australian couple in their 50’s from Sydney. We get to talking and by chance they are doing a similar holiday route to us but in reverse. They have already done Switzerland including Zermatt and St Moritz and the Glacier Express. They give us the low down and a couple of tips and we chat for a little longer. After a while they leave so we decide to head inside the hall because there is a lot more atmosphere inside. I’ve heard a fair bit about the famous Bavarian pork knuckle so I convince Kris we have to give it a crack and I tell you what, it was tasty!  We end up spending most of the arvo there before making our way back to the underground and a train ride home. Now, as I’m writing this, the kids are chucking bombies in the bath and Kristine is lying in bed reading her book.........with her eyes shut.........and her mouth open. I think the wine has taken its toll!!

"It's coffee time...."

"It's pizza time...."

"It's pretzel time...."

"It's stein time...."

"It's wine time...."

"It's pork knuckle time...."

"It's cookie time...."

"It's home time."

It's weirdo alert time....
beep, beep, beep...weirdo alert, weirdo alert...beep, beep, beep

Day 19 Munich:

Today we get out of bed to weather that is a little better than yesterday, not quite as cold and no rain but still very overcast. We get ready for take 2 of Dachau Concentration Camp. We head down to our closest U Bahn stop, Josephsplatz, and get a ticket. Because of yesterday’s poor effort when trying to purchase a ticket I took photos of the ticket machine and wacked the info into Google translate and worked out what ticket we needed to buy so this time around I’m armed and it’s a 10 second exercise to get a ticket. By coincidence, the ticket is the same one we bought yesterday, WOW!! We make our way to Dachau, exit the train and board the very squishy bus for the final short leg to the concentration camp. We are packed in like sardines and it is a struggle to hang on and not fall over while the bus driver does his best Sebastian Vettel effort around the tight streets to get us there. We arrive in one piece and purchase some audio guides and start the walk through the camp. The start of the camp is very depressing as you enter through the gates with the words “Arbeit macht frei” (work will set you free) shown on them. As you continue through the grounds you see the prisoners living quarters which are just diabolical even before you hear how many people had to squeeze into them. At the far end of the grounds is the gas chamber where apparent mass murder took place and the crematorium is next to that. It was hard to imagine while we were walking around the grounds the atrocities that took place in this very spot only 65-70 years ago. It was also very hard to imagine just how much the people in the camp had to deal with as this camp was extremely brutal and extremely cruel. We leave the grounds and grab a bite to eat and make our way back to town for the Oktoberfest. We couldn’t get over how massive the Oktoberfest is. I was expecting to see a street with a stack of beer halls and a couple of boring old show rides shoved over to one side for the kids. Instead, this is a massive royal show like atmosphere. The main drag appears never ending with food stalls selling sausages, crepes, roasted nuts, pretzels, you name it and it’s packed full of weirdo dressed Germans. I was expecting the whole beer hall thing to be massive but I wasn’t expecting the side show to be even more massive. We spend a bit of time wandering around, playing a few games and grabbing a snack. Kris finds this souvenir shop selling Oktoberfest wood love hearts where they burn your names into the face of it. She’s like “look at this, whataya you reckon we get one Paul and I get all our names put on it?” I’m thinking, what a piece of junk, just add that to the pile for me to lug half way around the world why don’t ya, so I say “Wonderful sweetheart, that sounds great”. We get slugged €11 for that and I figure it’s time we see the inside of a beer hall, so we go in and I get myself a stein. They don’t serve wine so Kristine found she was a bit left out. Tyler was a bit of a hit though because he was wearing his Hawthorn footy jumper with his No 23 on the back so we had a lot of Aussie dudes yelling out “BUDDYYYYYY....BUDDYYYYYY”. In one tent on the way to the toilet one dude walking back in the opposite direction gives him a “BUDDYYYYYYY” and sticks his hand out for a high five and in another tent some dude walking behind us gives him a kiss on the head!! We call it quits and head back to the apartment. We have a short break and get ready for dinner. I wonder what restaurant we will end up at????

