I am occasionally told that I have been “everywhere.” My usual retort to this — that I have made it as far as Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, but not Paris, the capital of the next country south — is going to need changing after this weekend.

We did all the usual tourist things — so thanks to B for being so patient as she’s been before — including checking out some of the more elaborate metro stations such as Arts et M?tiers.

Of course no first time trip would be complete without seeing the Eiffel Tower, although we didn’t actually go up it. Assuming long queues we decided to view Paris from the top of the Arc de Triomphe instead. Later we found that we probably could have climbed the Eiffel Tower but by then we were hungry…

Also on the agenda was the was the Louvre. Given the beautiful weather we decided to stay outside and just look at the buildings. I’d see these glass pyramids again a few weeks later when The Da Vinci Code came out on general release.

Naturally I also wanted to see Notre Dame. At least, the Parisian Notre Dame. I’d seen another when I was in Ho Chi Minh City last year. The French version was missing much of the neon, which should probably be considered a good thing.

With many of the famous landmarks out of the way, perhaps next time we can take some time to look at some of the less well known but equally deserving places in Paris. Hopefully it won’t take me quite as long to get around to going as last time.