We got up late due to our late night and to save time, decided to eat breakfast in the hotel. They did have croissants and chocolate croissants as well as eggs and cheese along with fruit and yogurt. Enough for us to get to lunch.
Ted asks me where we want to go first. I said I wanted to see the Arc de Triomphe. It is one of the most famous monuments in Paris. It sits on a huge circle and cars go whizzing by. There are 12 radiating avenues from it.
The taxi left us off on the east side of the Arch. There's a huge circular road surrounding the arch. While I was busy taking photos, Ted was looking around to figure out how in the heck we were going to get over there. It would be suicide to try to cross that road with all of the cars whizzing by. He tells me there's a stairway going down and it must have a tunnel that goes under the road. OK. So off we go towards the stairway. It's cool down there. We walk through the tunnel with tons of other people and get to the other side. There's a ticket counter there and we stop to get tickets to go to the top of the terrace. I hope I don't get vertigo going up there.
We climb up the stairs and there we are, on that circular pad that has hip-high pilasters around the perimeter with huge black chains running from one pilaster to the other. I guess it's so that drivers think twice about smashing into them. Their cars would be in a world of hurt!
From photos, you don't get the impression that there's openings on the side of the arch, but there are! It actually has arches on the front and on the sides. An incredible piece of architecture.
This monument honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars. On the inside and the top of the arc there are all of the names of generals and wars fought.
Under the main arch towards the eastern side, is the tomb of the unknown soldier from World War I. I did not know this fact until I read it in my travel book.
The Arch was commissioned in 1806 after the victory at Austerlitz by Emperor Napoleon at the peak of his fortunes. Laying the foundations alone took two years, and in 1810 when Napoleon entered Paris from the west with his bride Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria, he had a wooden mock-up of the completed arch constructed. The architect Jean Chalgrin died in 1811, and the work was taken over by Jean-Nicolas Huyot. During the Restoration, construction was halted and would not be completed until the reign of King Louis-Philippe, in 1833–36 when the architects on site were Goust, then Huyot, under the direction of Héricart de Thury. Napoleon's body passed under it on 15 December 1840 on its way to its second and final resting place at Les Invalides.
When Paris was liberated in 1944, the Americans gave General Charles DeGaulle the honor of being the first person to drive through the Arch. What a piece of history!
There are almost 300 steps going up to the top of the terrace. I know I'm in no condition to climb 300 steps AND site see all day long. There's an elevator so we take it to the top. While we getting our tickets before we ascended to the Arch, there was sign saying the Arch would be closing at noon. I thought that was a bit odd but I figured, it was a good thing we got there when we did.
The elevator has a glass dome so you can see how high it goes. It's an incredibly weird elevator. It is shaped like a half-moon and there is a girl there with a walkie-talkie who is operating it. We get in with other people and she takes us to the top. I try to ask her why the monument was closing but she ignored me. She either doesn't speak English (I find that hard to believe given this is a huge international tourist attraction) or she is one of those individuals from Paris who disdains not only Americans but all tourists. It's funny because you would think those who think like that would consider how much money tourists pour into the economy. I guess they don't teach their employees about customer service. Oh well. (So far, she is the first person in town who has acted like this.)
We get to the top and it opens into a long narrow room that they use as a souvenir shop. We are not allowed to take photos in the souvenir shop. Ok, no problem. Ted asks, "How do we get to the terrace?" I look around and see other people walking towards the far end of the room. The stairs to the top are narrow, just big enough for one person to climb. We climb up one set of stairs, turn a corner and then go up another set of stairs and turn another corner and climb another set of stairs. I can see the light. I didn't know how many sets of stairs there would be!
As we walk out onto the terrace there are people milling about. The wall of the terrace ranges in height from knee-high to hip-high. The french have put up a barricade. It's hard to describe it but I'll try (I didn't even think to take a picture of it considering what else there was too look at). The barricade is at least seven or eight feet high and has about four inch openings from top to bottom between each metal post. The post is curved and u-shaped. If one fell into it, it could seriously hurt! But one can take photos from between the posts, which is a good thing. I took pictures on each side of the terrace. It's a hot and hazy day so I'm only posting the ones with the best views.
Below is the view of the Champs-Élysées, the most prestigious and expensive street in Paris! I didn't know it was that street when I took the photo and we didn't have an opportunity to ride or walk down there. It's out of my price range anyways!