"Not so tough after all a you Mr U Bahn ticket machine?"

 

"The front gates at Dachau Concentration Camp"

"Oktoberfest front entrance"

"Mmmmmm, donut....thing"

"The start of my first stein"

"The end of my 12th stein........ok it's still my first"

"beep, beep, beep......weirdo alert,weirdo alert......beep, beep, beep"

Day 18 Munich:

Our first full day in Munich and it is very cold and very wet. The maximum temperature today is forecast at 9ºC. We need some supplies so we head around the corner where there is a fruit and vegie shop. Then we head back in the other direction where there is a supermarket, all within 100m from the apartment. We have breakfast and get moving. Today we are going to the Dachau Concentration Camp which is about 20 minutes out of Munich by train. We walk down the street to the underground train station, the U Bahn. We look at the ticketing machine and try and decipher what ticket we need. Half an hour later we are still looking at this machine so we ask a passer-by to help translate the info for us. She was fantastic but we still didn’t have a clue what we were doing so we picked a ticket for the price we thought we should pay and headed underground. They don’t have barriers at the train stations like Perth so I suppose it must be an honesty system. We get to the main train station where we need to transfer to the Dachau line. We arrive at Dachau and think were the hell do we go now. I ask a bus driver who politely informs me that Dachau is closed on Monday’s. Shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiver me timbers I think to myself. As soon as he tells me that I think, yeah, I remember reading that when I was researching it back at home. The rain is constant and it is bitterly cold. Kris and I are sharing an umbrella and we haven’t been this close since our honeymoon. Kris politely informs me that it is time for a second umbrella. Offended, I head on over the road to the equivalent of a Coles Fossey store to get one. It’s now back on the train and back to Munich. We get out of the underground and start walking for the Marienplatz, the main square in Munich and I tell you what, it’s freak’n cold, and wet! We walk for a while and see a German sausage place. “I’m getting one of those” I say to the kids. So we give it a whirl and we all agree that that was a bit of a winner. We keep walking and by now we are just about frozen over so we stop to buy Kris and the kids some woollen gloves. After a bit of a look around we get back on the U Bahn and take off back to the apartment. We get back to the apartment and decide we’ll go for a walk around Scwabing to try and find a hot coffee because I tell you what, its freak’n cold!!! This is a beautiful little area but not much is open on a Monday arvo. We find a coffee shop that is nice and warm and hang out there for an hour or so. The rain finally decides to let up around 3:30pm so we head back to the apartment. The kids watch a movie before we walk back down to the Italian restaurant we ate at last night for dinner. This time we order more food, more wine, more dessert and hang around for a lot longer. We didn’t think that after 18 days travelling through London and Paris that the best restaurant we would eat at would be an Italian restaurant in Germany 100m from our apartment and at half the price of all the others! “See you tomorrow night” we say to the waiter as we walk out the door.

"Downtown Schwabing, Kurfürstenplatz, Munich"

"Mia enjoing a laugh at the Italian restaurant"

"The kids doing their diaries after dinner"

Day 17 Paris – Munich (Continuation):

We arrive in Munich around 5:30pm. We walk out of the train station and amazingly straight into a cab, unlike the 100m long queue we had in Paris. The cab driver helps us with our luggage and pops the booster seats in for the kids and then does their seat belts up, unlike the arrogant snob cab drivers in Paris. The cab driver heads off down the road towards an intersection where people are waiting to cross and he stops to allow them to cross the road AND the people politely give him a thank you wave, unlike in Paris when someone wants to cross the street this is the signal for the cab driver to speed up and toot his horn and then there is an exchange of abuse. At this point I’m asking myself “have we entered Jerry Seinfeld’s Bizarro World???” We continue on and arrive at our apartment. The cab driver gets out and helps us with our luggage. He then gives me the correct change from a €20 note, unlike in Paris where they assume it’s a keep the change policy. The cab driver takes off and stops 50m down the road and gets out and runs back to return a half full bottle of water we have left in the car. What is going on? We have arrived in some sort of parallel universe!!!

