Paris here we come. We estimated another six hour drive and our experience with getting to Provence we left nice and early so were on the road by 7.02am, watching the sun rise over the mountains and the fog in the valleys burn off. A particular part of the drive was stunning. As we were coming up to Geneva we climbed the hill and looked left (just briefly for me as I was driving) across the lake into Switzerland. The road them started going through huge mountains tunnels then over twisting bridges (instead of cutting into the hill side), one bridge over another. It was just beautiful and every time we came across any water in a stream, lake or river there was thick fog at least until 10am (even though we couldn't see the water sometimes, relying on Victoria our sat nav to show the water onscreen). By about 11am we had well and truly left the mountains behind and began driving through farmland. The cool thing about this was there was the odd chateau that was highlighted by a gigantic road sign and an arrow pointing to it if it was visible from the autoroute. The kids lifted their heads briefly from Dora playing on the iPad each time their Mum went "oh that's a lovely one" and also oohed obediently.
We arrived at the Peugeot drop off point at Orly airport after successfully navigating through and around the airport. This was made very critical as when we began to approach Orly our petrol light came on and the situation would have become dire if we had needed to do another lap (the kids would have been pushing as Neil would need to navigate). The lady at Peugeot was lovely and we were amazed at how easy it was to give the car back. She didn't worry about the large dent I had left in the side of the car after hitting a stupid low wall in a car park in Lourdes, or the fact we had left absolutely no petrol in the car at all. Instead she graciously drove us to the airport terminal in her large van so we could catch our cab into Paris. Because we had arrived over an hour early our booked taxi was unable to collect and advised us to get a regular cab instead. Easier said than done with 6 pieces of luggage, a couple of bags of food, a child car seat and four people! After understandably being rejected by a number of cabs, a lovely man came to our rescue with a mini van. The driver helped us with our luggage, took us the most direct route, and charged us about half what our booked cab had estimated the cost would be. What a great start to Paris!
Our apartment is lovely or should I say cute. The kitchen is smaller than my walk in wardrobe at home, the main bedroom is in the lounge room/dinning room, and the kids room is the width and length of two single beds with a walkway down the middle. The apartment is great though as we are only a block away from the Luxembourg Gardens which has a huge playground and numerous leisure activities, close to many cafes , there are about four metro stops within blocks, and we are in the back of the complex on the ground floor so you can't hear the street at all.
As soon as dumping the bags in the apartment we headed out for a quick explore and to let the kids stretch their legs. Of course we went to the playground in the gardens and their eyes nearly popped out of their headset delight.
The only drawback was that as it was Sunday every child in Paris was out and there was a charge to get in (only small so it is well worth it). By the time we dragged the kids out they were exhausted so we had an early dinner. We found a great bistro 5 minutes from home that serves food all day so no waiting until 7 pm as we have had to do in other places. I think I am going to love my 10 days here.
Tomorrow we are fulfilling Heather's wish of going up the Eiffel tower as she's finally stopped calling it the Awful Tower.
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