Paris

We spent 3 days in Paris.  We took the Eurostar train through the Chunnel. The high speed train makes the trip from London to Paris in about an hour and a half.  It’s a nice trip through the English and French country side and a dark tunnel under the channel for about 20 minutes, so the tunnel itself is not very impressive.

                                                                           Chunnel entrance              

The train arrives at Paris’s Gare du Nord (north train station), so I booked a hotel within walking distance. Six years ago I stayed in the area, and it was very handy to the Metro (subway) and trains.  The Paris Metro system is efficient, but unlike the London tubes it has few elevators and lots of stairs. Hauling suitcases even carry-on sized ones can be a pain especially in crowds.

                                                                        Gare du Nord

As we left the station, it was busy. We turned the corner going away from the station walking the block and a half to our hotel, the streets became full of 20 to30 year old North African French immigrants drinking, smoking, eating and partying or just hanging out.  My first thought was what have I gotten us into?

                                                                               Hotel

At the hotel, it was clean, nice and the room was small but adequate.  It was hot as we arrived so John went to turn on the air conditioning to cool the room while we were at dinner.  The air conditioning didn’t work.  We could get heat, but the air would turn on and immediately shut off.  Before we unpacked, we decided to ask for a room with working air conditioning, since it was one reason I had booked the hotel.  As John went down to check on the room I opened the window to look out.  Several guys from the main street “party” had walked half a block up our side street and were urinating against and behind parked cars.  I really wondered if I’d blown it. 

John came back with the news that no air conditioning worked in the building, it had been out for a while and was probably not going to get fixed anytime soon.  Since it was 8pm we decided to try one night and move tomorrow if we had to. We walked the gauntlet to a restaurant the desk clerk recommended and had a very nice meal.  I had printed cards in French I could hand the waiter that explained I needed gluten free food and what was and wasn’t gluten free.  It was much simpler than trying to use my poor French.

On returning to the hotel, we opened the windows to cool the room, but it did let in the noise. An advantage was the voices were all in French, which I couldn’t understand so it was just a background babble of noise. Not a bad night’s sleep. 
The next day as we left the hotel the street was clean, almost empty at 9 am, with a variety of ethnicities around.  So we decided something unusual had been going on and stayed at the hotel.  It was noisy the next two nights. With 7 story buildings to echo the noise and a main street half a block away, the traffic of trucks, buses, and emergency vehicles was the noise that disturbed us.
Day One,
The first day which was in the mid 70’s and beautiful was spent in the heart of Paris. Notre Dame

the left artsy bank, the deportation memorial (holocaust memorial),

 Cluny Museum,

 St Severin,

t. Chapelle, St Michael Place where a demonstration was taking place. I don’t have any idea what they were chanting or picketing and couldn’t read the placards they carried.  I can read French much better than I can understand the oral language. We took a cruise tour of the Seine going around the two main islands and under all the bridges.

 
There is even a small statue of Liberty on the end of one island in the river.

It’s a great way to connect all the parts of the center of Paris.  Everything closes at 6pm.  They are not like the US and keep things open until 9 or 10.  Since the Eiffel tower is one exception we took Metro to it thinking it would be nice to see the city from above after seeing it from the river.  There was one elevator working, there are 4, and the wait was 2 hours.  As it was 7pm we opted for dinner and our hotel.

We picked a small café across from the train station.  They have wonderful outside seating, but that is where the smokers sit, and Paris has a lot of smokers. So we ate inside. We had roast pork with veggies and of course French fries.  It was delicious and half the cost of the first nights.

 Day Two

This was the first Sunday of the month and in Paris all the public museums including Versailles are free.  It was supposed to be a rainy day, so we hoped everyone would go for the inside museums.  Versailles is closed on Monday, so that is where we decided to go.  The Metro takes about 45 minutes to get you to within ¼ mile of the palace.  The train was a double decker and packed.  We weren’t the only ones with this idea.  The main palace wasn’t free. The outer houses the Grand and Petit Triamons were free.  We had an audio guide for the palace which is always nice. I even made the guy handing them out smile. He asked if we wanted the guide in English before we had opened our mouths. It’s that obvious huh. I answered in French “Yes, please” and he laughed.

                                                                             

The first of the month they turn on all of the fountains. We walked through the different fountain gardens there are 25 with working fountains. We walked through 17 of them. We wanted to see the outer small houses so we only say two of the bigger fountains flowing. It’s a mile walk to the outer buildings and by the time we returned the fountains had just stopped. There was a shell fountain actually called the Ballroom that would have been amazing to see.

Palace                                           Hall of Mirrors

Shell fountain

Apollo Fountain

There is a grand canal like in Venice in which you can rent boats and row around.

The Grand Trianon was built for the king to get away from the court. It was still very opulent. The malachite dishes in one room were amazing. The king had the flowers in this garden changed daily so he wouldn’t tire of the view.

The Petit Trianon was used originally as a place for the king to study botany. Marie Antoinette used it as the main family home and had a farm built next to it. She would have preferred to stay a princess in the country in Austria, and always tried to be in a rural setting. It was small by royal standards. You begin to understand why there was a revolution, when half of Frances GDP went to build this palace and grounds.

The hour trip back to our hotel was a nice rest after walking all day. We stopped at the Arc de Triomphe on the way back.

Dinner was at a small café, eating inside. John found mussels, I had roast chicken. Good and reasonably priced. I’ve include a picture of John with his beer.

Day Three

We hadn’t made the Eiffel Tower yet so that was our first stop and then the Louvre. Getting there early we thought it would be a short line, wrong. It was 2 hours, so we bit the bullet and got in line. It was two hours exactly, but we spent an hour on the tower and it only rained hard when we were at the top and could duck inside. The people in front of us were from Switzerland and Turkey and delightful.  It made the wait go quickly except for the cold! Winds blew steadily from the west with a bite to them.  The tower is amazing and if you’re in Paris get in line ad go to the top it’s worth the wait. They do need to take some tips from Disneyland in crowd management, but they probably think it works, why change.

The Louvre was amazing and we saw the Greek sculptures, Italian and French Renaissance paintings, including the Mona Lisa, and were in the Egyptian wing when they kicked us out.

When we got on the metro that morning at 9:30 we figured we’d missed rush hour. Wrong we were in the middle of it. As we left the museum and got to the metro station about 6:30, after rush hour. Wrong again. The first train was so packed people had their faces smashed against the windows of the door. We just let it pass. The next rain had about 6 people get off so we crowded in. Their work day must be 10 to 6?

We went back to the café of the second night and they remembered us and were delighted we returned. Great service! It’s good service in France if they don’t rush you and let you eat in peace. I had a delicious steak with an onion sauce that tasted like French onion soup, one of my favorites.

The black French citizens that you met in the city or on the Metro were much friendlier and more helpful than any white residents who usually ignored you.

Day 4

We boarded the Eurostar train at 9:05 and walked in our door at 2:00 after an hour layover in London and a half hour taxis ride.  Not bad.