hi all

I was just walking down the road and stumbled upon a cheaper internet cafe, so thought I'd better drop in. I didn't bring my camera leads or my diary, so it's just a quick update. After London we had one day back in Paris before setting off to see Le Corbusier's Ronchamp and heading up the wine road in a hire car. Braedon did a very good job of driving on the right. We trained into Belfort which is just a little town somewhere near the French and German boarders. From there it was a short drive to Ronchamp, which was pretty amazing - much larger then I anticipated. We went across the boarder where Braedon drove at 150km/hr on the German autobahn (it really didn't feel fast in the BMW). We cruised back over to France and went up the wine road of Alsace. It was really pretty. There were lots of tiny old villages surrounded by vinyards. We stayed in Barr, which was slightly larger, but not by much. The next day we drove further up the wine road and stopped in Strasbourg. We had the afternoon to explore so went to Zaha Hadid's Tram terminal, the cathedral, did (quite) a bit of shopping and then sat outside a bar drinking wine/beer and eating Tartes Flambées at happy hour. We missed out on the brewery tour (Strasbourg is the home of French beer) as it was already full.

Todd (Braedon's workmate) and Amber stayed with us for three nights then Patti arrived the next nght for about a week. Jeremy and Anna came over for the weekend (stayed elsewhere). We all decided to go up the Eiffel Tower on Saturday evening. We had some drinks and nibbles at the apartment then headed over about 8pm. Basically the whole experience consisted of standing in lines for lifts while enjoying the night time view: 4 times - we went to the top. We got down about midnight then went out for dinner closer to the apartment near St Germain. It was cool that we could still sit down and order food at 12:45am.

On Sunday we went to the Catacombes: tunnels under Paris where they transfered the bones of 6 million Parisiens when the cemetaries filled up in the early 19th century. It was huge and slightly eiree. Then we joined the crowds and went to the Tour de France to see the Paris stage. We could see one corner of the race well and another on the other side of the track a little less well. Every 7 mins or so they rode past, but it was fairly exciting. I have no idea who won, it was pretty close though.