Our New Adventure Begins,

this time in Greenwich,

 at the Holiday Inn Express,

 in sight of the London O2,

 our coach arrives,

 we are off on a 12 day tour of Europe,

 well not all of it,

 we made our way down the A2/M2 to Rochester, the castle in the distance,

 then to Dover,

 where we hit a snag,

 because of football hooligans,

 the French authorities decided on a full inspection of everyone in case we were going to cause trouble, 

 which was a bit strange as I was the only UK passport holder on the entire coach! still it gave us time to look at our itinerary, and here it is,

 Dover Castle in the distance through the rain,

 whilst I have every regard for good policing of borders, it was a shame that it took so long, we missed our ferry, the queues of cars, lorries and coaches was so long,

 so we had to wait for the next available space, it seems strange that in this day and age it took longer to go from Dover dock gates to the ferry that it did from London to Dover! so we had a coffee and chocolate to pass the time,

 in an hour or so our boat was in so time for duty free shopping,

 and a bite to eat, meatballs for  Diana,

 a chicken curry for myself,

 I then had a bottle of wine,

 which made Diana laugh,

 she had never seen a bottle so small!

 France in sight

 past the breakwater,

 and then waiting for the vehicle ramps to drop onto the vehicle deck,

 a look around one of the other restaurants,

 then back to the coach,

 we passed one of the many P & O ferries that cross the channel,

 after a few hours,

 we arrived at our hotel, the B & B Hotel,

looking across the road this building reminded me of the 'Flat Iron' building, which is located at 175 Fifth Avenue in the borough of Manhattan, New York City

 our room for 2 nights,

 and the view from our window,

 our guide for the trip Gustav, who is from Portugal, after checking in,

 we went back on the coach to take a tour of Paris, passing many buildings,

 like these,

 this one the National Assembly on the way,

 and of course our first look at the Eiffel Tower on this trip,

 grid locked!

 but we were soon back on track,

 as we made our way,

 towards the Champs-Élysées,

 the eternal flame,

 it was a bit difficult taking pictures from the coach,

 on the move,

 but these seemed to be fine,

 having said that,

 we will be back here again tomorrow on foot,

 we made a move from the coach,

 to go up this street,

 towards this magnificent building,

 it had over 190 steps up to it,

 and to my shame I did not know what building it was,

 knowing my knees would not take kindly to all of those steps,

 we took the funicular railway to the top,

 as one goes up, the other comes down,

 and it was a long way down,

 a quick pose,

 over looking the streets below us,

 back to the building,

 and the statue in front of it,

 I will find out more about it tomorrow,

 looking down again we heard voices,

 below us some street theatre was taking place,

 we then noticed a lovers fence,

 similar to the one that we left a padlock on when we were last here, but we left ours on a bridge,

 a water fountain, similar to the one we saw on the embankment a few weeks ago,

 as we had used the railway we had arrived before the group,

 we made our way into the square,

 where we saw this Citron 2CV painted in a two tone finish,

 as it made its way from the square,

 and this is where we were eating tonight,

 chicken for Diana,

  beef bourguignon for myself,

 creme caramel for dessert,

 we made a move back to the hotel, 

 but before that we noticed in the square some filming was taking place,

 a last picture, 

 before we left the lights went on,

 also every hour the strobe lights are switched on to give a stunning effect, which unfortunately does not look as good as it is in a picture,

 the stairs, or at least some of them,

 cable-car for us,

 on to the metro for the journey back to the hotel,

 the metro system here is the same as in London, all colour coded for ease of use,

as we exited the metro, I noticed this Moto Guzzi, I had not seen one for a long time, by now it was late well it was after 10.30 but it seemed later and I guess we were all tired, for us we had been up since 05.00 this morning, so with that we were off to bed.