Paris II

As part of our Paris experience we definitely had to go to Le Catacombes.  In ancient Paris the people living near the graveyards were disease ridden and therefore blamed the corpses.  The bodies were exhumed during the night and moved by carriages through the city to the Catacombs.  The one we ended up visiting had around 8000 skeletons.  It's a pretty surreal experience walking past the skulls of humans without any barriers between you and them, especially when you have to squeeze past someone.  Here are some photos of the Catacomb we visited.  The pictures don't really do it any justice as you can't judge how many skeletons are actually in there.  But yeah... kinda creepy and awesome.

Miniature buildings were carved into the stone.  Not sure why.

On a brighter note:  Someone insisted that we had to go to Paris Disneyland.  It was so cold that day that we were running from heated building to heated building as we were so ill prepared clothes wise.   The temperature in Paris can be warm one day and freezing the next, so yeah, thats what caught us out.  Anyway, it was really really fun!!!! The best rides were the Tower of Terror, Space Mountain 2, Buzz Lightyears shooting one, Rock n Rollercoaster, Finding Nemo and more!  If you go, get the two park pass so you can go between Disneyland and Walt Disney Studios, definitely worth it! Just make sure you check the forecast and wrap up.

Mickey Mouse Coffee/Hot Chocys to warm us up.

This is the best representation of a Moko we have ever seen

Haunted House

Speeding trains

Yummy treat shop

We had to leave with some

Buddha Bar Paris. 8m tall Buddha sits in the middle of the restaurant.
We were going to have a drink but the cheapest was about 17euro

Visited Moulin Rouge and the Red Light District

Cotswolds, you're pretty.

Hello friends from everywhere, sorry about our lack of postings. But we are now on the ball and are about to upload a few to let you all know what we have been upto! 
This is a very long overdue post. It has been sitting here since our time in London! We're very slack, we know. 

Wayne and Cindy offered us a trip to the Cotswolds that they had booked but couldn't go on as they were moving back to America and we couldn't say no to a free trip.  The Cotswolds are  an area of villages that were built on some rolling hills and are home to some of the oldest inns in England dating back to 947AD (so they claim).


The villages are made up of tiny houses made out of Cotswold stone and are really very aesthetically pleasing.  It was a freezing day but the tour we went on was very informative and the villages were absolutely beautiful. Take a look for yourself!

Paris

We left London on the 8th of November at 9:22am on the Eurostar train bound for Paris.  The train turned out to be a great way to travel as it only takes 2.5 hours and is a lot more comfy than a plane.  We arrived at a station called Gare du Nord to a bit of culture shock, scammers being chased by security and a homeless man looking in a bin with a bloody tissue hanging out his nose having a yarn to himself.

We found our bearings and managed to sort out where we were in Paris and where our hostel was located so we caught the Metro.  Catching the Metro with all our snow gear and bags was a challenge and the kind lady in the information office sent us to the worst possible station so we had to lug all our gear for ages through a very interesting part of Paris to get to our hostel, St Christopher's Inn.  If you end up traveling to Paris stay here, heaps of cool people and the staff are super friendly.

First day in Paris was pretty relaxed, we had our induction and then we went to the bank to create our bank accounts.  The bank was located in an area called Saint Michel and it took us until around 6pm to create both of our accounts so we decided to get dinner there.  We had a look around and one street over from the main street we found a bunch of restaurants that were all competing with each other so the prices were excellent.  We both got a three course meal for 10 euro each and the meals were awesome.

On the second day we went on a free* walkabout tour to see where a lot of the main attractions were located.  The guide was really good, he obviously loved the history and was a great story teller so he made the tour really interesting. Everyone should do one of these as an induction to Paris.  Wear good shoes though as it takes 3.5 hours.

At the final stop of the tour we were able to see the Eiffel tower so decided to walk there as it was such a good day.

After hopping off the Metro we spotted a local wine store so we bought a couple of bottles and proceeded to consume them through the night...

Yummies everywhere

Arc De Triomphe

and the incredibly skilled driving surrounding it   

This bridge is famous for Parisian men taking a wizz under it. It stinks pretty bad when you walk underneath! Also, the sculpted faces you see are all faces of drunk celebrities from a party that was held to open the bridge

Nazi headquarters with bullet holes

Eiffel Tower

Under the Eiffel Tower. It is a lot bigger than we thought it was going to be.

Eiffel at night

Lamp, Obelisk of Luxor and Eiffel Tower

Obelisk of Luxor. The gold illustrations show how the monument was erected.
The guillotine that they used to execute people was the same height (23m)

Louvre for free if you're a youth (12-25)

Mona behind bullet proof glass

Crowd visiting Mona Lisa

Everyone trying to take a photo of the Mona Lisa

Snake biting a nipple

The paintings are amazing

Look closer

Bridge of lovers locks. Couples come at sunset to attach their locks and throw away the keys into the canal. Forever sealing their love. It would be romantic but an angry man comes through each year to bolt cut them all off!

10 Euro for three course meal. We enjoyed a few

Notre Dame

Interior of Notre Dame. There was a service going on

Pretty Paris

OMFG Police on rollerblades!!