Monday, May 26, 2008

Contiki Craziness - Parts 10 &11

Day 10 - Lucerne, Switzerland to Paris, France

The 4 captains had an early start the next day and rushed off in the morning (leaving a good 20mins before everyone else) so that we could get the 4 front seats in the bus. We thought that it would be nice to have a good view for the longest leg of the journey. This saddened a few of our fellow passengers as they had had these seats for the majority of the journey and didn't want to give them up.

During the journey we had a huge French history lesson from Nanny Nat, most people fell to sleep halfway through but Captain Sparrow was enthralled by talk of guillotines, Kings and Napoleans exploits. As we crossed the border into France we entered into some heavy snowfall. It was really pretty and we were lucky enough to get some time to play in it when we stopped for lunch.




Finally after a huge day in the bus we mde it into Paris and had a night tour of the city. It was amazing to see the sites and we got a few good photos when we were allowed to stop and get out of the bus.

Day 11 - Paris, France



After a delicious breakfast of croissionts and fruit and yoghurt (were not in Italy anymore) we all headed of in the bus to none other than the Eiffel Tower. It was a cold morning in Paris and the queue was already quite long. Finally we made it to the front of the queue (after about 35-40mins, not too bad really) and got our tickets to go all the way to the top of the Tower.

We had to take 2 lifts to get to the very top, but once there the veiw was AMAZING!! and just to top off the experience it started to snow, so you can imagine how cold it was being up soooo high. Captain Barboasa even managed to make it up and not feel too giddy from the height.




After we had finished at the Eiffel Tower we decided to take the metro to the Arc de Triomph (we were way too cold to walk around and explore that day) where we saw the war memorial for the unknown soldier. The arc is in the centre of the busiest round-a-bout in Paris and was built between 1806-1808 by the Emperor Napoleon I.

Following this we went to see the Lourve, unfortunalely we couldn't go inside as it was closed for the day, but even just to see the courtyard out the front and the controversial glass pyramid was really cool. As it was such a cold day we all decided to head back to the Hotel early so we could have a rest and get warm before the nights entertainment began. Capatins Hook and Morgan opted to have a sleep while Captains Barboasa and Sparrow took advantage of the Hotels spa and sauna facilities to help them get warm.



Feeling well rested we headed out to the Moulin Rouge for dinner and a show. The meal and show alike were amazing and the costumes left little to the imagination, you wouldn't catch me in one :)



Bon Voyage

2 comments:

PamB said...

Its funny but Dale didn't make it to the Louvre as well. It was also closed. Must be a Nicholson thing not to get to see the Moaning Lisa

Jimpa Stimpa said...

The Louurve is only open when you aren't there, I'm sure it's an Paris in joke.