Contiki was an amazing experience. All these amazing places I have showed you over the last 3 months all happened to me within 14 days. It was such a crazy, fast, intense, exciting, fun-filled holiday that I will never forget. I loved all the beautiful places and art that we saw and the tons of things I learnt will stay with me forever.
Our final city on the trip was Paris.
The trip from Lucerne to Paris was LONG...like 10 hours long. But I wasn't complaining. New Years' Eve. Tequila. LONG sleep on the bus. Luckily by the time we got into Paris I was feeling better again and could enjoy all the beautiful sights the city had to offer at night. We drove through the city while our Tour Manager pointed out all the important buildings and beautiful sights. We then drove around the Arc de Triomphe, which is as insane as they say it is, and made our way to the Eiffel Tower. Contiki had booked a trip up the tower for us so when we arrived we didn't need to wait in any queues to go up.
The Eiffel Tower. It's so beautiful. Wow. And so unbelievably romantic. They say Paris is the city of love and I can totally see why. The Eiffel Tower at night is just breath taking. We didnt even notice that it was cold, extremely windy and raining. After going up to the second level and seeing the whole of Paris laid out before us we made our way back to the hotel and happily went straight to bed.
The next morning our Tour Manager took us to a perfumery where we had a tour inside the factory and eventually finished in the shop. Where perfume was cheap. Ok cheap as in cheap for real French Perfume, not cheap as in I can pay for it with my spare change. In fact I couldn't even pay for it with my credit card. This was the moment when I realised that the end of the holiday was near...I had reached my credit card limit. The shop lady kindly asked if she should try it again, but I said no it's not a problem I'll just pay with cash. And then I handed over my last €60. The perfume is amazing though and every time I wear it, it takes me straight back to Paris, which is worth every cent.
As a group we decided to spend our last day together wandering through Paris. We started at the Arc de Triomphe and walked down the Champs-Élysées to the Louvre (which is mind blowingly huge!). We were planning on going into the Louvre but it's just so huge that we changed our minds and just looked at the building for a while.
We then wandered down to Notré Dame where we stood on Point Zero. I loved seeing Notré Dame because I have read Ken Follet's famous book Pillars of the Earth, which explains all the architectural concepts that you see at Notre Dame and I always find it so interesting to see things in real life that you have read about and imagined for yourself.
After Notre Dame we went to have lunch. In a Greek restuarant. The plan was, obviously, to have lunch in a French restuarant, being in Paris and all, but we kind of just walked into the first restuarant we saw and then realised after we had already had our first drink that it was in fact Greek. It was still a pretty good lunch though. After lunch we made our way back to the Hotel to get ready for our last night out together...at the Moulin Rouge!
The Moulin Rouge. Wow. Again. To sit there and think about all the amazing artists that had been at that same very place all those years ago was so insane. They have The show that they put on is also completely amazing. I still randomly get the opening song stuck in my head every now and then. The show had snakes and tiny shetland ponies and a massive swimming pool even rose up out of the stage. The food was amazing, the wine was amazing and the French champagne was amazing. I will forever remember the amazing costumes, the absolutely stunning girls and the swish of the hundreds of beads draped over their dancing bodies.
It was truly the perfect end to a great holiday.
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