Day 8 Perfect Day in Paris

Today was a great day. The weather was just perfect, it was probably in the low 70’s and a little overcast. We decided today to take the hop-on hop-off bus through Paris. We did this in London and really enjoyed it. It was also very good in Paris. It allows you to see the major sites of the city without having to walk a lot or use the subway. The subway is very efficient but you don’t see much since you’re underground.  The only thing is we wished it moved along a little more quickly. At times we had to wait 5-10 minutes at a stop. I think the buses in London run a better schedule. Anyway, we started on one loop that took us around the Louvre, Eiffel Tower, Arc De Triomphe. Place de la Concorde, and Notre Dame. Jill and I both are amazed at the age of everything. Buildings, squares and monuments are all hundreds of years old. When the oldest thing in Spokane is maybe 150 years old, it just doesn’t compare. Every street we see has buildings that are older than anything we have in Spokane.

We only got off the bus a couple times today. The first time was to get some lunch on the Champs-Elyees and get a close look at the Arc de Triomphe. We found a restaurant called Quick, which had hamburgers. It was the first hamburger I’ve had since we left and it was very good. It was also quick and easy because you order at a counter and get your food. Getting served at a sit down restaurant is a little different. First of all, it’s harder to navigate your way through the menu although many of them have them in both French and English. After you are done, you need to get the waiter’s attention to let them know you’re ready to pay. Sometimes it takes a while and when you’re in a hurry to get going, it gets a little frustrating. It probably says more about the way we’re used to having a meal. Get in, get your food, eat and get out. It probably would be better absorbing the French way by taking time with your meal but as a tourist, I want to get going so I can get to the next site. Food is just fuel in the tank at this point. One thing that amazed me was at the Arc de Triomphe, there is a roundabout surrounding the Arc and there are no lane markers and I’m not sure if there are any traffic lights. Cars, bicycles and buses were going every which way. A couple people ran across the street to get to the Arc and I was amazed nobody got hit. It almost reminded me of a game of Frogger, where you move the frog back and forth across the street to keep from getting hit. I have some video but I don’t think I can post it on the blog.

The next stop was at Montmartre. At the top is the Basilique du Sacre-Couer (Basilica of Sacred Heart), it’s an amazing church that we walked through. It was only built in 1857, I think, but it was beautiful. The artwork in the ceilings, the stained glass and the huge organ all were very unique. You can’t take pictures because it’s still a place of worship even though thousands of people walk through it every day. The church sits at the top of a hill so that you get a great view of Paris. For an additional charge, you can climb 300 steps to get to the top of the dome to get an even better view. Jarret and I took the challenge. Up to the top we went up a narrow spiral staircase. 25 steps – 50 steps and a landing – 75 steps – 100 steps and a landing to take a breather – 150 steps and out of breath – 200 steps heart beating, sweating and Jarret giving me the look like what’s taking you so long – 250 steps  what was I thinking! – 290 steps had to take another break even though I could see the end – 300 steps and the view was priceless. You could see the whole city of Paris as you walk around the dome. We finally spotted Jill and Rylee at the street waiting for us. After enjoying the view for a while, we started the hike down. We headed back to the bus along a street that’s filled with tourist shops. It was nice because the prices were fairly reasonable. We picked up a few trinkets, hopped the bus and headed back to our hotel. Jarret, thanks for making the trip up with me even though you really didn’t want to. He did say something like “ I don’t want dad to have to go up alone” and I appreciated that. We’ll always be able to say we did that together.

A couple of impressions today:

First of all, we had the male – female age-old discussion about asking directions. In my world, I like to find things on my own. It helps me figure out where we’re at and how things are laid out. We walked around a little bit before finding the place where we got our tickets for the bus tour. Jill finally had enough and asked a person on the street. Although I would have found it, Jill confirmed my suspicions on where we had to go. (Jill probably has a different take which I’m sure she’ll share when she reads this).  Jill’s take: Although I value initiative and self-motivation in trying to locate a destination, it soon became clear we had no idea where the bus office was.  After walking in a complete circle and still not finding the office, and realizing I really don’t need to find my own way because I’ll never be here again and don’t need to memorize the route, I did the smart thing:  I asked directions, gasp!  In less than 1 minute, we had found the office.  Which route would you rather take?  J Craig – my way.

Second, A little extra sleep does us all a little good. We stopped a little earlier than normal yesterday so that we could rest. We’ve been on the go for a week now and it was taking its toll. The kids were crabby and we were about to join them. Also, I think the change in the weather helped us a little bit. It’s nice not being so hot and tired all the time.