As we walked the perimeter of the terrace, Ted said there's a set of stairs that only go down. So that's why no one came at us when we were going up the stairs! It was hot and I took a lot of pictures, I was ready to take the "lift" back down. We had to wait in line to get the lift. Only about 10 people can fit in that half-moon elevator but it makes short work of the job so we didn't have to wait too long. It was really nice to sit on the stone bench on the inside of the Arch. It was time to cool off a bit.
I wanted a photo of the side of the arch so I walked over to the edge of the circle and took some photos. I noticed a man with a VFW hat locking his car door to the left of me. I walked over to him and thanked him for his service. I asked him if he knew why the Arch was closing. He said there was a Memorial Day procession today at noon and that we should stay for it. I looked at my watch and it was barely 11:30.
I had NO idea that the French honor the US Memorial Day! Why hasn't the media ever talked about that? Since it was Sunday (and not Monday - the day the US celebrates Memorial Day) I didn't make the connection between Memorial Day and the gentleman with the VFW hat.
I went back to where Ted was sitting and told him why the Arch was closing. He said we should stay. We sat there for a few minutes cooling off. Then we went around to the front of the Arch where the tomb of the unknown soldier was. It was cordoned off but we were second in line. We had no idea how this procession was going to play out. The VFW man told me that there was a gentleman (from a home, he said) there that stormed the beaches at Normandy). This is history coming alive.
We stood there in front of the tomb for about 10 to 15 minutes until the French Police came and told us we would have to move to behind another set of metal barricades. Ted and I turned and moved quickly to get a ring-side spot right behind the barricade and allowing us the best view. I faintly heard the Star Spangled Banner and wondered who was playing it. There were french soldiers who marched to the front of the tomb and there was a french military band who came around the side and stood opposite the french soldiers.
As we stood there I turned to see a tall young man with a HUGE camera. I remarked that's ONE big camera or rather one big lens. He turned and smiled at me. It turns out he and his girlfriend are German! We talked for a bit and he wanted to know what was going on. We explained what was going on. I hesitated but then said I didn't want to offend him but I wanted his opinion of WWII. I think he understood what I meant. He said that it was sad that it happened and that he was glad he was living now and not then. He said he didn't know what he would have done if he lived in that era. I was disappointed by his answer by not surprised.
Five minutes before the procession, he and his girlfriend left. We continued to watch and the Air Force Honor Guard march to their spot next to the French soldiers. Then came the flags. First the U.S. and then the French, followed by various military personnel from each.
As the soldiers took their places, I was SO overcome by emotion that I began to cry. Never in my life has a Memorial Day service affected me in such a way. I think it's because of the enormity of the last WWII and the fact that we are currently living in Germany that just did me in.
As the band began to play the Star Spangled Banner, Ted saluted and I began to sing loud and proud. I heard a woman's voice behind me singing loudly as well. The band then played the French anthem and the soldiers, first the French and then the Americans placed wreaths on the tomb of the unknown soldier. I am SO glad we chose to go to the Arch first! Otherwise we would have missed this solemn occasion and we would have missed an opportunity to see it.
After the soldiers marched away from the Arch, I turned to woman behind me (who HAD to be an American) and asked her where she was from. It turns out she's from Los Gatos (not far from San Fransisco) and she even knew where our old home in Rocklin was! It truly IS a small world. We chatted for about ten minutes and then they left.
We were ready to leave as well. We went back down those stairs to the tunnel under the Arch and back up to the street. At this point, there were street dancers right near the entrance to the tunnel. We stopped to watch for a few minutes but then we were trying to get our bearings. Last night we had decided to utilize the "Hop on - Hop Off" bus tour that allows you to see the sites, get off, visit and then catch another bus that rotates every 15 minutes or so. The travel book had recommended it. Now to find the stop. We knew it had to be around somewhere, this was a major site.
Ted, in his wisdom, asked another bus company where that bus stop might be located. He said it was about 300 meters down the street. We walked toward the stop and ted was smelling the food being served at the various sidewalk cafes. Keep in mind these sidewalks are easily 15 to 20 feet wide! The tables are set up in the middle of the sidewalk with walking paths between the tables and the street and the tables and the cafe. One can easily do a great deal of people watching while they eat.
Ted is not only incredibly thirsty (as am I), but he's now hungry too. We decide to find a cafe that has open seating under an umbrella and have some lunch. We settled on Geroge V. It seemed like it was a true Paris cafe, unlike the McDonalds and the quick burger place two doors down. There was NO way, we were going to be in Paris and eat fast food! No way at all!
The head waiter (at least I think he was the head waiter or maybe he was the owner), showed us to a table. We ordered two bottles of water for each of us. It was incredibly expensive but we were SO thirsty!! The French charge less money for wine than for water!! Ted orders a Ham and cheese crepe and I order a salad with egg and toasts with goat cheese. I was looking forward to the goat cheese. It was one of my favorite cheeses in California.