We enter the apartment and get greeted by the owner’s husband and he’s a really nice older bloke. The apartment is fantastic with plenty of room, much more room than the Paris apartment. We get settled in and think we will go for a wander and see if anything is open. We’ve been told that being a Sunday evening, not much will be open. We are staying in Schwabing a suburb sort of similar to Mt Hawthorn in style and distance from the city. We walk about 100m and there is an Italian restaurant in the middle of nowhere. Nothing else is open. We are straight off the train and we are starving and tired and we look starving and tired. We just walk in and ask for a table. No one looks down their nose at us, it’s actually the opposite we are welcomed. This is a beautiful restaurant, very traditional, owned by an Italian and the waiters are Italian, they speak Italian, the restaurant has table cloths and candles. We just spent a week in Paris and didn’t see one restaurant that had table cloths. We order our meal and the food is amazing and they just keep bringing food out that we didn’t order, on the house. This is a restaurant that would be 5 stars in Perth yet the mains here are between €6 and €12 a pop. We pay the bill and walk back to the apartment, no crowd’s just a couple of people walking on the streets. What a change from where we have just come from. We left Paris exhausted and drained. We have just regained the spring in our steps!

Day 17 Paris - Munich:

Today we leave Paris for Munich. We need to be out of our apartment by 10am but because we packed most of our stuff yesterday arvo it is a relatively simple process to get ready. Unlike London, we feel we are ready to move on. Paris is a beautiful place and we loved it. The place is huge and there are people everywhere all over the city all day. Everywhere you look there is something amazing to see, a church, some architecture, a street, a cafe, a patisserie. It would be very easy to burn your camera out during a week in Paris but it just isn’t a welcoming place. In general the people are just as they are portrayed, rude, ignorant and arrogant. They look down their noses at tourists and offer very little assistance when they are asked a question. At street level the place is dirty. The stench of cigarette smoke is constant and the ground is littered with cigarette butts. You can be walking down the sidewalk and people dining at a cafe will just flick their half smoked cigarette butts still alight over the footpath in front of you onto the street. You find yourself constantly avoiding spit as you’re walking down the street and on a Saturday morning the place reeks of urine. Then there’s the driving, don’t get me started on Paris drivers!! But that’s it for the bad stuff, the rest is all good. So now we find ourselves on a train speeding through the French country side heading for Stuttgart. At the moment apart from the houses it looks like any other country side but I’m sure this will slowly change. Once in Stuttgart we have 8 minutes to get off this train and transfer to our Munich train. Catching these trains is stressful enough without chucking in an 8 minute transfer. We’ll see how we go we could be spending the night in Berlin..........LIVE UPDATE: Well, we made the train to Munich....just. We were still standing in the aisle holding our suitcases and back packs trying to find our seat as the train is pulling out!! The train from Paris arrived a couple of minutes late which reduced our time down to a 6 minute change over, then we had to battle the Germans to get off the train (that was pretty easy, we know what the Germans are like in a battle) and then of course our connecting train platform is at the other end of the station. We all run like crazy and jump on the first carriage just to make sure we are on. We had to kick some old German bag out of our seat. She had a moustache better than Merv Hughes and she wasn’t happy, I think she swore at me in German!!?? The conductor has just been passed and checked our ticket and hasn’t kicked us off so I assume we are on the correct train? Now I am looking out the window at Stuttgart passing by, I don’t drink scotch but I reckon I’d throttle one about now.........LIVE UPDATE 2: Mia has just vomited all over the train and some people. Kris has rushed her to the toilet. The train now stinks and I’m the lucky bugger that gets to clean it up!

