Four days in Paris! The Louvre. The Pompidou. The Picasso Musseé. Monet's Lillies at the Orangeries. River Cruises. . . . wait a minute. We already did those in the beginning of July with Jeff, Jackie, Andy and Tabitha.
We have a special September gift. We were not sure how long our Rhine Ride would take. To be certain to have enough time, we booked our flight home September 8. We finished the ride August 28th. This is 11 extra days, which we used to visit Adri and Stijnie in Rotterdam, see Amsterdam and now visit Paris. During these four days in Paris, we get to just feel the pulse of the city without getting caught up in the rushing blood stream. We can stroll a lane, people watch and enjoy a quiet, unhurried time in the city of lights. This doesn't mean we don't have a wish list of things to see, it just means that list is short and our time is long. We hope to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, watch Foulcault's Pendulum swing in the Pantheon, stroll the Montmartre area and visit the D'Orsa Museum. A good ratio of things to do over time to do them. We are in an Air B&B in Versailles, about half a mile from the train station. The train ride to Paris is about 25 minutes. Although we will miss nights in Paris, we won't miss the noise and bustle.
Thursday we were on the train with the commuters at 8:15 am. This got us in line for the Eiffel Tower a little before 9:00 am. The ticket booth opened at 9:30 am, and we were on top by 10:00 am.
We were startled at how quiet the streets were. Kids are back in school and the crush of tourists is gone. Sure, there are still tourist busses, but the crowds are down to a tenth of what they were when we were here in July.
The Eiffel Tower was . . . Well, the Eiffel Tower! Staggeringly amazing! Although the view from the top is tremendous, I find the Tower more awe inspiring when viewed from the Trocadero, where we rode our Paris City bikes to on Sunday (more on that later). We spent a couple hours walking the various levels of the tower, enjoying the morning September sun, the cool air temperature and the magnificent views.
Once on the ground we walked a few streets, bought food for lunch, and rode the Metro over to the Latin District on the left bank and found our way to the Pantheon, adjacent to The University of Paris and final resting place of France's greatest minds. Although I respect the likes of Madam Curie, Voltaire, Lagrange, Victor Hugo, Braille and others, I came to see Foucault's Pendulum swinging on its 67 meter long cable, suspended from the Pantheon's dome. With this simple device, in 1851, he proved the earth was indeed spinning on its axis while the sky stood still, not the other way around.
I entered the Pantheon, paid our €7.50 each entrance fee and was about to leave the ticket booth when a poster caught my eye. Foucault's Pendulum was down for repairs! It would not be put up again for ten days! It had been down for four years. I hesitated, then asked for my money back and returned the tickets. I really wanted to see his original bob swinging back and forth, knocking over pins as the earth rotated. But, it was not to be on this day. It just gave me a good excuse to come again!
We enjoyed a lunch on the Pantheon steps while people watching, then strolled through the University of Paris. We walked back through the Latin district, across the river to the Notre Dame, then found a nice park bench to view the cathedral and the people visiting it. We were amazed at how plain Notre Dame was in comparison to the Cologne and Strasbourg cathedrals.
Friday was dedicated to d'Orsay museum and the Montmartre area. We spent 2+ hours in the d'Orsay, then rode the subway to Montmartre area where we viewed the working artists and strolled the narrow streets. Although still busy with tourists, it was not jam packed like it was in July. We wandered over to the steps below the Basilique for the glorious view of Paris below. While lounging on the stairs we noticed a young man on a stone pedestal doing stretching exercises. He had a soccer ball near at hand. Could this be
the soccer ball street performer I had seen on Facebook a few weeks earlier? He started his performance and I instantly recognized it. This kid is amazing! Rather than describe it, go to this YouTube link (http://youtu.be/RvFWGxgGrEg) and watch someone else's video from a few weeks earlier. I went down afterwards, threw two euro in his hat and shook his hand, telling him what a great job he did.
Sally wanted to visit a second hand store located out in the northeast portion of the city. We took the Metro out, descended the platform and began to walk the two blocks to the store. Within 200', our spidey senses were registering danger. The streets were awash with 30 something males, just hanging around, doing nothing. The graffiti was everywhere. It was pretty dirty and run down as well. We looked at each other simultaneously, asked each other if we felt comfortable and got the same negative answer. We turned around, walked back up the platform and caught the next train back to where we started. Whatever was in that second hand store would have to go on without us.
Now we were off to the Apple Store, Paris. Why? Just 'cause. We followed my GPS, using metro trains to get us there. When we got to the address, there was no store. Sally went into a local business, very fancy, like an upscale bank or something. Somehow, we missed the discreet Apple Logo above the door. The GPS had directed us to Apple headquarters for France. We got directions from them to the Apple Store. One metro ride and we were soon at the Apple Store.
A quick walk through, and we were headed for Versailles and our B&B. We stopped by the grocery store for salad fixings, lettuce, tomatoes, Tabouli and shredded carrots. Delicious.
