France - Palace of Fontainebleu and Paris

We left Dijon and drove around looking for the 'Centre Ville', but didn't quite get there.  We decided to drive straight to the Palace of Fontainebleu rather than look at other little villages, seeing we got a good variety of them on the way through France so far.  I was astounded by the sheer size and apparent wealth.  Once again I managed to get in free because of my deafness on showing my Cochlear Implant card, although the woman first said that deafness wasn't a disability!!!  Anne came with me on her student card and got an audioguide from which she was able to fill me in on things.  Not that I can remember anything now!!!

 The castle lake....

 And the seagulls - a bit different looking to ours in New Zealand...

 And this duck that seemed to swim very 'low' in the water, and had a lot of 'drag'.

We then drove to Paris, dropped the car off, and then caught the subway to Sandrine's place. Sandrine and i have known each other online courtesy of the Say What Club, an online group for hearing impaired and Deaf people, since 1995.  After a bit of refreshment and tidy up, we hit the streets of Paris with Sandrine as a wonderful guide!  First up was the Sacre Coeur.

 Looking at Paris from the Sacre Couer.

 Montmartre, and one of its street performers...

I would have loved to have had our portraits done, particularly of Anne, and I did ask this man how much he charged, as he was one of the better ones.  But it was going to be 150 euros for the two of us.  We decided not to.

 Moulin Rouge....

We then went and had a traditional french onion soup and dinner in the St Michel area which was fun.  Afterwards Sandrine took us to the Arc du Triomphe and a walk down Champs Elysees.  We picked up a cheap black eyeliner to do up our faces for the Rugby World Cup final the next morning!

Here's Sandrine trying to get onto my blog.  She succeeded!

 Cars and buses whizzing by the Arc du Triomphe!

By this time we had worn Sandrine out, so we caught the metro back to her apartment.  We slept on her fold out couch that came with Dexter the Cat.  I feel lucky to still have all my toes as they were chewed on several times during the night.  I miss Dexter terribly already!

If anyone is needing a Parisian guide, then I fully recommend Sandrine - lots of fun, and she knows everything about Paris!!!  We really appreciated having her, and I am so pleased I finally got to meet her in person!