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A better view
Paris, near Gare du Nord, "You Are Here" oficial graffittiParis is Paris
But London was sunny
Five days in Paris. One bad choice at lunch one day. Otherwise Paris was what we expect. Consistently good coffee, a wide choice of foods and great people watching or dog watching in some cases.
Parisians love their dogs. And the dogs are welcome almost everywhere. Since the laws were changed regarding picking up after your dog, there is far less merde on the sidewalks, but it isn’t entirely merde-free—probably night-time walkers letting their pets go where they will.
But the animals are so well-behaved and comfortable in their city life! We saw one trio of small pedigreed dogs who walked along with their human entirely free, but following voice commands as one. I wish I had thought to photograph it, but I started shooting the dogs after that hoping for another amazing moment.
We only had one spot we wanted to visit for sure, Versailles. We bought the full passport for 25 Euros apiece and the next day turned out to be the one day with heavy rain and a strike by the security workers at Versailles. We saw the king and queen’s apartments and some of the
grounds, but were driven inside by heavy rain before we could see the vast gardens. Many parts of the palace were closed, no audioguides, included in the passport, were available because of the strike. The whole of Marie Antoinette’s domain, her hideaway, was closed. C’est la vie.
At least we didn’t lose our heads over the inconvenience.
At lunch we saw a special featuring sausage. Little brasserie in the town of Versailles. Andouille sausage. Connie remembered having some in New Orleans years ago. I guess it was more finely ground than this sausage, which looked to be gut stuffed with strips of organ meats and tripe. It turned out to be tasty with the mustard sauce, but some of the strips were the type of thing that grows as you chew so neither of us finished the meal.
After we got back into Paris we walked up from Notre Dame past the Tower of St. Jacque, which is kind of visible from where we were staying. The street we were on led back to Gare du Nord and Gare de l’Est, so we walked.
The rest of the time we spent our time resting or wandering
The gathering storm
Versailles fountain through the St Martin Canal district, which is quite lovely. We ate twice at Thaly, the south Indian restaurant, and three times at the brasserie Chateau Landon. We just absorbed the neighborhood in which we have come to feel quite at home.
We arranged our forward journey to London and set off on a combination of train, ferry and train, ending up at an Ibis hotel near Euston station from which we will travel onward to Glasgow.
Our trip across the channel allowed us to see the famous chalk cliffs of Dover. Had to see at least once. There is a castle above the port, might be interesting to visit if we ever come back. London was frenetic, apparently a school holiday of some sort throughout England and the weather was exceptionally nice. A major football game was being played near London, so lots of sports fans in the mix.
I think warm weather gets rid of some of the famous inhibitions of the British. There were lots of daring dress and public smooching. There also were lots of accents and speakers of various languages, so who knows which were British.
We toured parks, saw the Diana
memorial fountain. We took a flight, they call it flight—I say ride on a giant Ferris wheel, on the London Eye. The day of this writing we went to see the changing of the guard at Buckingham palace and found that the ceremony was replaced by a full dress rehearsal of the ceremonies for the queen’s upcoming birthday—way bigger than a changing of the guard.
There are still things we haven’t seen or done in London, so I guess we’ll have to return some day.
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