We have a saying in Afrikaans: "we thought we were the king's dog's pink pyjamas!"  We were taken to and through The French parliament, and then to lunch in a grand parliament restaurant, then to Sarkozy's apartment, office and meeting rooms where we met an aid of Sarkozy that has been working for him for 7 years, and does transport and sustainability in parliament.
Parliament is in the Elysees palace, said to be one of the most beautiful palaces in France, and it is definitely a working museum, if there could be a phrase like that.

The one Frenchman with us had tears in his eyes, saying he never thought he would be able to see all of this.
Our group:

Modern art in the palace, it says something about the light of the garden shines with the garden's colours. I am not so sure I like it.

I was standing on this carpet!

We were like Japanese tourists, everybody madly recording this for posterity!

The roof in one chamber.

The gardens are perfectly manicured.

Parliament was in session, so we could not go into the main hall. This is a photo of a photo, taken from above.

At the end of this corridor is the big assembly chamber.

The man with the blurred face is the vice president of parliament. Neither he nor the Frenchman on the left could speak a word of English, we had no French, so it was a mix with a lot of Afrikaans thrown in for good measure, and me and the one Frenchman even started talking German.

Marli fitted in with her beautiful golden top.

The cafe in parliament, we were treated to coffee.

We are relaxing a bit, they moved us around at quite a pace, to get everything done.

The document signed by Joan of 'Arc.

All of this apparently took 2 people 3 months to organise. In the next "episode" I'll show more of Sarkozy's house and office and meeting rooms.