We had dinner at Georges restaurant on top of the Georges Pompidou centre. Very cool ultra modern theme. Amazing view over Notre Dame and out to the Tour Eiffel (popular local land-marks, you know). Ridiculously over-priced. They even kindly offered to look after our coats and then whacked us €10 each to get the back. Plain food. Good cocktails.

The wait staff are mostly supermodels in very short skirts. They ignored us most of the night, which might have cut their sales by half. I told Daniel, who was over from NZ, I would try to get their attention to order. He said he had spent most of his life trying to work out how to get the attention of beautiful women and felt right at home being ignored.

Did I mention the post-modern décor? Okay it was cool.

The next night we dined here, Au Petite Riche.

Food and wine from the Loire, with that distinctive French heavy emphasis on protein. When the fois gras arrived Victoria from NZ and I stopped talking while the rest of table gabbed, because something that good leaves no room to be doing anything else with your mouth.

The walls are hung with signed photos of every minor French celebrity from the young Jacques Chirac (1971) and not so young Franky Mitterand, to gorgeous Catherine De Neuve.