First night back in Paris

We had a good trip to Paris by car - a little nervous about navigating the outskirts - but Paris has an enormous ring road around the city with ports or "keyholes" to enter so thanks to Wendy's help and the Tom Tom we found our spot to deliver the car easily at Porte D'Orleans. Great driving by Damian on these busy motorways! We jumped into 3 taxis (to fit all of us and our bags) and had a crazy ride through the traffic to find our apartment on Ile St-Louis - the island next to the island of Notre Dame! With 8 of us it was really difficult to find accommodation for all of us - hotels are way too expensive (as we'd need too many rooms), so we have booked a private apartment way back in November last year (thanks to Jan Sullivan's tips). As a result we are now in the most beautiful and amazing 17th century building apartment, right in the centre of town, on the banks of the Seine River. We have little balconies with wrought iron, looking out over leafy trees and a beautiful bridge. It's SO exciting to be in such a beautiful area- lots of lovely boutique shops, restaurants, boulangeries (for bread) and patisseries.  On our first night here we found a little restaurant just around the corner and had a great meal, a quick trip to a Creperie (citron and sugar for Finbarr and I, and Nutella and bananas for Em, Joseph and Alice), and home to bed.