Paris - 6th June

 
Got up and went down to say good bye to our 40 new friends that we have come to know over the past 14 days of our coach tour.

It has been a very tiring and fast paced couple of weeks but it has been a lot of fun. We would do it again tomorrow if we could afford it. 

After we watched our coach leave with a little sadness we had breakfast and then headed off into Paris on the train system to our next hotel. A little tricky with lot's of stairs, language barriers (time to brush up on our French) and few toilets.





We caught the shuttle bus first to Disneyland which is the closest train station. All the ticketing machines were broken so we just walked through and got on a train without a ticket.
We had to change trains in the middle of the trip and found ourselves on the wrong side of the barrier without a ticket. We found an official and said 'Disneyland' and she just nodded and opened a gate for us. So that was cheap.
Steven managed to trip and tear the nail almost completely off of his big toe. Some blood (near death experience).
Found our hotel, 2 stars, but quite comfortable and in the middle of Paris. The lift was a bit claustrophobic only having enough room for one person and one bag at a time.

Settled in, bandaged Steven's foot  up. Tammy did some work and Steven complained about his foot.




Went out for evening stroll and to find some more bandages. 

We stumbled on the Museum of industrial art or 'Musée des Arts et Métiers' too late to go in but they let us wander around the buildings. 


$60 worth of bandages later and some very busy streets, we found a very nice Italian Restaurant.
 

Our hotel is close to Porte Saint-Denis which is one of the gateways to the original city wall, it dates back to 1356, the very top portal being added in 1675 (possibly). beyond that we came to an area that was very lively, as we moved further in the characters became more and more unruly and loud.  We saw a couple of deals taking place and then saw shops closing up for the night by pulling down solid steel shutters. Every third shop was some form of hair beauty place, they were all packed with people getting strange hair cuts. Lots of wig shops too. We chose not to take any photographs in this street and Steven decided he wanted to leave. 

We returned home via a small supermarket for essential supplies (beer and chips).