Turning 30 in Paris

It was pretty amazing being able to celebrate my Birthday in Paris. When we woke up on Saturday morning, the first thing I instructed Seth to do (well, the only thing, I don't often instruct him!) was to sing Happy Birthday to me. He complied :)

We went to a nearby croissanterie for breakfast and then we walked back towards the Eiffel Tower for our boat tour. The boat was pretty big with a warm, inside area and then a lot of chairs outside also. It was a freezing cold day, but Seth and I thought we would brave it and we sat outside. We sailed along the River Seine and saw some of the local sights from the river, it was quite cool to see it from that view as opposed to on dry ground! About half way through the tour, we decided that we weren't quite as hard core as we thought and we went inside to enjoy the rest of the tour in the warm! I don't actually have any photos of the tour as my hands were too cold to take any but it was really good. I especially liked seeing Notre Dame from the water.

After the boat tour, we were both feeling pretty hungry (it must be that river air.......or something :s) so we went for lunch at a restaurant close to the Eiffel tower. This is Seth at the restaurant:

Isn't he lovely?

Anyway, when we had finished, we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. It was so much bigger than it looks in pictures, it's massive! It is right in the middle of a roundabout which 12 different avenues lead to, so it's pretty busy. Seth was more than a little worried when I thought it would be a good idea to stand in the middle of the road to take a photograph because it was the best place to take it from, obviously!

We went through the underground walkway to get to the Arc de Triomphe. It's the only way to access it without taking your life in your hands by trying to cross the road! The sculptures on it are magnificent, we spent a good time looking at all sides of it and of course, taking photos.

Can you see me?

Taken from the Champs-Elysees

From there, we walked down the Champs-Elysees, one of the most famous streets and one of the most expensive strips of real estate in the world. No, I didn't get that off Wikipedia. Okay, maybe I did. I kept singing, "Aux Champs Elysees", which was a song that we heard on the boat tour earlier on and was stuck in my head for the next few days. I thought there would be more high end shops than there were. Fair enough, there were quite a few high-end shops, but then there was also an Orange shop and a couple of other high street ones. It's nice to walk along and people watch as it's just so crazily busy! Seth and I went for dessert at the Gold Room while we were there and we had one of the nicest desserts I've ever had, banana caramel crepes. It doesn't sound that amazing but it was delicious. I was pretty excited about eating it.


By the time we had finished there, we realised that we were actually running out of time so we hurried back to the hotel, picked up our stuff and headed to the station where we caught our train home.


It has been an amazing couple of days. I'm so glad that I ended up buying that handbag so that I got a trip to Paris for my Birthday instead and I'm even more grateful for a wonderful husband who thought of getting me such an amazing Birthday present.