Thankfully, our waiter speaks English and smiles. He is friendly and accommodating! When the lunch arrived, Ted was surprised to see that the crepe was folded in fourths (that's the French way of doing it - not rolled up like desert crepes). It was also made with whole wheat flour and looked quite good.
My salad had an egg alright but I was expecting a hard-boiled egg and got a fried egg right on top of the salad. Oh well! The goat cheese was not up to my standard but the salad was good and had pine nuts in it as well.
We finished our lunch and asked the waiter how far the stop was for "Hop on - Hop off" (yellow)bus. He said it was not 20 meters from where we were sitting. We were ready to continue on. I paid the check and he gave me change and I thought he had given me too much. I realized that I had made a mistake and told Ted that I had overpaid by 10 EURO. He said, "You lose five points for that one." (We had been having this conversation back and forth...lose five points, earn a point etc. for getting lost or finding someone to give us directions etc.) I was not about to lose five points so I went to the waiter and told him there had been a mistake. He looked at me and didn't argue. He said he thought I was wrong but didn't want to argue. He gave me back the 10 EURO! Hooray! I didn't lose the five points! I gained them for getting the 10 EURO back. Ted said later, "I can't believe that you asked him for the money back." And I told him...I Forget about the 10 EURO... I wasn't going to lose five points! He shook his head and we both laughed!
As we neared the stop, the bus was coming. It was a bit expensive but well worth it, in my opinion. Taxis charge between 10 and 15 Euro (about $20) per trip. Ted had seen his two sites now we were going to see mine. We went to the top of the bus and managed to get the first row seating behind the glass. Perfect! I can take loads of pictures and we get some air as well!
This is the first picture I took from the top of that bus. There are so many that I took that there's not space to show all of them here. I am choosing the more intersting ones to post. Ted promptly falls asleep. He's going to miss half the sites of Paris but I'm not going to bug him about it. He can see the photos later!
As we pass by monument after monument, I'm keeping track of them from the pamphlet the bus driver gave us. I only know the Louvre by the glass pyramid and that's the first stop.
We didn't get off the bus for this monument but my travel guide tells me that this is the place where Marie Antoinette lost her head, literally. For many years, the guillotine stood at this location. The French call the Place de la Concorde, or Place of Peace. I don't get that but hey, it's France.
It was first called Place Louis XV, and planned as a worthy setting for the royal statue. Place de la Concorde is often associated with the bloody events that took place on its pavement. In 1770, for example, 133 spectators were trampled to death at a huge fireworks display on the occasion of Marie-Antoinette's wedding to the Dauphin. A few decades later, the revolutionaries, who were intent on eliminating all royalist monuments trom the face of the earth, removed Louis XlV's statue, dubbed the plaza Place de la Révolution, and set up their guillotine on it. Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette and 1119 other people lost their lives here, among them Charlotte Corday (the murderess of Marat), Danton, Philippe Égalité and Robespierre. In order to help these bloody events on their way to oblivion, the Directory renamed the square Place de la Concorde in 1795.
We come to a T-junction where there are arches opposite us and I'm thinking the bus driver is going to make a right turn but he doesn't, he's going to take this huge bus through those arches!! Oh, my gosh! I'm holding my breath and pull my arms in tight against myself (I had my arm laying on the side of the side of the bus). We go through that arch (which is more like a short tunnel - about two bus lengths) with less than 3 inches on each side. Once we get through, I heave a sigh of relief.
I didn't even notice the buildings all around us, I was so focused on whether we were going to make that tunnel. Ted says, we're here. HUH? Where? At the Louvre, we have to get off. I don't see the glass pyramid. Where is it? As we travel a bit more to the stop, I finally look over to the left and see the pyramid. It turns out ALL of the buildings all around us make up the Louvre. It is incredibly massive!
We get off the bus and look around. The series of buildings stretch from the left of the arches and extend all the way to behund the pyramid traveling in the opposite direction. I can't even begin to describe how vast this series of buildings are! I would have to take a video in order to show it and since I don't own a video camera, and we're only here until tomorrow, that won't happen.
I turn to Ted and ask him where the entrance is. He nods to the pyramid and says, just follow the rest of the people. I think the entrance is in the pyramid. There's a huge water fountain next to the pyramid. There are huge numbers of people sitting on the fountain's ledge. We get to the pyramid, and sure enough, it's the entrance. I always thought the pyramid was an area of the Louvre that displayed works of art. It shows you how much I know! LOL!
