Day 2 Paris

There are several things that I love about Paris and some not so good things. I love the trees and wide open spaces that were obviously planned hundreds of years ago. I love the cafe scene, the fact that it doesn't get dark until after 10PM which means you can walk back to the hotel after a meal and it is still light. And I love listening to the language even though I can't understand it.

What I don't like is the amount of people you see smoking, nor the number of families begging. The young kids are incredibly well behaved and seemed to know that they must stay on their piece of cardboard.

This morning Michael and I headed towards the Grand Palace because Michael was keen to view inside the building and they had an exhibition on. We got side tracked by hundreds of police and a large crowd of people waiting for someone important to turn up. I thought it might have Barrack Obama or William and Kate because they had been at the Normanby celebrations commentating the D-day invasion yesterday. We didn't know it was the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh until they got out of the car.

After a sumptuous French breakfast we arrived at the Grand Palace to find that the exhibition was a real dud. We left shortly after and went to the Museum d'Orsay which had an exhibition of  van Gogh, plus other famous painters that I remember studying at school such as Toulouse Lautrec, Cezanne, and Renoir.  Following that we were a bit cultured out so we headed back to the hotel. Whereas this morning had been cloudy and raining off and on, this afternoon was a stunner. Very warm. Nearing our hotel, which is near the Bastille monument we walked along side a protest march which just happened to be going the same way we were. It was an anti-fascist, anti- capitalist protest march, with riot squad police following closely behind them. Our hotel door was locked and manned, they were only letting in their guests in fear of the protest march getting ugly.

Trish and Grant arrived this evening in time to go out for dinner with us.  We have three weeks until we meet up with Lisa and Kev, and of course Rebecca as well.