Today was our first full day in Paris, the city of love, of lights, and of leisure. Well, leisure if only because the two full days we are spending in Paris just happen to be Saturday and Sunday. We mapped out our first stop, and Erin dragged James out of bed at 9:30 to walk to the Paris
Gard du Nord Station to book our tickets to our next destination, and to visit the Post Office so Erin could mail a few postcards.
The Post Office visit went well, and we returned to the Station to wait in line for a Paris Rail booking agent - catching one only 22 minutes before the booking office shut down on Saturday. We had planned on taking a train to Barcelona, Spain, but the booking agent explained that there was a French Rail strike scheduled for Monday evening. If we went to Spain, or even stayed here in France, we would not be able to leave by train! We re-evaluated our itinerary, and decided to leave Monday afternoon for Brussels, Belgium, starting our Northern Europe travel early. The booking agent explained that we would have to leave from the Paris Nord Station, and we found out that, contrary to our belief, we had accidentally walked to the Paris
Gare De L'Est (Paris East) station, rather than Gare Du Nord (Paris North). We were happy we figured that out before our train left on Monday. We were dissapointed, however, that France charges a booking fee for EuRail tickets used on their trains. (The EuRail tickets themselves already cost a lot). We were promised that other countries do not engage in this practice, but a cursory review shows that the EuRail pass is more of a "discount" pass than a full-fare substitute.
Post booking agent, we were on our way. After taking a detour through a pedestrian mall where James sampled a chicken sandwich that incorporated french fries inside the bread, we made our way to Notre Dame. Well, almost - we were first stuck in line for one of Paris's automated toilets, and the people in front of us had no idea how to operate it:
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| James's tasty sandwich from the Parisian street cafe. |
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| The public bathroom near Notre Dame that self-cleaned itself between uses, and frustrated German tourists. |
Once squared away, we walked into the courtyard in front of majestic
Notre Dame, a Gothic cathedral built (or at least started) in 1196, nearly a thousand years ago! It was a lovely day, and hundreds of tourists milled about, following tour guides speaking in a variety of languages. But a tour of Notre Dame was not in the cards for today's walking tour. After stopping for some photos, we continued on to the
Palais du Luxembourg (the Luxembourg Palace), home of the French Senate, as well as an extensive garden section. We strolled through the gardens, seeing happy children spending their Saturday sailing miniature sailboats in fountains, and chasing their parents through the walkways. We did not stop for long, as we were off to the Eiffel Tower!
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| The Palais du Luxembourg; a place where many people were relaxing, reading, playing, and sunbathing. |
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| The gardens at the Palais du Luxembourg, demonstrating Paris's beautiful fall colors. |
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| The Notre Dame Cathedral - just as grand as one might imagine. |
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| Notre Dame via James's sunglasses - please indulge us in our creativity. |
The
Eiffel Tower was visible long before we arrived, and the line we encountered was much longer than the Tower was high. We circled the monument, built for the 1889 World's Fair and over 81 stories high, and stopped for some pictures with Tabitha. We met a group of Australians who had their own "travel companion," a bear named Jacob, and we took some pictures of the new friends together.
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| James standing in the park that stretched along one side of the Eiffel Tower. |
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| Jacob, a traveling bear from Australia, and Tabitha in front of the Eiffel Tower. |
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| Erin, standing on the Pont de Lena bridge on the other side of the Eiffel Tower. |
After leaving the Eiffel Tower on our Saturday whirlwind walking tour of Paris, we headed back north to our next stop, the
Arc de Triomphe (the Triumphant Arch), a monument to soldiers who died in the French Revolutionary War, and the Napoleonic Conflicts. Underneath the Arc is France's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. There was a civic ceremony taking place beneath the Arc, and we were able to see various services, police, and military branches march through the Arc while listening to a military band.
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| Erin and James in front of the Arc de Triomphe. |
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| Some of the civil servicemen being honored during the ceremony and parade around the Arc. |
We took some more pictures, and started walking back to our hotel. By this point, Erin's feet had begun to hurt a bit (she had chosen to wear "stylish" shoes with her dress instead of tennis shoes - a choice she believed
any girl in Paris would make). We made it as far as the Gare Du Nord station before taking the subway, and when we checked our pedometer, it turned out that
we had walked over 20 miles!
We were very happy to check back into our hotel and relax to the Michigan State v. University of Michigan game after picking up a light dinner. Erin was excited by her team's success, and James took his team's defeat surprisingly well. After the game ended, we eventually collapsed into a well deserved sleep.