Next, Paris is a dirty city. The subways aren’t that clean, there is graffiti everywhere, even up by the Basilique du Sacre-Couer. More than once we got a whiff of the bathroom even though there wasn’t a bathroom nearby. I guess it’s because of the number of people that are in the city every day but it would be nice if they picked up after themselves a little better.  It’s just sad to see the amount of trash everywhere, even around the beautiful monuments.

Next, there is a restaurant on every corner for any kind of taste in food that you can think of. Trying to please four people is very hard but pretty much everything we’ve had from a sit down restaurant to a small shop has been very good.

Last, many of the buildings and sites were designed 150+ years ago with strict guidelines so that they were similar in size and design. This foresight made for a very unique and striking city.

Tomorrow we have the morning in Paris and then head back to London to start the last few days of our vacation. I can hardly believe it’s already half over and we only have 6 days left. We got a free drink ticket when we checked in and Jill and I are going to take advantage of it in a little bit. A good glass of French wine sounds just about right!

 A view of the Louvre from our tour bus

 The Eiffel Tower in the distance

 Notre Dame

 The kids at Arc de Triomphe

 Champs Elyees

 The Eiffel Tower - too easy not to take another picture

 A Metro Sign

 Up the hill to Montmartre

 Basilique du Sacre-Couer

 Basilique du Sacre-Couer

 Jarret climbing the steps to the dome

 Almost to the top

 At the top of the dome

 What a view

 Picture of Jill, she's the one under the tree waving her hand

 Jarret and I at the top

 Another view with the Eiffel Tower in the distance

 Another Metro sign

Day 7 We walked. The End

Ok, here’s where we walked and what we saw:  We started the day at 9:30 by meeting our Paris Greeter, Louie.  Louie was born in Vietnam, and lived there for 13 years, then moved to France.  He’s probably in his sixties, but still retains much of his Vietnamese accent.  To say the least, it was a bit of a challenge to understand our Vietnamese/French tour guide.  We stayed in the 12^th arrondissement, and he shared with us so much information and history about the local markets and shops.  It was amazing to us how noisy and busy the streets were, but then he would open a door and we thought we’d be heading into a shop, but it would be a courtyard to 3 or 4 apartment buildings.  You could barely hear the noise of the city while in the courtyard.  We walked by a children’s park where an orphanage had stood years ago.  Needless to say, we are very spoiled to live where we do.  Our beautiful Corbin Park doesn’t compare to this tiny park that was sandwiched between busy streets and high apartment buildings. 

Many of the original apartment buildings were built in the mid 1800s, and the ruler at the time ordered these buildings to always have the 2^nd and 6^th floor balconies be one continuous balcony that goes the length of the building.  Odd, but when we looked at the buildings, we could identify these particular sites.  We asked how much an apartment would rent for, and for a very small studio (one room), it was 850-950 Euros per month, or at least 1 million to buy one.  Not today, thank you.

The population in Paris is 2 million in the city, and another 10 million in the suburbs.  No wonder it seems like people are everywhere all the time. 

Louie pointed out a flea market to us.  With his accent I thought he said “free market”, so I asked a question about it being a free market….how embarrassing.  Craig, Rylee and Jarret all knew he said flea market though.  Oh well, so I made one little mistake… J.

We walked past open markets where meat and cheese were being sold, and other fruit and vegetable markets.  Many shops and markets weren’t open as this is “holiday” season.  July and August is when people leave and go on vacation.

There is a walkway above the city street that used to be a railway. They’ve paved it and planted flowers. It’s a really nice place to take a walk or jog in the middle of the big city. Since Craig is Catholic, family joke for those that didn’t know, we had to visit a Catholic Church on the way. Our guide opened a double door off the street and we walked into a very large church with high ceilings and an organist playing in the background. It’s amazing that something so big and beautiful lies right in the middle of a city block.  It’s one of the things that made this walking trip special. We got to see things that we never would have seen. Louie also pointed out historical sites like the Bastille monument, which is also a tomb for the people who were killed who revolted and overthrew the jail.

We ended our walk by thanking Louie and giving him a pen that Craig made.  Craig brought several pens on this trip, and he’s been handing them out to those who have been very nice and helpful to us.  The first pen went to our Romanian waitress in London, the second pen went to a worker at the Harry Potter Studios who stopped us to ask what we thought of the studio, and we ended up visiting with him for a long time, and then Louie got the third pen.  Who will get the next one?

