Big Adventures, Little World

After the train ride to the city we got back to the hotel where after our long day we lay down for a nap. After about an hour or so I woke up, and was getting pretty hungry. I had also promised to take Elese out for dinner, so I woke her up as well. She was grumpy, and all she wanted to do was sleep, but I dragged her out and we found a cafe down the road. It was a nice little cafe, and after looking at the menu I knew exactly what I wanted. It gave me the chance to try one of the things that I hadn’t had a chance to the last time I was there and that was Frog’s Legs. I even managed to get Elese to try a little bit of them too! They don’t really have much flavour to them at all. They taste a little bit like chicken, but it mostly depends on the flavouring that is put on them, and these ones had a slightly spicy tomato flavoured paste/sauce on them. It was really quite nice, but I would like to try them again with some different sauces and see how they differ. We moved on to the main course, which we didn’t have any French delicacies at all, but they still tasted amazing, but then it was on to desert. After having some of Bel’s crème brulee when we were in Avignon, I wanted to have a serve all to myself, so I ordered that, and Elese had the same. It was delicious, and made me want more of it, but I am not sure of where to find it and if it will ever be as good anywhere else.

Our next days activities included starting at the Catacombs of Paris, which is a series of underground tunnels where there is the bones of between 6 and 7 million Parisians. It is located about 20 metres underground and is mined out quarries. The bones and bodies were all transferred there from 1786, from cemeteries around Paris as they became too full. While only a small part of the tunnels, the part that you can walk through is over a kilometre long and walls of bones line the majority of it, with other bones arranged in certain way, as well as tombs. It is cold and dark walking through, and also a little bit weird, creepy and macabre, but intriguing and amazing at the same time. It is a very strange mix of feelings down there, but it’s not something that is disgusting or disturbing at all.

Next stop was the Eiffel Tower, via the supermarket to pick up some picnic food. We couldn’t really find what we wanted so just picked up some bits and pieces and headed to the Champ de Mars, some of the grassy areas around the Tower. There wasn’t much chance of sitting on the grass though as it had been raining, but we found a bench and had our own little picnic, before making our way to the tower to go to the top. I’d been up to the second level before but not all the way to the top, and Elese didn’t get the chance when she was previously there, so we got the elevator all the way to the top level. The views are much the same from the second level to the top, you just get to see a bit more out over the city. Luckily, we had some clear skies for it as well, as there was a lot of fog in the morning and if it hadn’t disappeared we wouldn’t have been able to see much at all. We spent a bit of time up there looking out all around the city, but then it was time for us to head back to the hotel, get our bags then make our way to the train station for our overnight journey to Munich. Along the way we stopped off at the Arc de Triomphe, and watched the cars go around the 10 lane, without lines roundabout but we didn’t see any accidents, despite the crazy driving. Then it was down the Champs Elysees where we wandered down to where we would catch the underground.