Day 16 Paris:

We wake up to a chilly day and walk back down to the open top bus stop because today we are back on the Grand Tour. We are going to go back up the Eiffel Tower for another look. We get off one stop early at the Trocadero so we can walk down. The view from here across the fountains down to the Eiffel Tower and beyond to the Parc du Champ de Mars is sensational. We continue on down and get in line for a ticket to go up the tower. This time we are walking up the stairs. It is much cheaper and the line is shorter. This only allows us up to the second level but that’s ok because I still haven’t mustered up the courage to go to the top. I case I forgot to mention it it’s a long way up!! (and I’m still a girl). We are not sure this was a wise move as there are 688 stairs to level 2. We get up to level one and take a break for coffee and a muffin and a look around while the sun is out. We continue on and make it to level 2 and the view during the day is just as impressive as it was at night. If we could just do something about these stinking tourists it would be perfect (this is our second time up so we don’t qualify as tourists anymore....we’re virtually locals now). We make our way down and walk back up to the Trocadero stop and catch the bus back to the apartment. As this is our last day we do a bit of packing before getting out for our last Paris dinner. We thought St. Germain looked good so we decide to walk and have a look for a half decent restaurant. Bad move, nothing but rubbish around here but that seems to be our experience in Paris. We’re not sure were all these amazing restaurants are hiding. We find an ‘el cheapo pasta joint but we are all very tired and pretty much eat and run. We get out of the restaurant and it’s persisting down. My walk home and a crepe along the way has gone out the window as we have to catch a cab home. Another delightful cab ride with another delightful cabbie. Not exactly what we were expecting for our last night in Paris but that’s ok because it’s been a pretty good week.

Tyler’s comments: Today we went on the open top bus for the 4^th time in Paris. We used a map to know where we were going on the bus. The bus took us to the Eiffel Tower. To get to the second floor it took 688 stairs. There are 2,500,000 rivets in the whole Eiffel Tower. When we got to the first floor we had a snack. I had half a donut and half a croissant. When we got to the bottom my legs were aching like mad.

Mia’s comments: Today we went on the open top bus tour. It didn’t rain today. Then we got to see the Eiffel Tower. We went to the 2^nd floor and it took 1376 stairs to go up and down. My legs were really sore after that!!

FACT- Rivets 2,500,000! WOW!

We were hungry when we got to the first floor so we stopped and had a snack. Then we went to second floor and took a couple of pictures and went down again.

"View for the Trocadero down toward the Eiffel Tower"

"Morning tea on Level 1 of the Eiffel Tower"

"What a view"

"The local "Caltex" and garage on the next street of our apartment - Classic!"

"The kids watching a movie before bed"

Day 15 Paris:

Yesterday was a long day and today we had planned on taking a train to Brussels in Belgium as it is only an hour and 15 minutes away but we have been going full bore for 2 weeks now and have not stopped to rest. So today we decide it’s time to compromise (I’m the one being compromised) and do something a little more relaxing. We decide to spend the day on the open top bus tour and do the two routes we didn’t get around to doing earlier in the week. We start off on the blue route that takes us through the East part of Paris, the opposite direction to the Eiffel Tower. Not as much to see on this route but still well worth the time. We jump off back at our start point and head off to get a bite to eat. We head down some quaint little cobble stoned streets near St. Germain and I spot a crepe place. I ask everyone “who’s up for a crepe”? No one is interested so I get myself a sugar and cinnamon crepe and chow down! We keep walking and the kids here me moaning with delight at the taste of this crepe and beg me for a try. They have a taste and I find myself looking for another crepe shop. This time we all get one and we eat while we walk and make our way back to the bus stop. We jump on the orange route that takes us through Montpanasse and St Germain. Paris just keeps on surprising us, this area is stunning. We get off and wander through St Germain again and across the bridge and along the Seine. The walk along the Seine is incredible as we stumble on the bridge that has all the padlocks attached to it, I’ve seen this on Getaway. We head back to the apartment for lunch and decide we will take the yellow route up to Montmartre later in the afternoon and get some dinner while we are there. We get to the top of Montmartre and the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur is right in front of us again. Last time we were up here I don’t think the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur was open but this time it is and we go inside to have a look. This church is amazing on the outside but it is more amazing on the inside, the best we have seen yet and better still there is a mass in progress with a bunch of nuns having a sing along. This is an experience of a lifetime and one we won’t forget for a while. We decide to exit and walk up to the restaurant area. We have some dinner, some wine and enjoy a beautiful night under the stars and walk back down the hill to catch a cab home.