We rested at the hotel for a bit, and then we rode the Metro to Trocadero where we viewed the Eiffel Tower for the first time!  Oh my, I wish you could see it if you haven’t already.  It’s huge and beautiful.  We chose not to go up in it as the line was a mile long, and it would have been a 2 hour wait probably.  I of course was up for climbing the stairs to the top, but the rest of the family refused.  Truthfully, there would be no way I would do that after looking at the stairs!  It started to rain but it didn’t rain very hard, just mostly sprinkling.  It cooled down a little, but it was still warm.

We’re doing pretty well with the language barrier.  Thank goodness most Parisians speak English.  Usually they begin talking to us in French, see the blank look on our faces, then start speaking English.  We do try and order food in French, and get as far as we can.  A “merci” always seems to be appreciated.

We usually end our night by writing postcards.  The kids decided to write one to a random person in Spokane as a joke.  Can you imagine receiving one from someone you don’t know, talking about their trip, and then not knowing who the heck it’s from? If you receive one from Helga, it could be from Jarret.  We’ll chalk this up to being extremely tired.

We’re getting ready to watch the opening ceremonies tonight!  We’re really enjoying Paris, but I have to say, it’s not as clean as what we’re used to.  They have such beautiful buildings and monuments, yet I think, “could you please just pick up some of this litter and clean the streets a bit?”  

Tomorrow we’re going to take a tour bus all over the city and see the popular sites including Montmarte.  It could be a little rainy, but that’s ok, we will trudge on!

 Opening into a courtyard. They're doing a little construction there.

 Handmade wood inlaid desk for sale around 36,000 Euro. Any takers?

 Shot of building on our walk

 Outdoor market

 Along the walkway that used to be a railway

 Catholic church

 Us in front of the Bastille monument

 Where we've had more than one meal. The croissant chocolate is very tasty.

 Eiffel Tower

 Some poor soul locked up his bike. They took everything else

 Eiffel Tower through the trees

 Where Napoleon is buried

Postcar Jarret is sending.

Day 6 - Battle with the mouse

We conquered the mouse today. Our journey consisted of a short metro ride and a longer train ride to Disneyland. We loaded up before with a couple of croissants for the road. Disneyland Paris has some of the same rides, like Phantom Manor (Haunted House), Pirates of the Caribbean, Buzz Lightyear and Thunder Mountain Railroad. There are a few differences like Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, which seems bigger and there are some rides that don’t exist here. The park is smaller but still has the Disney charm. They have an attached park called Walt Disney Studio Park (like California Adventure) that had more restaurants, the Tower of Terror, a cool stunt car/motorcycle show, and a cinema presentation.  Along the lines of Downtown Disney, Paris’s version is Disney Village that had Planet Hollywood and more shopping.  There seemed to be a lot of people, however, our longest wait for any ride was probably 30 minutes, with 20 minutes being the average wait time.  We did notice that it’s not quite as clean as the one in the states.

It was HOT today and we really worked up a sweat. It was probably 90 degrees with 90% humidity.  We managed to keep drinking water. They did have drinking fountains that we used to refill the water bottles, which was nice. The food in the park was pretty expensive but we expected that anyway.  

One funny thing that happened today was when we were tired and eating dinner. Jarret asked Rylee if she could see out of her left eye, held up two fingers and asked “Close your right eye. How many fingers do you see?” She blurted back “Two and I see one idiot”….got us all laughing a bit.

The kids are rummy, we all stink from sweating the whole day and we’re tired. However we had a really great day. We are trying to get the kids to limit their complaining and appreciate what they are seeing. They need to learn to fight through being tired and hot and hungry in order to appreciate what they’re actually experiencing. I guess it’s part of being a teenager but we’re working on it. We’re getting cleaned up so that we can get a good night’s sleep. Tomorrow morning we‘re meeting someone from the Paris Greeters program who is going to take us on a walking tour for a couple hours.

 Skull Rock

 Sleeping Beauty's Castle

 Phantom Manor

 Thunder Mountain - we did see a train get stuck at the top and they had to walk all the people down the track.

 Tombstones as Phantom Manor

 Family pic at Walt Disney Studios

 Stunt show

 Disneyland Paris 20 year Anniversary

 The Castle

 Rylee behind the wheel

Jarret behind the wheel

Day 5: Louvre 1 - Walters 0

The Louvre kicked our butt today…a little bit more about that later. We started the day early, getting up about 4:30 so we could get packed and ready to go for our 7:54 departure on the Eurostar.  The trip on the Eurostar went very well. The train just flies and, despite the water coming in the train as we went under the English Channel, we got there all dry. Just kidding!  But seriously, you hardly know you’re under the channel. It goes into a tunnel and before you know it, you’re out the other end in France. The only way you know you’re in France is that they start making the train announcements in French first. It’s quite an easy way to travel.

