We had a wonderful time in France and Paris. While Paris is a huge city and has lots of sites to see we did a lot of hop scotching around using the extensive subway system and RER trains. The people were quite friendly and our lack of French was not too much a deterrent and we had a good time scanning through the dictionaries and phase books to figure out what to say. We used bon jour, merci, parlez-vous anglais?, pardon and S'il vous plait; which is most of what you need to say to get by.
We took the RER train to Paris and a subway to Ecole Militaire Metro station a block from our hotel Grand Leveque. Right out of the subway we found our first of many sidewalk cafes La Terrasse at Avenue Bosquet near Rue Cler and the Eiffel Tower. Rue Cler is one of Rick Steves favorite streets in Paris and given a couple of pages in his Paris Tour book. The pedesrian street is occupied by meat markets, Fromagerie, Patisserie, fleur shop, cafes and the hotel Grand Leveque where we stayed for three days. The street was relatively quite except for the sidewalk markets setting up their food displays at the break of dawn for the day.
Eiffel Tower was built in 1889 and is very impressive and the base is immense. Right after we got to our hotel on Rue Cler we walked a few blocks to the Eiffel Tower. We hiked up to the first level and took a beer break at Altitude 95. Bob walked up the stairs to the second level at 376 feet. The lines were too long to take the elevator to the top (900 feet).
The food was the biggest challenge. Not only trying to figure what was on the menus but finding something other than squid pieces, livers or other organs of veal, brains or intestines of something or other or warm goat cheese which I found I didn't like either. But we always found some kind (?) of white fish to eat which was always very good. Two of the most tasty meals were a Monsieur sandwich which is a hot ham and lots of French cheese grilled in a toaster oven and it was yummy and one night we had a french pizza which was good too. The wines were very good and the cheapest thing to drink. We brought home two bottles of very good Loire Valley wine which cost all of 27 francs or about $4. We did stop at a lot of outdoor cafe's partly to rest our feet, partly to get something warm to drink and also to watch the Paris world go by. While the coffees where about $3 (in Paris) they were big and pretty good and you could sit there as long as you wanted without being chased off.
We sat at many cafes in Paris: Cafe deux Magots in St Germain, a cafe opposite Notre Dame in the evening as they lighted the cathedral, and one evening under heaters near our hotel in the Latin Quarter.
The weather was a little cool and windy in Paris. We had some light drizzle a couple days but were prepared with our tiny fold up umbrellas. We however wished we had taken our heavier jackets instead of the nylon windbreakers which required us to put on 3-4 layers on the chilly mornings. In the Loire valley it did warm up and we actually saw the sun and got to wear our short sleeve shirts.
France has had a lot of rain and the Seine River was flooded so that none of the tour boats or any boats larger than a small motor boat could get under the bridges of the Seine. So we couldn't take the touristy boat ride. We also had to endure rolling strikes by government workers who would randomly picked a building or museum to strike. We never got up on the Arc de Triomphe due to strikes and we had to return to the Orsay Museum and Sainte Chapelle twice to get in.
Louis IX built Sainte-Chapelle in 1242 in just 6 years to house religious relics he purchased including the alledged crown of thorns. The 15 huge colorful panels of stain glass shows more than 1,100 religious scenes. The stone columns are very narrow which allows the windows to be the magority of the walls and illuminates the whole church with bright colors of reds, blues and greens.
Fortunately we got to the Louvre as we read the strike started the next day and the Louvre was shut for at least four days. I was worried they would strike the subway or trains which would have caused great problems but they didn't do that while we were there.
The Louvre is a great museum and a historic palace. The palace was started in 1515 by Francois I and then added to over three centuries. (Catherine de Medici 1560, Henry IV, Louis XIII 1610, Louis XIV and Napoleon 1804). We saw all the star attractions including DaVinci's Mona Lisa 1503, Raft of the Medusa, Venus de Milo 2 b.c., Michelangelo's Slaves 1513, Delecriox's Liberty leading the people.
Notre Dame was built over three centuries starting in 1163 on a site on an island, Ile de Cite, where the romans in 52 b.c. took over the city and built a temple at this same spot.
In Paris we got to the Louvre, Orsay Museum, Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, Le Marais, the Latin Quarter, St Germain des Pres, Notre Dame, Ille de Cite, Seine River, St Chapelle.
After three days of living on Rue Cler (Rick Steves favorite Street) we headed off to Chartres to visit the town and Cathedral which was immense. The town was very nice and we hit it on Saturday morning when they had the outdoor market so the pedestrian plaza was filled with locals doing their grocery shopping from the many farmer booths. We returned to Paris to catch the TGV train to Tours. It only took an hour as these trains go something like 190 mph. When they went through underpasses the pressure was like someone whacking your ears with the palm of their hands and it was a challenge to walk down the aisle at that speed, but I can say that I have walked at 190 mph on the ground.
We quickly arrived in Tours via the TGV and took a short regional train back up north a short distance to Blois for our beginning of our adventure in the picturesque Loire Valley. Continue the trip on the next page by clicking below.
Click here to continue the trip to the Loire Valley, France
Links to other travel sites
Loire Valley
Switzeralnd Bike Tour 2000
Austria Bike Tour 1999
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