Au Revior Paris, Hello London.

My dad has always joked that I could talk underwater with a mouthful of marbles. And it turns out he was right!

We made the trip from Paris to London on the Eurostar, and when the train drove into the 50km-long underwater tunnel I was still chatting away while also munching on a handful of Wonka gobstoppers, which just happen to be about the same size as marbles…

And then, before I knew it, we were in London, wandering along the Thames, getting a bird's eye view of the city from the top of The Eye and visiting the Tower Bridge, which was just up the road from our hotel.  I even bumped into Donald Duck...

YUM!

You often hear people raving about the patisseries in Paris – and for good reason!

Check out the fabulously tasty (and surprisingly cheap) raspberry and pistachio macaroon dessert (below) that I had at A la Petite Marquise, which is only a short stroll from the Eiffel Tower.

If I'd had more time I could definitely have eaten one of everything in the store…

The only way is UP!

Rome was all about queues, but in France the focus is on stairs.

Signs are everywhere boasting about the number of stairs at each attraction.

There are 280 steps to the top of the Arc de Triomph...

Then there's 387 winding stairs to the top of Notre Dame (and no, for those of you who are wondering, we didn't see the famous hunchback, but the gargoyles were home).

Add to that the many flights of stairs you go up and down at the Louvre...

And all the steps in the parks and gardens...

Plus the million, trillion, billion stairs to the top of the Eiffel Tower (1665 actually), which is why we cheated and decided to take the elevator instead!

Wooing the crowd

Buskers are everywhere in Europe but for the most part we have found them to be fairly rude and demanding.  Many get upset if you stop to watch them for more than five seconds without throwing a wad of money their way and others get cranky when you try to take their photo. Which makes the reporter in me VERY mad, because I know that since they are on a public street I can take as many photos of them as I like...

However during a visit to Sacre Coeur I came across the guy pictured above who not only brought a smile to my face but restored my faith in humanity.

Rather than turn away from the camera or shout obscenities at me and other tourists -- something we have seen quite a few musicians and street performers do -- this man approached the camera playfully and was full of smiles.

He liked to make music, pure and simple.  And he liked to entertain his audience and make people smile. Any money he made in the process was a bonus. With this positive attitude and winning smile it was hardly surprising that the crowds loved him.

Oh, and Sacre Coeur was pretty impressive too, even the pigeons thought so...

Railway lines. Hmph.

Our first glance of the Eiffel tower and Bryan was initially unimpressed.

``It’s a bit railway station,’’ he remarked, referring to the towering chunk of metal which just happens to be one of world’s most recognisable landmarks.

I, on the other hand, was a little more impressed.  Especially at night when the 300m tower was lit with thousands of twinkling fairy lights.

The view from the top at sunset was pretty spectacular too.

But what I wasn't so impressed about was the many armed soldiers prowling around the bottom of the tower (and outside many other tourist attractions in Paris) to provide extra security following European terror threats.

But despite the giant machine guns they were holding it was kind of hard to take these guys seriously because of the floppy, oversized berets perched awkwardly on their heads.  After all, you can't get much more Parisian than berets.  Or bread sticks, which were on sale at the nearby market, along with plenty of other tasty goodies.

The friendly local stallholders at the market were a welcome change from the pushy ``bling bling boys'' who hang out at tourist haunts and constantly try and sell you Eiffel Tower keyrings and knock-off designer handbags.                                                                                               

  

These guys are completely annoying (we came across them in almost every European city) but also funny to watch too, as they are illegal operators and spend a large part of their day running from the cops.

Their huge assortment of tacky souvenirs are set up carefully on a blanket on the ground so when they see police they can scoop the goods up, sling their makeshift bag across their shoulders and make a quick getaway.

As for me, I wasn't making a quick getaway -- I was quite happy to hang around and soak up my surroundings. I was, after all, in PARIS!  Even Bryan seemed to become a little more enamoured with the ``railway station'' by the end of our visit.

Cheese, clogs and a chilled-out cat

       

Drugs are an ordinary part of life in Amsterdam, and many locals and tourists embrace the chance to legally buy them at coffee shops and smoke and drink on the street.  But perhaps more surprising is the fact that even some of the city’s animal residents get in on the action.

When we visited Baba Coffee Shop, famous for its mind-altering Space Cake, we met a sleek and smoochy black and white cat.

The mellowed moggie was sitting up on a bar stool alongside coffee shop patrons who were smoking all manner of substances, but this cool kitty didn’t seem to mind one little bit.

The shop assistant told us that the cat has been visiting the store for years and spends his days roaming around visiting various businesses in the red light district, which is packed with prostitutes, porn shops and live sex shows.

Of course Amsterdam is also the place that Anne Frank spent the last years of her life hiding from the Nazis during WWII, and it is home to traditional windmills, tulips, Dutch pancake houses, wooden clogs and cheese. 

And then there’s the Heineken beer factory, a Vodka-tasting museum, a sex museum and the world’s largest handbag museum (of course we visited them all!).

It turns out that all this time we’ve been drinking beer the wrong way.

Apparently, according to well-informed staff at the Heineken museum, you must take a big swig of beer (no sips allowed) and then swish the amber ale right around the inside of your mouth before swallowing it.  Our sweet tastebuds are at the front of our mouths and the savory ones are at the back—so if you guzzle your beer rather than swilling it around for a bit then you don’t get the full flavour.

Beer lovers might also be interested to know that beer is 92 per cent water, that in the early stages of production beer actually tastes like sweet corn, and that every day over 1 million bottles of Heineken are enjoyed in over 170 countries (the figure is even higher if you include Heineken's cans and draught beer). Most of all beer must have lots of head and be COLD.  Cheers.

Good old Collingwood forever...

We arrived at Belushi’s Bar in Berlin at 5.30am -- a handful of Collingwood fans among a sea of St Kilda supporters. They were smugly singing the St Kilda club song as we stepped bleary-eyed into the basement of the pub where a couple of large flat-screen TVs were mounted on the wall so Aussies like us could still watch the big game (and enjoy beer and sausage rolls for breakfast!).

One keen Collingwood supporter (pictured below with Bryan and our tour buddy and fellow Pies fans Brendan) was among the crowd, and enthusiastically introduced himself after the final siren. He attended the previous AFL grand final draw in Melbourne – back in 1977 – and then moved to Germany a few years later.

Despite having lived overseas for 22 years he is still a big fan of the Pies and still pays his Collingwood Football Club membership every year. Not surprisingly he was pumped that his team won the premiership, as was Brendan, a passionate footy fan from Melbourne, who attends live Collingwood matches every week.

Within days of the premiership win he proposed to his long-time girlfriend Erin (also a keen Collingwood supporter who shed a few tears after the grand final), so it is proving to be a big year for them.

A worthy result for a great team and a great couple!