Day 3 Monday 3 April 2017

This is the first of my true touristy days, the jetlag is still hanging around.  I went out for dinner last night and about 8.30 I hit the wall.  Wandered back to the hotel and was in bed at about 10.00.  Went straight to sleep and slept like a log until about 2.30am when I woke up as bright as a button and couldn't get back to sleep.

I have looked at doing some things in Paris that I havent done before, so I decided to go the Tower Montparmasse.  This is one of the tallest buildings in Paris and stands out all alone in Montparmasse.  One of the funny things about this buildings is that it is so ulgy that after it was built the Parisians thought that it was so ugly they wouldnt let anything else like it be built.  That is why all the tall, modern buildings in Paris are now in an area called Defense.  There are very few tall buildings in 'traditional' Paris.

Tour Montparnasse from Luxembourg Gardens

Anyway I picked up my 3 day rail pass and started using the marvelous Metro system to get around.  As well as the observation deck at Montparmasse I also went on a balloon ride.  This balloon is a tethered helium (probably) balloon that ascends 300 metres, stays up ther for about 15 minutes and is then pulled back down again. Although it was a bit hazy it offered some great photo opportunities.

View from Tour Montparnasse

The park where the balloon was wasn't far from the Eiffel Tower so I walked around to have a look.  Crikey, you should see the security there, armed police on foot, on bikes and on horses, armed soldiers in full patrol order walking around, all looking very stern.  The whole Eiffel Tower area is fenced off, and to get in to go up the tower you need to go through a number of check points and security.

I  didnt have any intentions of going up in the tower anyway so I made my way down to the Seine and jumped on a boat to take me back close to my hotel.

In the balloon

Flashy, as a keen observer of Parisian life it is still two kisses here.

Clair, nobody much has irritated me today.

A casual observation about life in Paris; everybody is still smoking.  (More on that later, time to go out for drinkies.  Must work out a way of doing the blog whilst having drinkies),  Before anybody says anything, pics to follow!