As we near the entrance, signs say anyone with bags are to go in one line while others can go in another line. I have a bag, my purse. We go inside and my purse is sent through the security system. It's REALLY hot in here because of all of the glass. There's an escalator just beyond the security area. We go down it to a landing and then down another escalator. We find ourselves underground but there's tons of light because of the glass pyramid above us to the right. It's cool down here.
Before we get tickets to go inside, we need to hit the restroom. I could spend days in here there are so many things to see but I'm really only interested in seeing the Mona Lisa. Ted is not big on art to begin with so he's really here to humor me.
We get our tickets and once again, both of us are parched. We stop and have a bottle of water before continuing to the section where the Mona Lisa is housed.
After having purchased the tickets, I get my ticket validated and I thought Ted was right behind me. He was talking to the ticket validation guy and it turns out, we both could have gotten into the Louvre for free! In Paris, if you are partially disabled, you and your spouse get into all of the museums for free! We didn't know! We wish someone had told us. Our travel guide said nothing about that. I need to contact Rick Steeves! LOL!
The signs to go to see the Mona Lisa are ambiguous. One says to go one way and another has an arrow another way! Ted tells me to follow him up the stairs. Even the stairways and ceilings in this building are works of art!
Almost every time I follow the "leader" we end up going the wrong way! Oh well, it just means I get to see more of the art work! LOL! I tried to tell him this was a room with sculptures in it but he wouldn't listen. It turns out there are beautiful works of art in this room.
Unfortunately, there's no time to linger as it's past 4 already and we have not yet seen the other site I wanted to see. Up several more floors of steps. We kept following the signs to the Mona Lisa. We walked through this one set of doors and had to go around this long wall with several huge works of art. All of the works of art in this section of the Louvre are from the 13th to 15th centuries and they are amazing, to say the least!
As we walk around the wall, there she is! There are SO many people flashing photos of it. I knew that the painting was small but it is beautiful even with all of the people clambouring to take pictures of her. It's behind a cordonned off area and behind a glass case. There are security guards on either side of the wall. Like all of the sheep before me, I move to the roped off area and take my photo. It's a bit disrespectful, I think to just take a photo but with so many people, it's very difficult to linger and think about the artist who created this work of art, not to mention the person who was painted.
I take my photos and I'm ready to go. Ted doesn't want to go down the steps, he now wants to take the elevator. It's easier on his knees. The elevator is small and there's not enough room for us so we wait for it to come back up again. In the meantime, two young French women walked around us and stood right at the right side of the door. As the door opened they pushed their way in ahead of us. They dismissed us as if we were bugs! Of course, this REALLY rubbed Ted the wrong way and he pushed me to get in the elevator. Afterwards, we discussed how incredibly rude those two women were and how this is really the first incident like this. If we were to stay longer, I'm sure we would have more experiences like this.
We get to the bus stop and we wait a scant few minutes for the next bus. Unfortunately, we lost our primo seats up top. There wasn't a seat available so we sat inside the bus where it was stifling hot. Luckily it was only a few minutes to Notre Dame Cathedral, our final stop for the day. I was eager to see it but Ted was not as keen as I was. He knew it from photos he had seen, but somehow I had missed out on seeing any photos of it so this Cathedral that is so well known around the world was not exactly what I had expected. It is beautiful, nonetheless.
The area in front of the Cathedral is huge! Ted wanted to sit down so we found a place at the opposite end of the Cathedral and sat on a ledge there. To the left of the this vast expanse of stone area is a statue of Simon Bolivar.
I looked for the Gargoyles and had to have Ted point them out to me. Because they were so high up on the Cathedral, they were difficult to see. For some reason, I thought they were bigger. They probably are, it's just that we are so far down on the ground.
Ted was not interested in seeing the interior of the church, while I was. He said he'd wait on the ledge while I went to look around inside. Having been in countless churches in Italy in my youth, I expected this 700 year old church to be like those churches. The arches above the doors are exquisite not to mention the doors themselves!
The interior of this Cathedral is at LEAST four stories high with the concave arches and stained glass windows. What surprises me is how much it reminds me of the interior of St. Dominic's Church in Youngstown, Ohio with the two wings to the side of the church and the huge stones.
While I can appreciate the fact that the French Catholics request that people respect the church, I'm surprised they allow people in to view the church while Mass is being said. Somehow that along with the souvenir shop in the back of the church, seems disrespectful to me.
