Day Six: 4/28
After a busy day yesterday, we slept in late – Angie thinks it is that jet lag thing but I just think we were just tired. This was our first full day in Paris. We decided to walk all around the city today.
Our first stop was the Arc de Triomphe. We decided not to walk up to the top. The Arc is in the middle of a huge
round-a-bout. It would be impossible to
try and cross these streets; even though we saw some tourists actually try to. They barely survived. They have a huge tunnel under the street
that you can walk through safely. You can see the width of the street in the
picture on the right.
We then walked down the Champs d’Elysees
and guess what? It rained on us again.
This is getting really old! At least this time was had shops we could
duck into. We stopped in the SWATCH
store. Angie was looking at some of
their watches. I was amazed at how
poorly made they looked. I am sure they
are well made, but they still look like a freebie watch that the Padres gave
away. We stopped and bought some
postcards to send back to our friends in the states. Now if you did not get one, do not feel bad. We really were having such a great time; we
didn’t get to send out too many postcards.
We stopped in a bakery, and bought a sausage and cheese sandwich for
breakfast. It was actually quite good. The pictures above are of some of the
flowers along the Champs d’Elysees. These were gorgeous to look at. The photos do not do the colors justice.
This is truly a city of tourists. Angie was amazed that we saw more tourists in Paris than Parisians, but this is probably because we were hanging around all the tourist sites. The funniest thing is that we all have a Paris Visitor book in every conceivable language except French. Just about everyone was a tourist! So, in this huge city we all had something in common. We walked through the Tuileries gardens (guess what? more rain – gee what a surprise!).
Our next stop was the Ste. Chapelle
church. It is noted for its beautiful
stained glass and the navy blue star painted ceiling. In Steve’s opinion, this
is one of the best sites to see while in Paris. The church is in the middle of a police station. You would never know it was there, unless
you had a guidebook
We ate lunch at Aux Tours Notre
Dame, which was across the street from Notre Dame. This restaurant does a good business with lots of people
constantly coming and going. We both had a quiche and some hot tea. The amount
of people that pass through the restaurant is amazing. In the time we sat there, some of the tables
turned over three times.
After lunch, we walked down
some of the side streets near Notre Dame. There were several souvenir shops. We
bought a few souvenirs to bring home.
It was time to walk up to the top of the Notre Dame de Paris tower. This is well worth the climb. Do not miss this if you go to Paris. The view is incredible. We saw one family that had two small kids, and the mother carried one up. What a parent!
Notre Dame is known for its ugly gargoyles and its hunchback. We were standing in line for almost 2 hours. They only let a limited number of people up the stairs at a time and we got worried as it got closer to closing time. As it was, we were the second to the last group they allowed in that day. The climb was quite tiring, but the view was wonderful. The climb down (387 steps) was much easier.
Rather than bore everyone with hundreds of pictures of Notre Dame, you can get a list of them here.
It took us two hours to get back to the hotel when it should have only taken about 20 minutes. We should have been suspicious when we discovered they weren’t charging to ride the metro line. Angie’s French was a little rusty so we didn’t figure out that the “mouvement sociale” they were announcing on the loud speaker was a strike on the metro line, not a party of some sort. The metro line we needed was only running every 40 minutes. We purposely missed the first train as it was packed. The people were so tightly packed; it would have been like wearing someone else’s skin. When we finally got back, we had dinner at le ßeaupre, which is a nice French (surprise) restaurant.