INTRO TO PARIS 101
May 3, 4 and 5, 2005
Monday Don and I did a nice bike ride in a loop around the countryside. The country roads are narrow, but there is little traffic. It is going to be great cycling country.
Tuesday Don’s sister, Cheryl arrived at 10am and we found each other with no problem. We three headed for the Paris apartment, where we will spend the next few days. Once we got there we settled in and met up with Dave, who will join us for a few days.
Tuesday
afternoon we
decided to take a walk,
so we strolled
through the park and along the Seine, enjoying the sights.
The weather, which had been rainy off and
on, got nice and there were many others along the quai, lovers kissing,
kids
running, boatment smoking, restraunteurs looking for business for their
floating establishments, and even a foursome enjoying a candlelight
supper al
fresco. Up the river we could see the
massive Cathedral of Notre Dame. We
continued along the quai, finally getting ourselves caught in the
forbidden
area and true to form Don had us break just a few more rules and then
we were
out at the Cathedral.
We
four walked
around the Cathedral and enjoyed
studying the
carvings and flying buttresses. Then we
continued along the river a bit more, watching the big tour boats full
of
people enjoying Paris at night from the river. The
lights were turned on the facia of the Cathedral as
the night sky
darkened from deep blue to dark blue to black.
We
decided it was a
good time for Cheryl to
have a Metro
experience, so we bought a carnet and hopped on the purple line, which
took us
right to the front of the apartment. After
some tea and sweets we said good night once again.
Wednesday
we decided
to take Cheryl into the
heart of
Paris. We strolled along the Champs
Elysee, pointing out classic Parisian sights and went up the Arc de
Triomphe to
check out the sights of Paris, the Etoile and the cars going round and
round. The rain started to come down in
earnest so we decided to grab some lunch and wait it out.
Dave had some recommended restaurants near
the Place d’Italie, so we got back on the Metro and set out in search
of
food. The first restaurant was not open
and before we could get to the second restaurant the sky opened up and
dumped a
bucketload of water, so we decided to go to the first restaurant we
found that
was serving. The food was pretty good
and the price was manageable. We
stopped and enjoyed being dry and fed.
We had planned to go to the Orsay museum, so we hopped the RER back into town. The Orsay was closing in just an hour and we all agreed to return another day. Back down we went into the Metro again and off home. We had a light late dinner after our big lunch and off to bed.