11th September - Italy to Paris

Limonta to Paris

Awoke early today as we had to leave our apartment at 8am for our drive to Malpensa Airport for our flight to Paris.  We didn’t know that we were going to the airport we thought we were going to the train station to England.  Mum and Dad surprised us again!!  The drive to the airport took 1 and 1/2 hours, luckily we had a GPS otherwise we would never had found the way.  We had to return our car to Hertz and then we walked to the terminal to check in for our flight at 12.45pm.  We had something to eat at the airport and made our way to the flight.  It only took 1 hr 20 mins to fly to Paris so it was very quick.  

We collected our luggage and then waited for our shuttle driver to pick us up.  Paris was warm and 26 degrees, it took about an hour from the airport into Paris, so much traffic and so many people!!!  We were dropped off out the front of our apartment which is over 2 levels and is opposite the St Severn Church in the Spanish quarter or the 5th arrondissement, only 100m to the River Seine and about 50m to Notre Dame.  Martine was waiting for us at the apartment and she showed us around.  The front door locks were amazing you have 3 separate lock sequences before you can actually open the door! (dad was really impressed - not!)  Martine left and we unpacked and then went food shopping.  After shopping we went out for dinner at a Greek Restaurant across the road, the food was delicious, we had huge shish kebabs, mum had suckling pork and tom had chicken.  After dinner we went for a walk to the Notre Dame and then up to Pont Neuf and took a river cruise along the Seine at 10pm at night.  We had a great time, the Eiffel Tour looked great at night and the lights on it were flashing like a fire cracker.  There were locals all along the river bank, and the bridges were packed with people.  We got home at 11.30pm very tired.  Dad couldn’t open the front door when we got back he tried about 10 times, in the end he called Martine, just before she arrived the door opened!  Yippee, we could all go to bed.  A long but great day.

By Louise Chivers