Mia’s comments: Today we went on the open top bus tour again. This time we went on a different route, the orange route. We went around back t where we started and I got a CREPE! It had butter, sugar and cinnamon and it was yummy, I mean really really yummy. After my really yummy crepe we went to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur. It was in Montmartre. We went up lots of stairs to get to the church It was so so so so so beautiful. There were lots of gold on the roof and lots of pictures and candles. It was a lovely, lovely church and we were lucky to arrive at mass time so we sat and listened to the nuns singing.

Tyler’s comments: Today we went on the open top bus tour and I got a crepe for morning tea. Then we went back to the bus tour and went to Montmartre. We went into the church and it was really cool. There was a painting of Jesus, the walls were carved in like poles and a mass was going on and nuns were singing. My crepe had sugar and cinnamon. It was nice.

"A proud Dad watching his son turn into a man"

"Purchasing the crepe"

"Eating the crepe"

"Marvelling at the crepe"

"Kris doing what she does best at our Montmartre dinner spot"

Day 14 Paris: (kids comments)

Tyler’s comments: Today I went to Disney Studio & Disney Park. When we got there we went and got our tickets. My favourite one was Disney Studio because it was more boyish and Disneyland Park was mostly of fairytales. The first one we went in was Disneyland Studio. The first ride we went on was the Toy Story army parachute. It was like a lift going up but broke and fell but it went a lot slower. The second ride we went on was the Toy Story slinky ride. It was like you were in a slinky but made of metal. It went around slowly and got faster. After we went and had lunch, I had nuggets with chips and coke. After we went and saw the stunt show. My favourite stunts were when the guy skidded and went through fire and when the guy smashed through the restaurant window through the trucj and straight through the fire. In Disneyland Park it was full of cartoon characters for GIRLS! It was mostly the colour pink and it had the castle you see before the movie. We went to Buzz Lightyears laser blast. You were on a journey through space and you got guns to shoot spots.
Mia’s comments: Today I, yes me, went to Paris Disney. The first ride was a parachute ride. It went up and down like a real parachute would. It was fun because you really felt like you were in a real parachute. The next ride we went on was the Slinky Dog ride. It was cool because you went around and around and Slinky was chasing his tail. In Toyland the entrance was cool because Buzz Light Year was in the front of the entrance. It looked like we were small like a bug when we were in there. The next ride we went on was the magic carpet ride and it was fun because you got to control your carpet. There was a controller that you could move by yourself. Then we went on the water racing Pirates of the Caribbean ride. You got inside the boat on the water and saw the story of the Pirates of the Caribbean. There were pirates, of course and waterfalls. It was kid’s day and that meant that Tyler and I were in charge. We got to choose what we had for lunch. I had a huge 500ml coke. I also had nuggets and chips. It was a nice meal. The restaurant was like McDonalds but better. After lunch we saw a stunt show. It had motorbikes and cars. The bikes were chasing each other and flipping and doing all different types of tricks. We went to the other park and we went on a Snow White ride, a Pinocchio ride and a Peter Pan ride. Today we got to go on a lot of rides and now we are going back home.

Editor’s note: These comments have failed to mention that Dad was the Scroop Family Buzz Lightyear Laser Blast champion with 139,300 points, a massive 100,000 points clear of his nearest rival. WELL DONE DAD!

"Photo's before getting on the parachute ride"

"Waiting for the Driver Stunt Show to start"

"Mickey Mouse"



"A princess with some chic in a blue dress"



"In front of the castle"

"In the tea cups"

"Riding the Toy Story Slinky"

Day 14 Paris:

Today we get out of bed to another beautiful day and today we are taking the kids to Disneyland Paris. We get organised and make our way to the Paris underground. This is our first experience travelling by train in Paris. The underground station is called Chatelet Les Halles and this was our first hurdle. The train we were catching was not part of the metro system but instead a RER train which is the Paris regional line. To add a bit of spice to our hurdle I read last night that this train station hosts 750,000 travelers every day of which 493,000 of them are on the RER. In addition to this, the station can also see up to 120 trains per hour. The train station itself goes down 5 levels of which are all shops that take up an entire block (I reckon it would be about 6 Perth Myer buildings). Knowing this in advance has not filled me with a great deal of confidence as we head down to buy our tickets. We get down to level -5 and manage to secure the tickets without too much fuss, although we did get slugged 46 Euros ($62 AUD) for the equivalent of a train trip from Currambine to Perth. Next we have to find our platform which we do after asking for help. Now, which train is it? If I had of listened to Tyler we would of headed off to god knows where, “Dad, it’s this one I know it”!! I have the choice of listening to my 9 year old expert or asking for help. I decided on the latter and asked for help from a French only speaking chap and we managed to sign our way through a conversation and find out which was the correct train. Fantastic, we were on our way (and no, Tyler wasn’t right). We get to Disneyland, which is a 30 second walk from the train station and buy tickets for both the Walt Disney Studios and Disneyland Park. We are in right on opening time at 10am and I reckon we’ve done alright! We told the kids that it was their day and they were in control. The day was an absolute blast, the kids had the best time going on all the rides of which most were only a 5 minute wait and they also got to choose what food and drink they wanted......all day. They had a driver stunt show which was amazing, but when I think about it, it’s probably not that different from taking a cab ride in Paris. I can recall on a couple of our cab rides the car being up on its side on two wheels and flying over the top of a truck and I’m also sure there has been at least 1 or 2 explosions on our journey. Mia loved all the rides and all the Disney characters and Tyler told me he didn’t want to go home, instead he wanted to live there. All up it was a great day out. We leave Disneyland at about 6:20 for the 35 minute trip home that takes an hour. The trains in Paris have got nothing on the London Tube. This train from Disney looks like it’s been parked in the streets of Koondoola unattended for a month before whacking it on the train lines and it just keeps stopping for no reason. We finally get back to Chatelet Les Halles station and by absolute chance we exit the station from the same spot we entered. Its nudging 7:30 and we still need to get dinner. The kids are shagged so we decide on the same as last night, meats, cheeses, bread and some fruit back at the apartment. The amazing thing about Paris is that most things are still open. On the street that crosses ours about 50m away there is a supermarket, a handful of bakeries, fruit and veggie shops and bottle shops all open not to mention cafes and restaurants and unlike Perth when you buy bread at 7pm it doesn’t taste like bread that was bought at 7pm, this bread is incredible. We have some dinner and pop the kids to bed and before we know it it’s nearly 9 o’clock. The days just seem to fly while you’re on holidays.
Kids comments to follow:

Day 13 Paris:

We wake up this morning, looked out the window and it is a perfect Paris day. The sky is blue and the temperature is perfect. We take the opportunity to walk to the Louvre. We leave the apartment around 9am for the 2km walk. This is the best weather we have had on the holiday yet. We get to the Louvre and we are inside within minutes. The thing that gets me is that in Perth, it costs 50 bucks to take the family to botanic golf. Here, it cost 20 euro (26 bucks) for the family to see the most famous museum in the world. Botanic golf...Louvre....work that out! Everyone has told me and I have also read that Paris is expensive but this has not been our experience. Some things may be more expensive like wine at a restaurant, but wine at a bottle shop is heaps cheaper. Overall we think this is a cheaper place to visit than Perth. Another thing is that a lot of the attractions are free or very inexpensive to see even when compared to London. We end up spending about 4 hours in the Louvre and we check out the usual suspects, the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo etc, etc but a lot of the artwork is more or less lost on us, or at least me, but it’s not so much about the artwork as it is about the experience of being AT THE LOUVRE!!!! We have some lunch while we’re there and sit by a window with a view I doubt I will experience again, we check out a few more exhibits and decide it’s time to get out. We take a walk through the Jardin des Tuileries which is pretty much a big wide path with amazing gardens either side that goes for about a K and a half leading up to the start of the Champs Elysee. This has absolutely solidified our perception of Paris as the most beautiful city we have seen. We turn around and walk back past the Louvre and keep going to our apartment picking up another assortment of cakes and breads and stuff to eat for dinner. The kids watch a movie while Kris and I head to the deck and eat, have a wine and get serenaded by the kid up stairs practicing his violin. He wasn’t much chop but it really made us feel like we were in Paris.