We got into Paris and found our way to the Metro subway. It’s a little harder here because we had to lug our luggage up and down the stairs, as they didn’t have many escalators in the station. I was breaking a sweat just getting back and forth from the subway. After finding our hotel, we checked in and relaxed for a little bit.

The language barrier notwithstanding, we’re finding Paris quite different than London. As we were getting to our hotel we noticed a lot of graffiti on buildings and signs, and it almost seems like we’re in a more rundown area of town. I’m not sure we feel quite as safe walking around like we did in London, but maybe it will just take a little time to get used to things.

We’ve heard from some people that French people aren’t very warm or helpful. Fortunately for us, we’ve found just the opposite. Once in the subway, we must have looked very lost, and a lady just stopped and asked if she could help. I knew where we needed to go, I was just looking for an escalator so that I didn’t have to carry the bags down the stairs. She didn’t make an escalator magically appear, but she did make sure I was headed the right way. On another occasion, we were having problems getting the gates to work at the Metro. We have these tickets where you put them in one end of the machine and it kicks them out at the other end and then unlocks the gate. Well, Jarret was having problems with his, so me, being the thoughtful dad, gave him mine. He, Rylee and Jill all got through without any problem. I, however, was stuck on the other side with Jarret’s bad ticket. I tried it in a couple machines and it still didn’t work. I tried to squeeze myself through the gate and although I could have done that when I was 20—the extra 27 years made this impossible. I looked at Jill and the kids, and they were laughing hysterically. Some stranger behind me must have been watching the same scene, and he generously used his card to let me through. I think I yelled out my first “Merci” at that point. At least all the cards worked the next time we went through the Metro.

We checked in to the hotel and the person that brought up the bags gave us some helpful tips. The most important was about the pickpockets. He said to keep our bags in front of us because the pickpocketers are very good. As we were in the Louvre, we also saw signs warning about the pickpockets. Needless to say, we’re being very careful.

After a little rest, we made our way down to the Louvre but we had to get something to eat first. We didn’t haggle much and found a café that was across from the Louvre. Probably not the best deal we could find but it was close, fairly quick and pretty good. I’ll post a picture of the dish Jill had, it came on a wooden platter and we started laughing as they placed it on the table. Jarret had a hamburger, yes all the way to Paris to get a hamburger that wasn’t that good. Maybe he’ll learn someday although at least it wasn’t the most expensive dish on the menu. I had a ham and cheese sandwich and Rylee had some fruit.

After lunch we headed to the Louvre. Now people have told me that it’s big and others have said you won’t be able to see everything in a week. Now I believed them but wasn’t prepared for what I saw. This place is amazing, huge, humongous, one of a kind, awesome, unbelievable, crowded, tiring, and on and on and on. We walked and walked and walked for probably 4 hours and still didn’t see at least 2/3 of it. I was so in awe of the building itself, not to mention all the paintings, sculptures, and everything else. We saw a few of the big things, like the Mona Lisa and Venus Di Milo (not sure if I spelled that right). But the ceilings in the Louvre were the things that impressed me the most. As you go from one room to the next, the ceilings are painted or decorated with the most amazing paintings that I’ve ever seen. We got a little turned around at times or walked down to hallways that were dead-ends but eventually found our way back. We did run across an area of the ancient Louvre which looks like it was some of the original part of the building. One thing that made it a little quicker for us was that the descriptions were all in French so we didn’t spend much time reading over these.

Louvre, you kicked our inexperienced travelers collective butts. We bow down to superiority and hope we have a rematch sometime in the future. We headed back to the hotel beaten and broken. We replenished ourselves with Jambon and Fromage Baguettes, Poulet and Fromage Baguettes and Jambone and Fromage Quiche purchased from the Boulangerie across the street. We navigated a couple of meals in a foreign country without any incidents. (Michele, you would be proud!)  Bonsoir!

Tomorrow we head to Disneyland; if the mouse kicks our butt, we’re coming home!

 Paris Train Station

 Paris Train Station

 The Louvre

 Chalk painter outside the Louvre

 Outside of the Louvre

 One of the ceilings

 Down a hall

 In the room with the Mona Lisa, can you count the people?

 The lady herself

 One small room that was empty. Took that chance to get a family pic

 The best room

 The ancient Louvre

 Venus Di Milo

Another statue