City of Light

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Day 17

Oh geez louise, driving in Brussels is so hard!!!! The street signs, which
are in two languages, don't match the map and it took us forever to get
out of there. On the highway there was car accident traffic jams,
construction and blinding rain and then when we crossed the border into
France the rain stopped and the sun came out. We love love love the
French countryside! Far reaching plowed fields of all colors, hillside
villages of old homes and farm houses all centered around a little
church, tree lined lanes, big open sky and autumn colored trees filled
with birds. Black Sabbath on the radio, speeding down the road, excited
for Paris.

Well, then we got to Paris...

It took ages to find the car rental return, it started raining and
the trains from the airport are under construction, it's ALWAYS
something with Paris! We took a taxi.

After checking in we took the metro to the Montmartre district and
when we emerged from underground the first city site we saw was the
Moulin Rouge, we felt like stupid tourists and it made us laugh. We were
drawn to walk down a beautiful street toward a garden but when we got
there we realized it was a cemetery. We have a 6th sense for finding
cemeteries in every city we travel to. We took great photos and then men
ringing bells came and ushered everyone out. We walked around this
beautiful neighborhood, bursting with bustling cafes and shops and sat
down to have a pizza and people-watch After dinner, we took the
funicular to the top of Montmartre overlooking the whole city. We
watched the sun set behind the Eiffel Tower, froze our buns off and
thankfully found a shortcut back to the hotel. Snuggles and chocolate
pudding coming up!

Day 18

Rain, rain go away.

Don't come back till we leave on Thursday!

First things first, crepes and coffee! Then a little wandering and
site seeing. Notre Dame, Tour St.-Jacques, Shakespeare and Co Bookstore
and a visit to Centre Pompidou, a modern art museum. There was an
exhibition by the artist Arman. We LOVED it!!! Several great rooms of
Dada and Actionist pieces, Rothko, Bacon and lots of other things we
love.

After a quick lunch of yummy baguette sandwiches and beer we headed
back to our room to recuperate, plus Marleah is getting sick now and we
needed some nap time.

Slept, relaxed, John did some research on where to visit tomorrow,
Marleah got totally sucked into a French movie she couldn't understand
about a housekeeper in the 1940's and before we knew it it was 9pm and
we hadn't eaten dinner. We took the metro to an area with a bunch of
restaurants and it was raining so hard we picked the first place we came
to. It was unseasoned, disappointing French food. Marleah had really
high hopes for the onion soup and creme brûlée, meh. John had really
high hopes for his boeuf borguignon, meh. C'est la vie, better luck tomorrow.

Day 19

We started our morning by walking through a medieval garden and eating
chocolate croissants. The garden path led to the Musée National du Moyen
Age, a museum of the middle ages which has Gallo-Roman baths dating
from around AD 200, religious relics from the period and a 15th century 6
tapestry set "The Lady with the Unicorn". It was so beautiful and one
of the coolest things in the universe.

We stopped for lunch, Marleah is on a quest for good onion soup (no
luck yet), took pictures at Les Halles (used to be Paris' main
marketplace that began over 800 years ago and is now a gross mall),
purchased new socks, sat in chairs next to the fountain in the Jardin
des Tuileries, visited the Obélisque where the guillotine used to stand,
walked along the Seine at sunset and sat in the park in front of the
Eiffel Tower to watch the sparkly light show they have every night at 8:00.

Day 20

Today was spent at Versailles. Those of you who know us well know that we are
both really interested in dramatic, opulent, over the top design and
art. Well, you can't get more dramatic than the Belle Epoque's crown jewel. Besides the obvious reasons for going, there's a special exhibit
of Murakami, a fantastic Japanese artist, inside the palace. Seeing
these giant pop art sculptures inside rooms filled with 18th century
excess was almost enough to make you go blind. So much color and detail
everywhere that the real world looks so plain. We spent all day there
surrounded by other tourists, remarking to each other that it was more
crowded than Disneyland on a bad day! After leaving the main building we
toured Marie Antoinette's private house and her (still working) farm.
Marleah wanted to stay forever! We rode back into Paris for a rather
boring dinner and we're now making plans to do nothing of any real
importance tomorrow as it's our last day in Europe.

Day 21

Our metro ride this morning was sort of weird. Apparently there was a bomb
scare so we had to get off our train with just a few people on it and
wait for the next one. The contents of both trains plus an unusually
balmy day meant the last stretch was absolutely unbearable. I'm not
talking N.Y., S.F., etc. more like India, weird smells included. Somehow
we crawled out and made it to our destination, the catacombs. The bones
of approximately 6 million Parisiennes rather neatly stacked in the
former site of a stone quarry. Macabre? Well... Yes. This is John and
Marleah, after all. Really amazing, kinda hard to photograph and a cool
last excursion. After this we went to the Montparnasse cemetery for more
photo ops and a nice walk. We visited Baudelaire, Sartre, Simone De
Beauvoir, Man Ray, and Serge Gainsbourg among others. One last shopping
trip for Marleah and then we bid adieu to this beautiful city. Tomorrow
we fly home and we're definitely ready, but so happy we had this trip
together.

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