PARIS - part 1

Ahh - Paris - the city of love. 

We thought we would visit the Louvre with Rob & Doug - the queue was very long (in fact every museum had very long queues) so decided to part ways to discover Paris on our own.

Cliff & I wanted to walk along the Champs-Élysées. We were extremely lucky as for some unknown reason the road had been closed to traffic.

Paris is not only the city of love but even better than love - Food & Wine. 

There were wonderful markets selling Cliff's favourite beveridge - where in Sydney could you walk down the street drinking a beer?

Mmmmm - garlic snails (not for me thank you very much) but Cliff thought they were extremely yummy (note the live snails in the green basket next to Cliff)

Further along the Champs-Elysees we stopped at a cafe for our first toast to Paris 

I particularly liked the waiters uniforms - very smart & traditional

Not sure how many calories later, but finally we made it to the Arc de Triomphe (where you can walk to the top)

Oh no - more stairs - I was feeling a bit dizzy on the spiral staircase which seemed to go on forever.

But hey - we needed the exercise & it had great views from the top

We met a very enthusiastic Belgium soccer fan who was going to watch his team defeat France.  Lucky for him Belgium won 4-3. He was very happy to meet some Australians  & wanted to buy us a beer.

Well, what could we do - we had to accept the kind offer.

VILLAGE OF BELCASTEL

Linda made a lunch reservation for us at a Michelin Star restaurant "du Vieux Pont". Keith assured us it was well worth the drive & we would not be disappointed. The closer we got the more we wondered why anyone would put a restaurant in the middle of nowhere? Well - when we finally arrived we couldn't believe our eyes - there before us was the most beautiful village we had seen so far.

Believe it or not Rob had to drive over this bridge - we thought it was a foot bridge

We were looking forward to comparing the food we had eaten so far with food from a Michelin star restaurant.

Let me tell you - WOW

The flavours were absolutely delicious

Best food so far & nothing has come close to matching it.

After way too much food it was time for some exercise - so the next day we hired canoes & spent 3 hours taking in the tranquility of the Aveyron River.

I thought we were going to run into rocks but Cliff did a wonderful job getting us through the rapids (not that they were very big, but big enough for me)

A well deserved drink after all that hard work.

Farewell Verfeil - off to Toulouse to drop off the hire car & fast train to Paris.