Last morning in Paris

We went on a lovely walk through the city and then along a canal that we have never seen before.

After stopping for the obligatory coffee and cakes we arrived at the Notre Dame for a guided tour of the exterior.

Our guide was excellent and told us all about it's history, and if course, the recent fire.

It happened in 2019 and all of the work was supposed to be finished by last year, but as can be seen, it's not done yet.

Our guide tried to tell us about various miracles that saved parts of the building from the fire, but I wasn't impressed. A couple of examples were that as renovations were taking place at the time of the fire, various famous statues had been removed a few days earlier from the roof so were therefore saved.

Also that firemen managed to stop the fire reaching giant bells in the towers that weighed up to 13 tons each. If these had fallen they may have caused the whole of the front of the building to collapse.

The cause of the fire is still a bit controversial, but what is definitely known is that the security guard in charge at the time misunderstood the fire alarm when it went off and looked in the wrong place, neither did he phone the fire brigade as he should have done. By the time more alarms went off and he did phone them they were delayed in getting to the building because of terrible traffic.

The fire had therefore took hold in the roof by then and burnt for many hours.

In my opinion, the miracle would have been that none of this need never have happened if the guard had done things right at the beginning.

Moving swiftly on, our final sight was of the Pont Neuf bridge.

We didn't go through it but it has been transformed into a temporary prehistoric icy cave and looked absolutely superb. Unfortunately it got a bit ripped in a storm a couple of weeks ago, but it was incredible, almost miraculous.

Paris

 The weather was beautiful and Daz had designed a brilliant 14 kilometres walk for today. After catching a metro and bus, we started at the obvious place.

The whole area is pedestrianised and we spent ages taking photos and wandering around. It would have been great to lift a bike over our heads to recreate the iconic Remco moment, but that wasn't possible, although we did pose with the Olympic rings.

Then the day just slipped away as we stopped for breakfast, coffee, lunch, boating lake, photos, etc.

Our hotel is in the Montmartre district and we could see glimpses of the Sacré-Coeur in the distance.

In the late afternoon we went on a guided walking and snacking tour of the area. We were the only two people on it and Maria our guide was lovely.

She told us lots of stories about the artists who used to live in the locally when it was very poor and cheap. These included Van Gogh, Picasso, Toulouse Lautrec and Edith Piaf.

The snacks were good too. Whilst eating and chatting we gradually climbed the hill and she left us at the top next to the beautiful basilica.

London to Paris

 An exciting 24 hours as we caught the afternoon train to London then went to a show - Titanique.

Quite a weird concept with a comedy musical about Celine Dion and the famous disaster, but the audience loved it and cheered and laughed all the way through.

In the morning we ran a huge distance along the canals near to our hotel in Paddington.

Great views all the way, and we turned back at the bench where Jackson Lamb from Slow Horses met his boss for secret meetings.

Back to the hotel for a quick shower and then up to the Eurostar terminal. Check in and passport control took about five minutes, so we had loads of time in the lounge.

By accident we timed our arrival very well because we just had time to get breakfast before they cleared it away, and then they brought out the snacks and wine.

Hungry after our run we managed to eat a good amount of both before heading for our 12.31 train.

Off the other side at Gare du Nord and we walked to our hotel. Not much later we were on our way to another show.

Not at the Moulin Rouge, although just around the corner. The MR was fully booked, but there are other venues doing the same sort of show, and ours was very glamorous.

We had a great seat and ordered a bottle of Champagne. The atmosphere was great and the show really good and colourful.

The can can and a fantastic guy in a bathtub were the highlights, but unfortunately, absolutely no photos were allowed.