L'Arc de Triomphe/ Paris

Although, the Arc is one of those tourist must do's, it's never really been of much interest to me.It didn't look so big, and we'd already seen a few Arc's in other countries. So it was a bit of a surprise when we come out in the wrong part of the underground directly by the Arc, to find that actually it's not that small.

Of course, since we were there, we had to have a closer look and it even looked interesting enough to climb. There's stairs and lifts and the stairs were, for some unexplainable reason closed which was a disappointment to Greg. As for myself, I'd almost had enough of climbing things. (Whenever stairs and stuff are closed, due to Greg's last experience with the Eiffel Tower, we pat explanation is always , "someone must have had a heart attack on the stairs.")

But after a small wait, the stairs were suddenly made available. It actually wasn't too bad. And there are things of interest at different levels, including a very nice and clean toilet.

So, the Arc goes on the recommended to do list.

The Best Sights on the Cruise

The area between Melk and Krems is well-known for it's wines. So of course, we felt honor bound to sample the local vintages.

We started off on the top deck but the fierce sun soon drove us downstairs in search of shade. I don't know if it was the sun, the wine(we actually only consumed a couple of glasses), our relatively empty stomaches or all three combined, but we were certainly feeling very jolly by the end of the trip.

I can definitely say, that this was well worth doing.

Dürnstein Ruins-further sights along the Danube

Although castles are cool, castle ruins are even cooler. We could see people walking around up amongst the ruins and it looked that would be a neat thing to be doing.

There were many castle ruins to be seen on the cruise but I thought this one denoted a mention not only cos I liked the way it looked but also because in 1192, Richard the Lionhearted was captured and held prisoner here.

Castle Aggstein-one of the sights of the cruise

Seemingly precariously perched atop this mountain, Castle Aggstein has a perfect view of the Danube.
Originally built to to protect merchants travelling through the Danube Valley, it was eventually taken over by a robber Baron who delighted in forcing his "guests" to leap off to plunge into the depths below.

Apparently it's quite a nice walk up and it's even been a little restored. Something else to put on the to-do list.