Paris 18 Buttes-Montmartre

Today was another day mostly taken up with travelling. But it was made a little easier because we had left our luggage at Helsinki airport the day before so we didn’t have to cart it around Tallinn. So we could walk towards central station and have brekky in that area before catching the train for the airport.

But…the train to the airport doesn’t come very regularly as we have experienced elsewhere and the next train wasn’t going to give us enough time at the airport, although it may have been ok in the end. But we didn’t want to risk it so ended up getting a taxi. Our taxi driver was Somalian. I was chatting with Heidi at the time so couldn’t see him or hear much of his conversation with Kyria but it from what she recounted it doesn’t sound like he’d had a nice life. It seems back in Somalia his wife and child had been killed and he had had all the fingers on one hand excluding his thumb cut off. Sometimes we take our relatively comfortable lives in Australia for granted. I’m so thankful to have been born in Australia.

We ended up having an hour and a half to spare at the airport so we wandered looking at some of the shops before boarding. There is something in my small bag that causes it to have a hiccup at the security in the last few airports and they have to manually scan it which is annoying. But they won’t or can’t tell me what it is so I don’t know what to take out. I tried removing my crochet but it still did it 🤷🏼‍♀️

Mike was at the airport in Paris to meet us and then Eli met us at the train station. It was so nice to see him and so nice to be altogether again for the last few days of the trip.

Our apartment is at Montmartre overlooking the Sacre Coeur. We are at the top of a hill and then have four flights of steps up to the apartment - which is not fun when you’re 7 months pregnant 😖 but it’s keeping me sort of fit! It’s been so nice getting so much walking in - I’m going to miss that when I get home.

Everyone was excited to be in Paris so after some showers and fresh clothes we headed out and it was like we’d never seen food before - dashing into every boulangerie we came across to feast on the goodies that were available! We had been a bit disappointed with the food and pastries in Scandinavia so we had been looking forward to enjoying it in Paris!

It was raining a bit and some foolish people had decided they didn’t want their jumpers and were cold. So after a bit of wandering we headed back to the apartment to get jumpers. Eli and Mike headed off to a soccer game and Kyria and I went to get hot chocs. It was nice sitting in a warm cafe with the window slightly foggy, gazing outside on the rain and people walking past.

Then we headed home so I could put my feet up and Kyria went for a wander. I need to save my legs for all the walking we’ll probably do tomorrow. Eli is like a kid in a candy store in Paris - he must be walking and seeing and getting the most out of Paris that he can! He’s also very happy to be done with work!Read more