Photoblog: Amsterdam

Amsterdam was the second stop on our March inter rail journey. It had been fairly near the top of my To Visit list for a while, as it was my flatmate's, so we stayed longer than we did in all the other places. Although it's reputation has given it the image of a party destination to smoke legal weed and sleep with prostitutes, from the moment of arrival it's charm and beauty overrode all of that.

Japanese floating restaurant. 

Cheeky photo in the Van Gogh museum. Most of Europe seemed to charge a lot for entrance to museums and had no photo rules. Bit jarring from the free and camera happy museums of the UK. 

This place did gluten free bagels. It wasn't the best tasting but still pretty impressed.

Photoblog: Paris

On a recent European trip with my flatmate, Paris was our first and last stop. We inter railed the whole trip in order to afford going to more places. We mostly strolled around cities, taking a few photos and going on the odd tour. We packed a lot in, but it wasn't a trip of learning everything possible, just a nice mix of tourism and more stairs/hills than I'd bargained for.

Eiffel Tower detail

Tragically I don't speak French so have no idea what's going on here.

Tried to hang out with Lisa but she was a bit busy.

We laughed at the skull sign but had to remind ourselves of it closer to the time.

Stone's throw from the red light district.

Smiling for the 1920's carousel, not the guy in the middle. 

These last pictures are from the Musée Des Arts Forains, a pre-book, tour only museum of old fairground objects and rides. Although the tour was only provided in French, we got to ride three different carousels (one which was powered by us peddling on bikes!) and had an English written guide to each room. Although a good selection of the audience were tourists, it felt like one of the less known attractions we saw, and was in the charming village of Bercy.

This may be my top recommendation from Paris.