The Catacombs, Notre Dame, La Grande Arche de la Défense and Champs-Élysées

We had the boys out of bed before 9 today (or vice versa!) as we caught the Metro to visit the catacombs. The catacombs wind 2km under the streets of Paris and were once quarries and mass burial graves for thousands of monks and priests. Now the skeletons are displayed for the public in eerie walls and sometimes even patterns. The tunnels just went on and on, the amount of bodies underneath the ground is astounding.

Our next stop was the Notre Dame where we met up with Ash again and walked around the cathedral. Then, while the others ate, Daniel and I waited half an hour in the freezing cold to walk up the stairs and go up the tower. It was a fantastic view and we were able to go into one of the bell towers. Plus, it’s always good to get up close and personal with some gargoyles. 

We met the others while they were coming back from lunch and caught the Metro to La Grande Arche de la Défense. Although we’d seen the station stop a dozen times, I don’t think we were quite prepared for how large the Grande Arche actually is. It towers over La Défense, the shopping centre to the side of it, and lies in the Central Business District. The sheer enormity of it was the most impressive.

We shopped for a little while before heading off to the Champs-Élysées and wandering past some of the most elite brands in the world. We had a look in the Disney store, where Justine made some more purchases, before walking further down and having some of Ash’s favourite Parisian food; crepes.

There, as we ate our crepes and walked down the Champs-Élysées to La Grande Roue flurries of snow began to fall. It felt like we were all in a movie it seemed so picturesque. We parted with Ash before Daniel, Dean, Justine and I went on La Grande Roue to see Paris at night. And as we sat on the glittering Ferris wheel in the Place de la Concorde, it continued snowing.