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Published: October 17th 2011
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Two days in Paris to catch up on and they were both exhausting days but a lot of fun!!
Yesterday we had to get cracking early and were on the metro at 7.45am to get to our pickup spot for our trip to the Palace of Versailles. This was a tour that Joy had pre-booked and included lunch at one of the on site restaurants.
We got on a bus that took us through the reasonably quiet streets of Paris to the POV. Our driver was a woman who constantly muttered what I can only think must have been ‘terms of endearment’ at other drivers who dared to get in her way. My original opinion of Paris drivers was reinforced and confirmed what everyone has ever told us about them ….. they are crazy. At least as mad as the drivers I encountered 3 years in Italy when I drove a rental car there for a week. I am truly pleased that I am not driving here. I’m a reasonably confident driver in most circumstances but I reckon this place would drive me to drink!!!!
The Palace was an amazing place to visit. In many ways it reminded me of
our visit to the Vatican 3 years ago, a very extravagant place filled with copious quantities of every imaginable form of art you can think of including nearly every room having huge ceiling paintings a la the Sistine Chapel. It is easy to see why the French revolution took place in the 1790s when you see the extravagance and opulence that the monarchy lived in while the bulk of the population starved. However I don’t suppose it was any different to any of the European monarchies of that time.
The most incredible thing at the Palace was the gardens that covered hundred of acres and were so incredibly manicured that they defied belief. There were thousands of ‘shaped’ trees all over the place and mile upon mile of neatly trimmed box hedging. I will include a photo to show the trees that will hopefully give an idea of what we saw.
We had a lovely lunch at a restaurant in the grounds, a salmon steak with salad and fruit ‘chutney’, (I’m sure there is some fancy French word I should be using) followed by a fresh fruit salad.
We left the POV at 3pm and headed back into town. Traffic
was very heavy by the this time compared to the morning and it took a while. We headed back to the apartment to regroup and rest up for the evening stint.
Joy did some work on what trains we had to use to get to the Sacre Coeur, the beautiful church on top on what must be Paris’ only hill, and then back to the Paris Hard Rock Café for dinner….. and everything worked out well as we found our way to both places on the metro, line changes included.
Sacre Coeur was another beautiful church to rival the many we have seen in Europe in the past (and no doubt the immediate future). There was a service just finishing when we entered and when that finished the organist let rip with the most amazing recital. The sound was unbelievable coming from the massive old pipe organ. Unfortunately by the time we got there the entry to the top of the massive dome was closed so we couldn’t get up there but that didn’t diminish from the experience at all.
Outside on the very large area of steps were thousands of people just sitting and taking in the very pleasant
evening and listening to a Pom singing modern songs with a portable speaker system. It seems to be the done thing in Paris …. Just sitting around doing what appears to be nothing. Unfortunately we haven’t had much time to do that and have had to keep on the move. We found a spot up on the hill where we could see the Eiffel Tower all lit up and I have included a photo of this. Amazing sight.
We travelled back down the hill on the ‘funicular’ , (we had used that t get up the hill as well due to some increasing leg weariness) and found our metro connection for Hard Rock and had just a light meal there (and of course purchased a Tshirt to add to Joy’s collection) and then headed back to the apartment on the metro arriving around 10.30pm.
Certainly a great day in Paris.
Today we had a bit of a sleep in. Didn’t wake until body told us to. After breakfast, some grocery shopping at the local supermarket, putting a load into the very complicated washing machine, we headed to Paris East railway station on the metro to book our train tickets to get to Rendsburg in Germany on Friday. We have a 5 day Eurail Pass, something we used on our last trip very successfully. However our first use in France was a bit of a shambles ….. we couldn’t get bookings on the more direct trip that we wanted to do from Paris to Rendsburg which would have involved only 3 changes of train. Instead the best we can get involves 4 train changes just to get to the German border at Karlsruhe and then at least another 4 changes to get from there to Rendsburg. Also the French rail person couldn’t book us on any German connections but assured us that we wouldn’t have to book on German trains!!! Time will tell! Our expected 5pm arrival at Christine and Gabi’s in Rendsburg has now blown out to 8pm and that’s if we manage to make al the connections. I just hope that the usual efficient German rail runs to schedule otherwise we might never get there.
After sorting that out we headed for the Notre Dame, on the metro …. we reckon we are experts now…and went into that beautiful church that is so steeped in history. It was certainly beautiful inside with the most fantastic stained glass windows.
We then jumped on the ‘Hop on, Hop off’ bus and were driven all over Paris taking in the onboard commentary and taking a lot of photos and video footage. We saw all the sights of Paris including driving right down the Champs Elysse to the Arc de Triomphe. Paris has a lot of green space in the middle of the city and it really looks good against the hustle and bustle of people and traffic and buildings everywhere.
We got off the bus at the Trocadero and looked right down onto the Eiffel Tower and the Champs de Mars (another big green space running away from the ET.) After photos etc. we walked down to the Tower and joined the queue for the trip up to the top. On Saturday afternoon we had a quick look at the ET and the queues were so long and we were so tired after travelling from NY all day and night that we decided to do it another day. The queue was almost non existent when we arrived at about 3.30pm but it still took over an hour to get to the lifts. Up we went right to the top and were rewarded with fantastic 360 degree views of Paris. The ET is an incredible structure when you think that it was built at the turn of the 20th century in the early 1900s. It felt very solid!!!! Thank goodness.
Great photos and video hopefully from up on top and at the intermediate floor as well.
We headed back down, which didn’t take very long at all compared to the going up, and got back on the bus to complete a circuit of Paris and headed back on the metro to the apartment where we flopped on the couch (after climbing the 5 flights of stairs) for a well earned rest.
A light dinner of bread, ham, cheese etc. etc. followed by a most amazing strawberry cake thingy we had bought from the fancy pastry shop just up the road …… yummy.
The evening will finish soon when I get this blog loaded etc. and we look forward to another day of sightseeing in Paris tomorrow. Joy is working on the plans as I write this!!!! Wednesday we head to London for our day trip on the Eurostar train including a ‘hop on, hop off’ bus ticket and River Thames cruise.
That’s the last 2 days in Paris. Still not used to the hustle and bustle which seems quite different to that which we experienced in New York but I suppose is much the same. The big difference is that EVERYONE around is speaking a language or languages that we do not understand at all and it is very weird.
Bye for now.
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Jane Sheldrake
non-member comment
Paris
Hi Joy and Bruce We have been away to Whangarei over the last week as my mother died in her sleep last Monday. Lovely to get back and catch up with all your exciting news. We too enjoyed Paris. When we visited the Sacre Coeur all the surrounding area outside was filled with artists painting - some lovely work was being done. I hope you enjoy your cruise on the Thames as much as we did. We went to Greenwich for the day - sunny and super commentry on the trip there and back. Cheers Jane