Oh la la...

Paris, the city of love, and love it was…loved the crepes, the baguettes, the croissants, the pastries, the cheese, the wine, the ham – oh yeah and the Eiffel Tower, Arc du Triomphe, Notre Dame, Musee du Lourve, and Monmarte as well I suppose.

Eurostar is definitely the way to travel to Paris, Central London to Central Paris in just over 2 hours. The train is perfect for comfort and for epic card game championships to kill the time. We arrived late on Fri night with only enough time to make the last Metro to the hotel so not much was achieved apart from getting enough sleep to bound out of bed for an early start to squeeze in as much sightseeing as possible. Bounding was out of the question after demolishing a massive French breakfast and not being able to control the gorging on baguettes, croissants and pastries. It was a slow weighted down crawl to the metro to head towards the Eiffel Tower.

Getting there early unfortunately didn’t mean that everyone else didn’t have the same idea. The queues were massive and we waited over an hour to discover that the top level was closed and we could only walk up to the second level. Climbing over 1000 stairs was of course an excellent way to burn off some breakfast calories and fortunately the weather was glorious so the views were superb even though we weren’t at the very top.

Not happy with scaling just one Paris monument we headed towards the Arc du Triomphe and clambered up the stairs to gaze down the Champs de Elysee. All this stair climbing had worked up an appetite so we strolled down the Champs de Elysee towards the Musee du Louvre and sampled a cheese and a chocolate crepe (pure greediness but my goodness they are good). With a limited amount of time in Paris we had to forfeit going into the Museum and hunting down the Mona Lisa and save that for another visit.

Off to Notre Dame we trudged, you certainly need some comfy shoes in Paris as you end up walking for hours and hours to take in all the major stuff. It is a stunning church from the outside and equally impressive inside. For those of you that have visited before you will know that the bell towers are what is portrayed in all the postcards, but the rear of the church is so different and fantastic in its own right as well.

After all the walking and stair climbing we were both exhausted so retreated to the hotel to rest before heading out for dinner. Of course dinner was a long way off so a pre-dinner cheese, ham and baguette snack was in order. The supermarkets in France are a test on your will power with so many delicious things to choose from! We tried not to get carried away with snacking before dinner but that didn’t last long. Coupled with incredibly cheap wine (1.50 euros for a bottle – probably cheaper than water!) we almost didn’t need to go for dinner, but hey we were only in Paris for one night so it would have been rude not to…meat filled crepe you say? Yes please…

As we were leaving Sunday lunchtime, our sightseeing was limited in the morning but we managed to squeeze in a visit to the Monmarte area and see the Sacre Couer church. It was a beautiful area of Paris and renowned for being an artists hang out. Cobbled streets and apartments with flower pots on the balconies were everywhere and the view from the hill back over Paris was lovely.

It was quite nice getting back to London at a reasonable hour and not being tired for work the next day for a change. We were well fed, relaxed and happy, we love Paris!

Orange County

If you have ever wondered where all the ginga people are or where they come from, let me answer that question for you – Scotland. It was a case of spot the brunette on our recent trip to Edinburgh. Not only that but the city was heaving with the grey brigade taking in the Edinburgh Tattoo. Our group of 4 (including our old flatmates Tim and Rhi) were the unique ones with our dark locks and low average age.

Apart from having to fight our way through the crowds of grey and orange, our 3 day trip to Edinburgh was a beauty. After some quality competitive card action on the train ride up, we arrived to a lovely sunny day. We trudged along Princess St with our bags to our apartment and then it was straight back out for a spot of sightseeing.

Edinburgh is a lively place on weekends at the best of times, to keep things interesting we turned up to coincide with the opening of the Fringe Festival and the Edinburgh Tattoo so it was extra crowded and buzzing with activity. It would have been wrong to not go to any fringe events so we picked stand up comedy. Cant say it was the best stand up I have been to but it still got a couple of laughs out of us. We ended the evening eating deep fried haggis and chips on the street, all of us deciding it was very nice but extremely rich, you can only really eat a small amount.

The following day we decided that we should head out to a whiskey distillery to see how it is all done, especially considering it is one of the things Scotland is renowned for. According to the tourist agency it was a half hour bus ride out…over an hour later we were still on the bus driving out to the middle of nowhere! They probably do that so you are excited about whiskey and are keen to glug the stuff back because you are so annoyed about the long bus ride. Regardless it was most interesting and Chris was happy that we all passed on our unwanted drams of the peat flavoured evil in a glass.

The old town of Edinburgh is very picturesque and the Royal Mile leading up to the castle is a great place to waste an afternoon which is what we did! Most of that time was taken up in shops trying to trace our ancestry and discover if our families had a history of warring against each other. That and trying on Scottish clothing on the sly in the shops and laughing a bit too loudly. We did climb up the monument at the beginning of Princess St to take is some stunning views, word of warning though, if you are a large man (as is Tim) the top can get a bit tight on the old stairs! Probably not a great idea if you have spent more than a few days in Edinburgh eating chips and haggis every night…

They say that the old town is haunted so we planned a ghost tour for the evening to see if we could be frightened. To set the ball rolling we had a few nerve calming drinks and dinner at the apartment, including a round or 2 with the cards playing “circle of death” (which ended up in a lot of laughs and 2 broken chairs).

Off to the ghost tour we marched all full of apprehension…but it turns out the only scary thing about it was the price! A bit disappointing and I have to say we don’t normally fall for the tourist traps but we were well fooled by this one.

It has to be said that Edinburgh is a great city to spend your days wandering around taking in the magical sight of the castle perched on the cragged hill, the old cobbled streets and the countless stores selling tartan products. Fortunately the weather didn’t live up to the Scottish tradition of being rainy and gloomy 24-7 and in fact (although there was some rain) mostly we were bathed in sunshine. We will be back to Scotland for sure…perhaps a bit of Loch Ness spotting next time though.