Our last day in Paris begins with a city tour with a local guide on our Trafalgar coach. It is nice and quiet in Paris early morning, relatively speaking for a day that was to have for us a number of triumphs.
First triumph is a couple of rotations around the Arc de Triomphe and then down the Champs Élysées to Concorde Square, the place of the Bastille, the upmarket shopping strips, the embassies, the grand buildings, the River Seine etc.
We leave the majority of the group and, via Metro, try to first find Montparnasse stop and then the challenge to buy tickets for a day on our own to Chartres, mainly to visit the historic Cathedral. This turns out to be our second triumph because it is a great day out and despite the stress of language difficulties, track upgrades resulting in - transfer to French bus, we make it there and back with ample time for sightseeing and time at Chartres for Ray to paint a watercolour. A bit of luck however at the end of the return journey in that, unlike yesterday we accidentally walk the right way to our hotel at La Defence - another triumph.
A quick change into our best travelling clothes for our our gala night out at Moulin Rouge. With about 20 other members of the group who took this optional excursion. It was also a triumph. What a night! We expected the dancing girls, the can can but we got a lot more than this, including a very talented acrobatic couple, an amazing ventriloquist whose co-star was a fluffy white real dog that talked or so it seemed, very funny. A transparent swimming pool arises from the stage with a number of massive pythons swimming in the water and soon a scantily clad performer dives in and swims with them.
It's a good long evening's entertainment which we enjoy, including dinner, which we enjoy with new friends Richard and Megan from Tasmania, and Bill and Judith from USA. The costumes, the presentation, the colour, the spectacle of it all is fantastic. What a triumph! So glad we selected this option.
We retire at the Mercure Hotel around midnight and know that we have only a few hours sleep before an early departure time back to the UK.
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