Paris

Today we set off about 8am took the RER into Paris. On the way Steve checked out our hotel on tripadvisor.com only to inform us of the latest post that read 'don't stay there'. Great! As it turned out the Hotel Duminy Vendome was beautiful. Located just behind the Rue de Rivoli and the Tuileries, we first walked to the Louvre. Unfortunately the queue was at 2hrs so we decided to give it a miss, walked through the Tulleries and visited Musee de  l'orangerie to see the amazing wall to wall Monets instead.

Then we stopped at the Place de concorde and more amazing (to Steve) was the humungous hotdog he ate there. We had a chocolate banana crepe and a gluhwein and headed back along the Champs Élysées to window shop with the masses. Well it wasn't all window shopping, we made a purchase of an eiffel tower charm for my bracelet.
Stopped for a photo of the arc de triomphe and watched a while as hundreds of cars diced with death as they negitiated the most infamous roundabout in the world. After that it was another hike towards the trocadero as we admired the architecture of the buildings and finally arrived at the Eiffel Tower.
Mark bought the keyring he had been after all week and we found the entrance to the Jules Verne restaurant. We felt somewhat like movie stars as we walked to the front of the snaking queues of people waiting to go up to the observation towers, and walked straight into the lobby of the specially assigned lift.

The restaurant lived up to its name - the food was beautiful, we had the foie gras, sauteed monkfish tail and then coconut pineapple passionfruit tartlet for dessert. Plus the wines and champagne and the bread and the tasters we were stuffed to the nines and Steve was regretting the hot dog he had earlier.
The whole experience was topped off with my anniversary present (6yrs) a beautiful black and white diamond ring from Canturi.

Then Alyssa had to head back home to Dubai and the three Hubers headed off for after dinner drinks in St Germaine. We met up with some friends from Sydney, Danny and Mads at a bar and shared xmas stories. They were heading to Chamonix for a week in the snow. So the rest of the final night of the year was spent enjoying the Parisienne culture. The next morning we had breakfast in our funky basement restaurant and then a final coffee at the Tabac with Steve and we headed back to Disneyland via the metro which was still free!