Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Final night in Paris


It is our final night in Paris, we are washing our clothes and packing up in order to get ready for bike riding in Provence. Tomorrow morning we catch the TGV to Avignon, meet up with our bike club, and ride the bus to the base location for the bike ride, Vaison-la-Romaine. It will be sad to leave Paris behind, but we had a great time and I am sure the bike riding in Provence will be great as well. Since we will be arriving back in Paris for our flight back to the US, there is time to see one more thing if we think of something in the next 10 days.

Bercy Village



For the last two days we have been pretty busy touring neighborhoods and seeing the sights. We took a walking tour through the Latin Quarter where we saw an ancient Roman Arena – Arene de Lutece, that according to the signs was used to host gladiator combat. Today it mostly sees bocci ball matches which are for the most part more friendly.


Roman Arena

Roman Arena

We took another boat ride on the Siene, this time a little earlier in the evening. It was something we enjoyed enough to do twice in the same week. It is a great way to wind up the day, see the city, and rest the weary feet. At the end of the ride, the Eiffel tower is all lit up with sparkling lights.

Sparkling

We visited a high end department store with amazing products. You know you are in a high end store when the pay toilet costs a buck fifty apiece just to pee. We spent 3 Euros in this store, but had a good time looking around and there was a great view of the city from the roof.

Multicolored Toilet Paper

High end Dog Supplies


We had been wondering, but not enough to care, what people thought of our carrying our lunch in a backpack and eating it in a Park. Apparently the Parisians noticed what we were doing, and now it is hard to find lunch time seating in the Parks and on the steps of cathedrals. The price you pay when you are a trend setter.

Parisian lunch spots are getting crowded

We marched down the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, and climbed up to the top. Here as in the ascent up the Eiffel Tower, the lift was out of order. A bit suspicious, but since it thinned out the crowd (in both senses of the phrase) and we wanted to climb anyway, we were not about to complain. The view and the breeze at the top were quite pleasant.

Arc de Triomphe - Stairs


We finished out the day with a trip to a park and one and a half cathedrals. The park was Parc de Monceau, which was very pretty, and apparently where a lot of folks take their kids for an afternoon outside. The half of a visit to a cathedral was to a Russian Orthodox Cathedral that closes very early in the evening. My advice is – don't go out of your way to visit a Russian Orthodox cathedral, unless you are in Russia. We headed back toward home and visited the other St Germain cathedral, Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois. It was very impressive and from what we read parts of it are very old.

Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois

We walked back across the Pont du Carrousel, the bridge with all of the “Love Locks” on the rails, and back to the apartment. If our hotel in Vaison-la-Romaine has decent Wifi, we will probably do another update in a couple of days.

Done for the day.


Good night and we hope you are well.

More (some of the best) pictures from yesterday and today at this Picasa Link.

Stephen and Linda

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