Paris to Rome

Arrived in Paris in the afternoon and caught the metro to our little hotel in Montmartre. This is a beautiful neighbourhood which has been frequented by artists throughout its history. With cobbled streets, cafes, art galleries and florists - you really know you're in Paris.

Spent the afternoon exploring the local area - including a visit to the beautiful hilltop Sacre-Coeur.

The view from Sacre-Coeur

Wandered through the laneways admiring the gorgeous houses with their wrought-iron balconies and timber shutters and enjoying some of the local art works. Finished the evening with a beautiful meal in a local restaurant. Looking forward to more exploring tomorrow.

Saturday 2 January – Paris

Aah, Paris – city of light, city of romance, city where IT’S OK TO EAT CHEESE FOR BREAKFAST!!!!

After sampling everything the hotel breakfast buffet had to offer, we headed off to relive some favourite tourist destinations. Wandered around the base of the Eiffel Tower (massive queues to go to the top so decided to give that a miss), walked to the Arc de Triomphe and then down the Champs-Elysees stopping for a wine and some more cheese!! Spent the afternoon at the Musee D’Orsay enjoying the works of the impressionists, postimpressionists and Art Nouveau movements.

At the base of the Arc de Triomphe

Enjoying the Seine

Our evening’s entertainment was a performance of The Nutcracker at the Opera Bastille – absolutely beautiful.

Sunday 3 January – Paris

First stop this morning (after having cheese for breakfast!) was The Louvre. Knowing how difficult it is to see a huge amount in a short period of time (they say it would take nine months to see every exhibit properly), we decided to focus our visit on the French and Dutch sections (naturally with a visit to Mona and Venus thrown in for good measure).



Wandered along the Seine (stopping for some cheese and wine along the way!) to Notre Dame – the most visited site in Paris. Construction on this beautiful French Gothic cathedral was commenced in 1163 and it was mostly completed by the early 14th century.

The fabulous cheese makes up for the really bad hat hair. Please note - this was a platter for two!

Notre Dame

Finished the day with a visit to the Musee National d’Art Moderne (National Museum of Modern Art) which holds France’s collection of art dating from 1905. The entire collection consists of more than 50,000 works of art. While not all of these are on display, it still takes hours to enjoy the ones that are. This is the place to see endless works by Picasso, Braque and Matisse just to name a few. There are also pieces by Kandinsky and Malovich which were of particular interest to us.

By this time it was too late to go anywhere for dinner, so we decided to visit the supermarket and buy some nibbles for a night in. Having overdosed on cheese over the last couple of days, we agreed that pate was in order for this evening. After much deliberation, we chose something that we were sure was pate, but given that it was sold in a small can with a ring-pull top we were a little concerned that it could well have been cat food (our French is not great). The one comfort was that it didn’t have a picture of a cat on the can. To our great relief, it turned out to be really lovely pate – a successful purchase and a relaxing evening.

Moulin Rouge - just down the road from our place

Monday 4 January – Paris

This was to be our last full day in Paris, so detailed planning was required to ensure we ticked all the remaining boxes on our ‘must do’ list.

First up was a visit to St-Denis on the northern outskirts of Paris. The St-Denis Basilica was the burial place for kings of France for around 1200 years. Work commenced on the Basilica in 1136 and it was such a beautiful piece of Gothic architecture that it actually became a model for other cathedrals in France.

St-Denis Basilica

From here we ventured to the Pere Lachaise (the world’s most visited cemetery) to pay our respects to Chopin, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde. There are many more notable figures buried here, but as the cemetery contains the remains of around 800,000 people you can imagine how huge it is! We decided to just focus on a select few and generally soak up the atmosphere as we wandered around the amazing tombs. This place was well worth the visit.

Oscar Wilde's grave. If you look closely you can see lots of kisses made by fans using indelible lipstick!

Next on the list was a visit to the Picasso Museum. We deliberately planned to visit this museum today, as it’s one of the few which opens on a Monday. Made our way there only to find that it’s closed until 2012 for renovations!! Never mind, we did pass a great little café on our walk from the metro station so our visit to this neighbourhood wasn’t wasted. We enjoyed the most amazing banana and chocolate crepe before starting off on our next activity – a walk through the Latin Quarter.

THE crepe. Please note - this was also a platter for two!

Thoroughly enjoyed walking through the streets filled with cafes and book stores. Wandered past The Sorbonne and then through St-Germain. Made our way towards the Seine before catching a metro to our last activity for the day – shopping!

We stopped to admire the Paris Opera House before heading into Galeries Lafayette – a massive department store set in two adjacent buildings. The shopping is fabulous and the view from the roof-top terrace is absolutely amazing.

View from the terrace of Galeries Lafayette

Finished the day with a fantastic meal at a restaurant in Montmartre – is there no end to this amazing food?

Tuesday 5 January – Paris to Rome

Had a little time to spare in the morning before we had to make our way to Paris Orly airport for our flight to Rome, so had a final walk around Montmartre. We were focused this time and took the guide book, so we were able to identify the houses where Van Gogh and Picasso lived and the establishments frequented by Toulouse-Lautrec. It was a lovely way to spend our last couple of hours in Paris.



Managed to negotiate the metro and shuttle bus to the airport and then enjoyed a good flight to Rome.

It was almost dark when we arrived, but we still managed to see lots of Rome from the window of the bus as we made our way towards the centre of town.

Spent the evening wandering around the beautiful Piazza Navona area (our local neighbourhood for the next four days). It was a little drizzly – and there’s more rain forecast – but we’re sure it won’t dampen our experience in this fabulous city.

Wednesday 6 January – Rome

No rain in sight this morning as we set off to explore Rome on foot. In fact, it was so sunny and warm that sunglasses and light jackets were the order of the day. We’re determined to make the most of this mild weather after freezing in London and Paris and before we head to the Baltics in a few days!

First stop was the Castel Sant’Angelo, begun by Hadrian in 128. Hadrian also built the nearby Ponte Sant’Angelo across the River Tiber in 136. It was during the 17th century, though, that Bernini and his pupils embellished the bridge with magnificent sculptures of angels.

As today is a public holiday in Rome for Epiphany, we were lucky enough to stumble across a street parade leading up to St Peter’s Basilica. Unfortunately the holiday and festivities meant the Vatican museums were closed, so we satisfied ourselves with a walk around the Piazza San Pietro and the Vatican City. We’ll be back before we leave, though, for a museum visit.

St Peter's

From here we walked along the Tiber towards the Spanish Steps.

Can't resist a bargain!

Our walk took us along Via Del Corso and through the surrounding laneways (the best shopping in Rome!) through several beautiful piazzas and into Piazza di Spagna. Sat on the steps for a while before enjoying a visit to the church at the top of the steps – the Chiesa Della Trinita Dei Monti.


Wandered a little further to the Trevi Fountain.


Made sure we threw in a coin each to ensure we returned to Rome.


Continued our wandering to the Pantheon – a magnificent 2000 year old structure which was originally a temple (built by Hadrian in around 120) but was consecrated as a Christian church in 608. By this stage it was well and truly evening and the Pantheon was closed, so we need to return for a look at the interior over the next couple of days.

Eventually wandered towards home, stopping for some pasta in a little restaurant on the way. We’ve done so much walking today – more is planned for tomorrow so here’s hoping the rain holds off!