As I walked out into the sunshine, I heard a woman say that she needed to find someone to take a picture of her and her husband. I thought she was Italian. (I was amazed to find that there were few, if anyone, there that spoke Italian or German, for that matter.) I stopped her and told I would gladly take her photo. It turns out she lives in Miami, Florida and is from Peru. Her husband is Turkish! Go figure!
As I walked towards Ted, I see he's napping again. I've worn the poor guy out dragging his butt all over town! LOL! We wanted to go to dinner at one of the restaurants in the tour book but we find out that the earliest reservation is for 10pm! YIKES! There's no way we're going to wait for that.
We decide to call the hotel and have them give us the phone number of the dinner cruise on the Seine, maybe we can make that! He gives us the wrong number or perhaps he cannot even understand us, I don't know but we need to get back to the hotel to look it up. Once again, we have to get a taxi. So we cross the street to get a cab and it turns out that it's the law in France that you MUST take the first cab in line! WOW! I was impressed.
We get this taxi driver from Africa. He doesn't speak much English and I learned right away to write down the name of the street where our hotel is located for a couple of reasons: 1) I can't pronounce the name and 2) they don't understand me. We get in the car and he takes off but he doesn't know where the location is, he turns down a street and then stops at the corner to look on his map. I didn't say anything at first, but when I saw he was taking his time and the meter was ticking, I poked Ted and told him we were being charged for him to look up the street. He called it to the taxi driver's attention, who said he wasn't stopping the meter. That's crazy! Why should I pay him to look up the street, it's his job. THAT got Ted mad and he said, let's go, we're getting out. I told the driver as I was getting out that it was not right to charge a fare if you don't know where you're going. He was upset but he should have done the right thing and stopped the meter until he could find the street.
We were at the corner of the street where there was a Haagen Daz store. Uh-oh! So we have ice cream to cool us off, both physically and emotionally. This was the first cab driver who was rude and he wasn't even French!
We walked down the street and I asked Ted, "Now what?" He says, "We go back to the taxi stand and get another taxi!" OK. On the way, I stop at a few souvenir places. We walk back to the taxi stand and I hope we don't get that same guy again, that would be a TOTAL bummer!!
We arrive and there's people talking to the first taxi and we go to the second taxi, driven by a woman. But there's a lady who was there first. She wanted to know if the second taxi (a Prius) was big enough to fit three people and a wheel chair. I didn't think so but I wasn't going to say anything. The next taxi in line was an SUV. The Prius driver recommended that the lady with the wheel chair take the SUV and we take the Prius. It turns out our driver is Iranian and has lived in Paris for 26 years, after the Shah was overthrown! She tells us it's going to take about 20 minutes to get to our hotel and wonder of wonders, she KNOWS where it's at!! Hooray!
She chats with us in English about her life in Paris and the cost of a Prius in France. She says she's been driving taxi for eight years and goes to visit her parents in Iran regularly because they are getting on in years.
We finally get to our hotel and I go get a pamphlet for the cruise. We go up to the room and figure out the clerk at the hotel must not have understood us on the phone because the number is totally wrong. Ted calls the cruise and asks if we could have a reservation. We are in luck, we can get one. The boat leaves at 8pm. Terrific, it's only 6:45. We have time to change and call yet another taxi to take us there.
The taxi driver knows Capitain Fracasse! Wonderful. We get there at about 7:30 and are second or third in line. I whisper to Ted that I hope we get a window table. Finally, they are starting to board. They didn't have our name on the list but that's not surprising since Ted said they didn't speak very good English but they seated us anyways AND we got a window table.
Our waiter is from Malta and speaks English as well as Italian. He smiles and is very kind. I think he looks like Bruce Willis!
The meal is a three course meal: Appetizer, entree and desert. We both order bottles of water.
The first course arrives and we were pleasantly suprised. It was delicious. Ted orders the Salmon and I have the steak. Even the desert was good.
All the while we are having dinner we are cruising down the Seine and snapping pictures from our seats. There are young lovers on the walls kissing, there are couples having a bottle of wine and some food and there is dancing!
We pay the bill and then go on top of the boat to look at Paris from the Seine at night. We pass the Eiffel tower and it is beautiful at night. We no sooner get up top and the steward makes us all go back downstairs. I would have liked to stay up there until we docked.
As we were leaving, our waiter told me to hang on to my purse and hold it on my shoulders because there are pick-pockets. I knew this from my travel book but it was kind of him to say so anyways. We walked down to the train station and hail a cab. He takes us back to our hotel. It's 11:30 and we are more than ready to call it a night.
For one full day in Paris, we got to see and do a lot of different things and I don't feel at all like I missed anything.
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