Kiwi Roaming

Next morning we walked to the Eiffel Tower stopping off in a very cute cafe for breakfast (another croissant, baguette, hot drink and cold drink combo one). We had to stop along the walk to tend to Milla’s blisters and love how Paris has random parks and benches for rests like this.

Steve and I took the elevator up today while Milla walked, I mentioned there were millions of people around? so we ended up getting to level 2 about the same time. It was was pretty busy and crowded up there but the views were fantastic as always. The streets around the tower were closed for a 20km race and it was cool watching the thousands of folks running as we walked around each face. A quick shop for souvenirs and we started the walk down to level 1. Milla noted it was scarier walking down than up which makes sense at 115m high.

After a few more photos we jumped on a Batobus for a quick tour. I have this uncanny ability to fall asleep on any moving transport so had a lovely doze in the sunshine while Milla took copious photos of the sites. We had pretty grand plans for our day but the sheer volume of people had slowed us down so our next stop was lunch. Milla was insisting on paying and the cuisine we hadn’t tried yet was crepes, so we hopped off at Hotel de Ville and headed for a crêperie. As we walked through some fantastic streets I realised we were nearing the Pompidou Centre – which was awesome. When Mike and I first visited Paris we went to the Pompidou and saw a Miro exhibition which I loved (and plan to go see the permanent Miro collection in Barcelona next week).

Anyhow, the Pompidou is being shut down and massively refurbished, lots of asbestos apparently as well as creating a more flexible space. So it was awesome to have our lunch beside this great building. Lunch was a set menu – a complete (egg, ham, cheese and salad crepe) plus a cider or soft drink, and a dessert crepe with sugar and lemon. Very yum. One of the young waiters asked Milla for her Instagram this time – another great moment in her life. We didn’t have much time so popped into a few last tat shops where Milla completed her purchases and I made a couple of my own. Then into an uber and back to the hotel.

Milla’s train left from the Montparnasse station again so Steve and I bid her farewell then back to the hotel bar for a relaxing drink before collecting our bags and taking another uber to Gare de Lyon for our train to Lyon. We purchased a few snacks at Paul (a chain Boulangerie), fought our way through the thousands of people in the station then settled in for a pretty uneventful TGV trip.