La Defense

After yesterday's Old Paris this day was to be all about New Paris, but first we needed our trip up the Arc de Triomphe. We left the hotel at 9am and were there by 9.30am. We couldn't go up until it opened at 10am, but our Queue Avoidance Procedure involved Gail standing in the queue (well, actually starting the queue!) whilst the rest of us took a wander down the Champs Elysees and took photos around the arch.

Once up top we had stunning views of Paris, and of all the roads radiating out from the arch. This was the first time we got to see the Eiffel Tower and we could also see our next destination - La Defense.

Once we'd had enough of taking in the view (it did start to drizzle a little) we moved on to La Defense via the Metro. We didn't really know what to expect of this location other than that it included lots of buildings that we could play around with reflections in, and there was a large arch. It's brilliant - we'd recommend any photographer to go and have a wander around! We could have spent many more hours there.

We had a group lunch in a large shopping centre and then walked further from La Defense back towards the Arc De Triomphe, eventually taking the Metro to complete the journey. We then walked from the Arc De Triomphe to the Eiffel Tower. We photographed the views from the Trocadero Gardens side and then walked down to the tower and fought our way through the enormous amount of people under it. Most of them seemed to be queuing to go up the top.

Next, we took a river bus trip down the Seine, travelling under the bridges and photographing the people relaxing at the side of the river. We got off at Notre Dame and then took the Metro back to our hotel to flop for an hour.

For dinner we returned to Ile Saint Louis near Notre Dame. There was a mix up with the reservation, they had three people down and there were twelve of us this evening - we were joined by two LPH guests who lived locally and had helped organise the trip.

Most people wanted to have duck for dinner, but it wasn't available. There wasn't a lot of other choice - we ended up trying a Saint Louis Burger 'Well Done', which turned out to be mostly under-cooked steak strips. Service was extremely slow - we'd booked for 7.30pm, but ended up eating main course well after 9pm. The Chef came down to clear the plates away and wasn't impressed that we hadn't eaten all our burger!

We finally took some more photos of a floodlit Notre Dame and then returned to the hotel to sleep.

The blip is of building reflections at La Defense.

Update: Link to some more pictures from this day on Flickr.