A Weekend in Paris

We spent our second weekend in Paris, this time on the Right Bank. Our hotel was near the L'Arc de Triomophe, in fact, we could see it when we walked out the door! La Cecilia was a nice hotel, friendly and helpful staff (once again), decent sized rooms (Paris hotel rooms can be quiet small) and a good breakfast. We walked over to the Arc de Triomphe shortly after we arrived. Luckily there are underground passages that take you to the Arc from the surrounding streets, so they do not add pedestrians to the crazy mess of traffic circling the Arc. It's a free-for-all, no-lane-lines-needed mess. On the Left bank there was a rotary near the catacombs, and I thought it was bad. I was shocked that families biked through it. Families with kids. Maybe it's the kids they don't like much, still I was surprised. The traffic around the Arc is 100x worse. On the up side no families were biking through it.






[L'Arc de Triomphe]

The Arc itself is huge. You can buy tickets to go to the top, which we didn't do, and the people at the top look like teeny tiny specks from the ground. The carvings are amazing, and it's crowded with people and really hot in as the sun beats down (yes, another sunny day, in the 80s! Where did we fly again? And I need water...).

We walked from the Arc towards La Defence, a modern office area, that has a modern arch, but we were distracted by a Super Marche where we went to seek out water.

White night was kind of a bust for us, there were random displays in various squares, but they were not easy to find. We ended up going back to the hotel and getting up early for the next day.

First we headed for the Louve, but there was a line. A long line. In front of the pyramid, there were formal line markers, the line went back and forth a bazzilion (rough estimate) times, then out into the courtyard, then around the court yard, then through a doorway, down a hall around another court yard, through another doorway, then out almost to the street. I have never seen such a line. Apparently seeing the Louve, when it is free, is NOT a good idea. Kevin thinks if we lined up the night before, we might have had a prayer of being towards the front of the line. Instead, we abandoned plan A, and instead headed to the Musee D'Orsey.


[Musee D'Orsey - Statue in front of the museum]

This was a much better choice. There was virtually no line, and we went straight in to the museum. It's a renovated railway station, and it's an amazing museum. Smaller then the Louve (I know, that's not hard), they have an amazing collection. We spent all morning there and came nowhere close to seeing even 1/2 of it. We had a yummy lunch in their restaurant, where my only complaint was that the 'crunchy' cheese that came on my pasta, really wasn't crunchy and was sort of hard to eat, in that it was to large to eat in one bite, and liked to bend instead of being cut. But other than that, everything was very good.

After the museum, we headed over to Montmartre to hang with the artists. We rode a funicular to the base of Sacre Couer and then did the official tourist walk of the basilica (press a commemorative coin to your left, shop is on the right before you exit, don't mind mass, no pictures please). The views are incredible, and we saw numbers street performers, an art show, and a wind mill! All in all a good trip!



[Sacre Couer in Montmartre]




[Street in Montmartre]

We finished off the day with a river cruise. It was just the thing for tired feet...


[Louvre from the Seine]





Now, we are about to arrive in Strasbourg! This post is being ended abruptly so I can disembark from the TGV!

We hope everyone is doing well, we'll see you soon!



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Location:Paris to Strasbourg