One day of being tourists

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Geo: 48.8566, 2.35097

We allowed ourselves a bit of a late start, and since we still had a pretzel left from yesterday, that and a cup of coffee (or tea, for Dejo) from the in-room kettle served as breakfast. Hey, it was already paid for….there's a certain appeal in that. Since our original plan of going to Versailles was out, we decided to go to the Louvre and see what we missed last time.

We hopped on the Metro, debating on the way down whether it was the Palais Royal Musée du Louvre or the Louvre Rivoli station that we wanted. We got off at the Palais Royal Musee stop, which was the right stop, but instead of angling left when we got into the Carrousel (shopping mall), we angled right, and joined the long line for tickets. We thought this felt a little different than last time, so I left Dejo in line (with his permission, of course), and went scouting. The line we actually wanted – in the hall with the inverted pyramid – was down the hall. I went to relieve him of standing in that line, and promptly deposited him in the (much shorter) line for one of the automated ticket machines. I found a place in the hall where I could get a 3G signal, and worked on downloading the Louvre tour from my Rick Steves app (since we liked his tour of the Orsay). After several failed attempts, we decided to try it ust once on the iPad. Ta-da! I guess there's something about my iPhone 4 (or the older iOS that I still have on there) that didn't play nicely with the app.

So we jumped in the short line for security, and then we were on our way to wide world of culture that the Louvre has to offer.

Or, you know, navigating the crowds. Either one.

It was a really busy day there, what with it being summer, and a Monday (when other sights are closed) and the day after the Tour de France final stage, and who-knows-what-else. So we just stuck close to each other (lest we inadvertently clothesline someone with our headphones diverting out from the splitter), and set off on our tour. I must say, Rick's tour is great at pointing out subtle things in the composition of a piece that you wouldn't think of on your own, and that you can pick out in other pieces as well. And we felt like we got something out of the pieces we looked at, in contrast with the masses that would pose in front of a piece, perhaps without even knowing the name of it.

After a couple of hours in the Denon wing with Mona, Venus, Victory and David, we found a place to sit, and had a kingly lunch of bacon-flavored cheetos (courtesy of Belin, a caravan sponsor), a fig-newton kind of bar made with prunes ("prune newtons", we had come to call them), and a very expensive (€3.60) Coke. We took in some of the Flemish & Dutch paintings, and I came to the end of my energy. I was just Done.

We shuffled our way out of the Louvre, and across the river in search of some late lunch. We settled on a little restaurant in the antiques district that looked nice. They had good food, but wow, were they in need of a breeze, or a fan. Hot, humid and stifled. But our lunch was nice, and my energy was soon restored enough to mosey on.

We decided to head back to the hotel to catch a catnap, and pack for our flight home the next day. We were a little worried, because it all seemed to go much more smoothly than we thought it should have. After all, we had all that schwag from the caravan, and the newly-purchased gifts from the Tour, and……well, it just felt like we should have more trouble packing. But we didn't, and soon it was all ready to go.

We then had the rest of the evening in front of us, so we decided to go see about a river cruise on the Seine. A little research had told us that dinner cruise (which we thought of at first) was probably way overpriced for the food and the experience you get. Instead, the boats that went from the Pont Neuf were reasonably priced (€13 per person), and there were restaurants nearby for the dinner part of the evening. We got our tickets (valid for any of the evening's cruises – just show up at least 15 minutes early), and went in search of dinner.

We crossed the street, and found ourselves in the Place Dauphin, a little square (though it's more triangular) on the Île de la Cite – an island in the middle of the Seine. Apparently, they have a sweet little church there, called the Notre Dame, which we didn't realize at the time. We settled on the La Rose en France, a cute-looking little restaurant on the square. We wandered over, and asked about a table for 2. The proprietor asked if we'd made reservations? Huh. That idea had never occurred to us. None of the other places where we got a ham & cheese sandwich needed reservations…… Well, he did have a table tucked in a corner, which we gladly accepted. The dinner was as close to “fancy” as we'd come on this trip, but it was just the right level of civilized. Cloth napkins, but only 1 fork.

Though we really wanted dessert, we thought it best if we headed over to the cruise, and think about dessert afterward. We joined the short line, and found a seat on the top level, near the back. Which is near the engines. Which are really quite loud. Fortunately, we were also near the speakers, so we were able to hear the stilted commentary as we powered down the Seine. Though the commentary wasn't spectacular, the scenery was nice. It was dusk, and getting darker, so we had a really nice light level, especially with the lit-up-and-sparkly Eiffel Tower against the denim-blue sky.

When the boat docked again at Pont Neuf, we thought perhaps an ice cream would be in order. The popsicles offered by the boat company were a little overpriced, so we decided we'd wander along the Seine – surely someone would have ice cream on a summer night. We ended up on the Paris Plage (temporary “beach” set up on the Seine), and wandered down the….boardwalk? Sidewalk? Whatever. That thing that you wander down. We did finally find a gelato stand, and couldn't necessarily argue with his claim to be the best gelato in Paris. We hadn't tried enough to know, but this stuff was pretty darn tasty.

And one last little “huh” moment to cap off this evening: As we were entering the metro station, a somewhat ragged-looking man breezed past us, and grabbed an empty water bottle off the top of the trash can. “Eew” was my silent reaction. Then as we got to the platform, we noticed him rinsing – then filling that bottle from a faucet tucked into the wall at the end of the platform. He then proceeded to rinse off his hair in the faucet, and splash some onto his face. So, while making a mental note that you might be able to find potable water in the Paris metro, I was also extremely grateful that I had a temporary home to go back to (the hotel), and a permanent home to fly back to the next day. And we have SO many other things to be grateful for, this trip being one of them.

So, that's it. The next day was just flying back home, which went pretty smoothly. We returned home to our dogs (who may have forgotten about us, as they were under the excellent care of Dejo's 2 brothers Andrew & Jerome, for which we are SO grateful). Jetlag messed with our sleeping schedules for about a week, and we started watching some of the stage replays on the DVR, confirming that we'll never watch the Tour -- or any other bike race - the same way again.

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Photos

A few people, interested in "Mona Lisa"
We didn't even try to get close

Hermaphrodite -- beautiful bedding
Seriously -- we almost wanted to lay down on that. How does someone make cold marble look soft & warm?

Bartolini's "La Nymphe au scorpion"
The pain in her face, and the deep pressure she's applying to her foot were fascinating

Beham's "Histoire de David"
A FASCINATING table, with detail the likes of which I've never seen. I could've looked at this for hours (though the glare made that less practical). And finding any information on this (like why it was done, how long it took him, etc), was nigh-on impossible.