Blogs from Paris, Île-de-France, France, Europe - page 12

We made a late-morning start today by catching the #69 bus, exiting at the Pont des Arts on the right bank of the Seine. This iconic little footbridge, which crosses the river between the Institut de France and the Louvre, was formerly festooned with thousands of monogrammed padlocks (known as "lovelocks") that were deposited on the railings of the bridge by visiting "lovers" from all over the world. It became a major problem over the years, as tons of padlocks had to be periodically removed by local officials. Finally, several years ago, the decision was made to end the practice by removing the railings and wire fences lining both sides of the bridge, and installing a wall that has no means of attaching locks. Now, for better or worse, the bridge is shorn of its "lovelocks" ... read more

Paris will be the last stop on our 74-day journey around the world, which began on April 16th when we departed Daytona Beach for San Francisco; then on to Tokyo, Beijing, Hong Kong, Sydney (Australia), Singapore, New Delhi, Athens (including a 3-day cruise in the Aegean Sea), and Nice (on the French Riviera). We documented our exploits on another travel blog platform that regrettably ceased operations during the trip, so our "Paris Finale" appears on this site. Our granddaughter Ashley joined us for a few days in Nice, and then accompanied us to Paris. It was her very first visit to the City of Light, and judging by the entries and photos that appear above, I think it's safe to conclude that she and Paris got along famously! Truth be told, we owe Ashley a debt ... read more

This entry by Tom. It was a bit of a process but we made it to France and our hotel for the first two nights in Villeneuve-Saint-Georges. Caroline’s folks, then her sister Nathalie, drove us to the airport in Montreal. Checking in with our bikes went smoothly and our flight on a huge A330-300 on AirTransat departed for Paris more or less on time just after 10pm for an overnight trip across the ocean. We tried to get a bit of sleep but it’s not easy at the best of times and this was not the best of times as we were packed into steerage. I nodded off twice in between a movie (“Passengers”) and a few episodes of Anthony Bourdain’s “Places Unknown”. It was enough. After taking too much time to get us off the ... read more

We landed in Paris at about 4pm which was about an hour later than expected as our departure from Marrakech was delayed while we waited for our plane to turn up. Immigration was nice and quick and our bags popped out onto the carousel just as we arrived at the baggage carousel. We caught the Orly bus from the airport to Denfert Rochereau metro station and then caught the metro to Strasburg Saint Denis. After about a 5 minute walk we arrived at our AirBNB in the 2nd arrondissement. After checking into our AirBNB we set out towards Rue Montorgueil which was about a 5 minute walk away. Rue Montorgueil is a walking street which is lined with restaurants, bakeries, patisseries, cheese shops, wine shops and so on. We had planned to walk around for a ... read more

Our friends, Angelika and Gitti arrived on Saturday, April 22ndand stayed with us on the boat for a couple of nights and three days. It was a first for them to stay overnight on a boat and they adapted very well to it. We didn’t leave the dock, but even with staying in the marina there are things that you need to adjust to – showers on shore, climbing in and off of the boat, and just having less room with 4 people on a 40 foot sailboat. We figured it wouldn’t be a problem as they had camped on safari in Botswana so a sailboat would be a piece of cake! Unfortunately Bob was having some problems with his knee so the first day of exploration we did without him ... read more