Saturday we wanted to visit a flea market, to look for some small gifts. We slept in a bit, then trained and trollied into a part of Paris we had not been. Definitely off the tourist path. The flea market was on a neighborhood street, running many blocks long, perhaps a half a mile long. We spent a few hours trolling for items, but came up dry. I was hoping to find a set of wheels to put under one end of my bike box so I could wheel it to and from train stations and airports, but this was a bric-a-brac flea market and practical items were in short supply.
We returned to Versailles about 3:30 pm and borrowed bikes from Stephan and Stephanie, our generous B&B hosts. We cycled onto the Versailles grounds, around the cross shaped canal below the Chateau and out to Marie Antoinette's farm. It started to rain. We scurried back to the B&B, arriving back just as the rain was quitting. Dinner of fried potatoes with sausage. We hung around and read and blogged until 9:20 pm, then walked over to the palace to check it out at night. We were surprised to find it is not lit at night. The weekly Saturday night fireworks display was about to start, but we didn't want to pay the €24 each admission fee. We headed back to the B&B for bed.
Sunday was an active day in Paris. We decided to try the Paris Velib city wide bike rental system. There are 18,000 city bikes distributed around the city in computerized lock down stations. We paid €1.70 each to rent bikes for the day. We signed up on line and got an access code number and created a pin for each of us. We took the train into Paris, then walked to one of the 1870 stations. We inspected the bikes, finding them all in good repair. At the kiosk, we punched in our code and pin, then unlocked a bike of our choosing. If you ride the bike for under 30 minutes, it is free. The next half hour costs €1, the next half hour €2, the next €3 and so on. The goal is for people to use the bike for a limited time, then lock it up. We rode up to the Arch de Triumph, found a bike station and locked our bikes. We wandered around the monument, but did not endure the line and fee to go up into it. We had visited it in 2009.
We returned to the bike station, checked out another bike and rode to the Notre Dame. This time the first station we went to was full. By the time we rode another block to the next station we had exceeded our 30 minute limit. We checked our account once we had secured the bikes in the station. Yep. €1. We walked around the neighborhood, then checked out another bike and rode into the Latin district, returned the bikes to a station (they are literally everywhere, and convenient) and toured the neighborhood, enjoying a 4 piece street band playing Dixieland type jazz (banjo, bass fiddle, clarinet and trombone). We were looking for a restaurant that serves mussels and fries, but we're coming up dry. We had seen them at Montmartre on Friday. We decided to ride to that part of town. We released two bikes near Notre Dame and headed west. Since it was Sunday, they had the major east-west road in town closed to motor traffic. Once off it, we headed north. We had to stop and exchange bikes once to avoid the €1 fee, but we finally made it to the bottom of the funicular that takes you to the top of the hill. We had a scrumptious mussel and fries lunch outside by the artists doing portraits, then settled onto the same steps below the Basilica as Friday. The weather was perfect! Sunny with a few picturesque clouds, no breeze, cool fall temperatures . . . Perfect. We watched the street performers for a while, then headed down the hill, looking for a couple bikes to peddle. I had downloaded the app that shows where every station is, how many open slots there are to accept bikes and how many bikes are available to take. Unfortunately, no one likes to ride the bikes up the hill, but everyone loves to ride them back down into town. My app showed one bike at this station, one at that station, but not 2 together. I found a station with 4 bikes, but as we walked there, the app showed those bikes disappearing as someone got there before we did. This happened three times before we got far enough from the hill to find stations with bikes.
We rode toward the Trocadero, the monument across the river from the Eiffel Tower. We had to stop and swap bikes once to avoid the €1 fee.
Sally really had to pee, but as it was after 5:00 pm on a Sunday, all the restrooms were locked and closed, even though there was still thousands and thousands of people out enjoying a perfect fall day, drinking beer, wine and sodas. We cycled under the Eiffel Tower to a bathroom she had used a few days before, but there was a security guard barring the door and turning everyone away. We cycled back across the river. She walked down into the aquarium, but the attendant in the ticket booth would not let her into the toilets unless she spent €24 for an admission ticket. An hour and a half had passed and things were getting deadly and desperate. Even though the park was full of families and people, Sally found a hedge to hide behind and relieved herself in the bushes. No wonder so many parts of Paris stink so bad of urine! Thousands of tourists and toilets locked. Although I cuss the fact that public toilets cost €0.50 to €0.80 to use, it does keep the homeless from camping out in them, and are therefore cleaner.
We parked our bikes up on top of the Trocadero monument, bought food in a grocery store for our stay out at the airport tomorrow, then found a nice seat on the stairs looking out at the Eiffel Tower and enjoyed the view.
Eventually, we walked down and across the river, heard a 5 piece rock band playing down on the quay and wandered down to listen to them. They sang traditional rock music, Beatles, Rolling Stones, Cat Stevens, Steppenwolf, etc. we listened to them for 45 minutes, then strolled to the Champs de Mars metro station and rode back to Versailles.
And so ended our four day run in Paris! Superb!
Tomorrow we move the bike and our gear out to the Ibis by the airport in preparation for our Tuesday morning flight home.
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