Paris, day 2

So, Paris day 2...wow! Time flies and tomorrow I am leaving to come back home to New Zealand. This is really the tough part-deciding wether or not I want to stay, not that it makes much difference :). Well I love it here, but I have really missed home so it will be great to see everyone again :). This morning we got up and ready for our second day in Paris. First things first, breakfast. We took our bags with us and walked around the round about that our hotel was just off, looking for a cafe and bakery where we could sit down and have our breakfast. Unfortunately, in the close proximity to both the metro and our hotel, there was no such cafe that we could find easily - though we had seen plenty in different parts of Paris :). So we ended up in a nice little cafe for a breakfast of croissant and baguette with jam, and a coffee - very traditional, and the first croissant that I have had in, well probably years! It was very yummy and I can see why the French like this to start of their day, though I must say I probably prefer marmite on toast :). After breakfast we made our way to the station and dropped off our bags for collection (before we left on the Eurostar for the last time later in the day). We  are professional metro catchers I think, by the end of our trip we have gotten pretty good at navigating around all sorts of train stations :). So the plan for today-em had to be at the station again by 4:30 so we could get through immigration etc before our train left at 5:15pm. We still had quite a long time in Paris, a VERY good thing :) and so to start off our day we went on a boat trip down the river and past many of the important and famous sights that we had viewed by bus yesterday. The change in perspective was really cool, it is great seeing things from a different view, and we got to go under many of the 22 bridges that cross the river, some of them are really super impressive and beautifully crafted and built! After our hour long cruise along the peaceful and sunny river of Paris, we wandered to the nearest metro station and took a trip up to the Sacré Coeur, which is the second highest point in Paris - after the Eiffel Tower of course :). Sonia didn't want to walk up all the steps to the top of the hill (which wasn't actually very big), so we went up on the little cable car thing called the funicular. Once we reached the top, the views were amazing! You could see so far out into Paris, it was another amazing place to be. After admiring the view, we took some pictures and then wandered into the towny part called Montmartre, where there are tons of Parisian artists selling their pictures as well as many wandering around drawing and selling portraits of people, it is super cool how quick and good they are at their art... They must truly love it :). After looking around at the skilful paintings and drawings, we sat down at a little cafe to have lunch before we headed back down the hill-down the steps this time :). Because we still had some time, we wandered around the streets for some time, looking out for a patisserie that looked like it had something sweet to round our meal off. I ended up with a coffee eclair, which was choc a block full of coffee pastry cream - YUM!!! And Sonia decided on a lemon tart, both of which we ate later on, when we were on the train back from Paris to London. By the time we got back to london, it was 6:15 and we still had to get from here to sevenoaks, so we had a very late dinner (at about 8), of food foraged from waitrose across the road. Finally I have caught up of my blog, YAY!!! Tomorrow I fly, and so will not blog for a while as I will be stuck in cars, airports and planes :).