Summer Holiday Part 11

On our last night in Paris, and the last night of our holiday, we went to see the Eiffel Tower.  We caught the metro to Trocadero where we had a great view of the tower, despite the pouring rain. 

Our last dinner together was had at a little bistro around the corner.  It served basically pub food, but it was good and cheap, and we entertained ourselves by making paper hats.  Our waiter was a champ and we convinced him to wear a hat, and there was a British lady at the table next to us who also wore one of our hats.  It was a really fun night.

After dinner we went back to see the eiffel tower lit up in the dark, and it was incredible to see. It was the night before Bastille Day, and there was apparently some lights display that happened on the hour, but at 10:30 it was between displays, and we didn't want to stand around in the rain.  We rushed home in the hope that we might be able to see it from the rooftop terrace that our apartment was advertised as having, but when we got back we found that there was no rooftop terrace.

The next morning, our last day, we had to be out of the apartment by 11am, but because we were in a self-serviced apartment and not a hotel we could not leave our bags there, so we caught the metro to the main station (Gare du Nord) and left our bags in storage there, as this is where our train home would leave from later that day. We stopped for a coffee and had a bit of a wander around, but because it was a public holiday most things were closed, and it was not a terribly interesting area of the city, so we caught the metro to Luxembourg and visited the gardens. 

Fortunately the whether was much nicer than when I had been here the previous day, and we had a great time relaxing on the public chairs in the sun.  At the fountain we hired a toy sailing boat and set it out into the water where it floated around the pool at the mercy of the winds along with all the other sailing boats. 

After a bit more sitting around in the park for a while longer, it was time to head back to the train station.  We had one last coffee together, and as our train's details flickered up onto the revolving flap timetable board, we said our final goodbyes which was very sad.  It made it a bit easier that only 3 and a half hours later we were home (almost 30 hours before our friends would be), relaxing on the couch, preparing for life to return to normal.