Tyler’s comments: Today we went to the Louvre. It was a place where all the old paintings were. I thought we were in the triangle but you’re in the building next door. After we walked in the park and then we went home.

Mia’s comments: Today it was a lovely day so we went to the Louvre. This is where the Mona Lisa painting is. This is one of the biggest and I mean biggest museum in the whole world.

"The Louvre entrance"

"Inside the Louvre entrance"

"Venus de Milo"

"Our lunchtime view from inside the Louvre"

"Walking along the Jardin des Tuileries"

"Looking back at the Louvre entrance"

Unknown facts about Paris:

Fact #1: There are more cigarette smokers in Paris than there are people...FACT!

Fact #2: You cannot walk more than 10m without tripping over some Parisians lung they have just coughed up and spat out onto the pavement...FACT!

Fact #3: Not one Parisian driver has a drivers licence nor has any one of them ever had a driving lesson...FACT!

Fact #4: The best place to have a cigarette while messaging a friend on your mobile and changing a song on your iPod, all at the same time is on your motor scooter while riding through the busiest intersection in Paris...FACT!

Day 12 Paris:

After last night’s late finish, today was a late start. We didn’t get moving until just before lunch. The first thing we decided was we need to eat, so we headed down the corner to get some lunch. The patisseries around this area are incredible. It’s very difficult to pass some of the shop windows without buying one of the amazing cakes on display (or two....or five). We have lunch back at the apartment and decide we will go on a river cruise, so we took the walk down to the River Seine. Along the way we pass the Notre Dame Cathedral, a place we have passed at least once a day since we have been here and we have amazed from the outside. We see a queue and decide to join. It was a short wait before we hit the inside. The view on the inside is even more magnificent than outside and better still it was free to get in. We continue to be amazed by the architecture in these building’s and it is just something we haven’t experienced before and is very difficult to explain. After a while we exit and wander closer to where we think we can find a river cruise. While we are wandering we stop at some shops, walk down some streets and after a while we decide we can’t be bothered with the river cruise and head off for a wine instead. We finish our wine and head back to the apartment sit on our balcony and devour a plate of meats, cheeses, fruits and a bottle of wine that was left for us from the owners of the apartment before we catch a cab for the Champs Elysee. Tonight we are going for a walk along this amazing street toward the Arc de Triomphe. It is an amazing night, the weather is perfect and we walk for a while and reach the Arc de Triomphe an hour or so before dusk. For me, the Arc de Triomphe is the main attraction. The Eiffel Tower is special, but there is something about the Arc de Triomphe that just gets my juices flowing. Maybe it’s because it is a photo opportunity waiting to happen. The views on top are incredible, a 360º view around Paris. We hang around at the top for an hour or so soaking in the views before making our way down. I take some time to get a few night snaps before we walk back down the Champs Elysee, jump in a cab and head home. That was something special, something we will never forget!

Mia’s comments: Today we went to the church called the Notre Dame Cathedral. First I lit a candle then I looked around the church. It looked lovely. After that we went to the Arc de Triomphe. We went up 248 steps to the top and then we had to go down again.

Tyler’s comments: Today we went to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was a dark place lit by candles. We sat down and prayed, lit candles, looked around and bought coins. Then at night we went to the Arc de Triomphe. We went up 248 stairs. We saw the whole of Paris. Even we saw the Eiffel Tower.

"Cakes from our local patisserie"

"Tyler in front of the Notre Dame Cathedral"

"On top of the Arc de Triomphe"

"At the base of the Arc de Triomphe"

"Looking down the Champs Elysee with the full moon to the left"

"The Eiffel Tower from on top of the Arc de Triomphe"

"Night shot of the Arc de Triomphe"

"Night shot of the Arc de Triomphe looking down the Champs Elysee"