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| On top of the Arc de Triomphe on a foggy day, Eiffel Tower behind us! |
On Monday morning, April 9th of this year, we
were off on a long awaited month long trip to Europe, first stop Paris. Amazingly, for us at least, we had resolved
to travel “lite”, taking only carry-on luggage, two small suitcases and
backpacks, plus an electronics bag (gotta have that!). It worked out pretty well
all in all. We took a morning flight out
of Phoenix, first stop Washington DC for a plane change, then, soon, on to
Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. We
arrived in the morning of April 10th
after about an 8 hour flight, a little groggy, but eager to
explore this great city.
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| Waiting for your Shuttle ride to PHX -Who says we can't get by without checked luggage? |
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Deep exploration would have to wait for at least a day, as
I don’t believe you can travel from the USA to Europe without being at least
semi-severely jet-lagged as you arrive in some European city, having skipped
ahead 8 or 9 hours to the NEXT MORNING (in our case, Tuesday, April 10).
We certainly were.
But we checked into a nice little boutique
hotel in the Opera District of Paris and managed to sleep walk our way around to some local
restaurants that same day.
Our first
meal was a cold plate, typical of Europe for sure, assorted cold cut meats,
cheese, and bread, in this case… and in most cases in France as it turned out,
portions of baguettes, accompanied always, in our case, by a glass of red wine. Baguettes are the National Bread of France for sure.
Everywhere we went we saw folks hauling off baguettes, for breakfast,
lunch, dinner, snacks, whatever!
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| Colds cuts, cheese, bread & wine on our first day in Paris! |
Anyhow, I think we were well located for our 4 day tour of
Paris, in the Opera District as mentioned, an area suggested to us by a very
nice travel agent at the local AAA office down here in Arizona. She was a frequent European traveler and talked with us
on a couple occasions about our trip plans.
And when we asked about Paris, and where to stay, Opera District came
up prominently. We were not
disappointed; it was within walking distance of so many nice sights and café’s, and close to a tour bus stop (more on that in a bit)…
Folies Bergere was on the street right behind our hotel.. we could see it out of the window of our room. We heard and observed the mostly
young crowd gathered there every night… we didn’t really mind the noisy
distraction. This was Paris, after
all, an internationally renowned city alive with energy and excitement!
We did not have a rental car while In Paris. We quickly
deduced, after observing the hectic flow of traffic in this big city, that this
was a WISE decision. Instead, we relied
on a “Hop on Hop Off” Double Decker Bus Tour.
It served our needs well, and we set off early the next day (Wed, April
11) for a tour of the City. We saw all
the highlights, the Louvre, Notre Dame Cathedral, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel
Tower, etc from our circular route around the historical and touristy part of
the City, before deciding to exit the bus for lunch at really charming little
sidewalk café near the Notre Dame Cathedral.
I had Duck Confit, a Paris fixture; for the first, but decidedly not the
last, time on this part of our European journey, and I was decidedly NOT
disappointed!
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| Doesn't get any better than sitting at a sidewalk cafe on the streets of |
| Paris |
The next day we again used the sightseeing bus to get us to
our desired tourist stops. First stop
Arc de Triomphe. It was a little bit of
a cloudy, overcast day; but still we trekked 250+ stairsteps up to the top
deck for a nice view of the city, including a somewhat hazy view of the Eiffel
Tower.
We had left some of the most famous Paris stops, namely the
Louvre and the Eiffel, for our last full day in Paris, Friday, April 13
th.
That should have been a warning!
Anyhow, the Louvre was an early stop on this
day’s Hop on Hop Off Tour.
And, to say
the least, it was a bit disappointing.
It’s nothing against the Louvre, which is a huge complex filled with
historic art pieces, sculptures, etc…. in a word a tremendously fulfilling
historical museum… were it not for the suffocating crowds!
We endured for maybe an hour… jousting for
position to take a decent picture of the Mona Lisa for instance…
before deciding to exit fairly quickly and
head on to greener pastures.
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| The Louvre |
UH OH!, this was Friday the 13th after all! We next stepped off the sightseeing bus near
the World Famous Eiffel Tower. This was to be perhaps the highlight of our
Paris trip, the elevator ride to the 2nd (top) level, the ultimate
view of Paris. Well, so much for dreams! We walked to the nearest Eiffel entrance,
puzzled that there were no gathered tourists there… in fact that entrance
looked to be closed. So we continued on in a counter-clockwise circle around
the perimeter of the great tower, arriving eventually at the other (West)
entrance. There was a modest group of folks like us in line at this entrance, a little strange for an otherwise busy Friday
afternoon. We took our place in line, puzzled that
no one seemed to be actually entering the complex. Finally, I followed a few others up to the
security gate to talk to a small group of
official personnel stationed in front of the entrance.
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| This was as close as we would get to the Eiffel |
There, we were told by a security guard that the tower was
CLOSED due to a security workers’ strike that had started that very day!
You gotta be shi… well, kidding me, to be kind! The moment reminded us of a similar time back
a few years ago when we tried to climb up the Statue of Liberty in NYC. As it turns out, also on that VERY DAY, we could
not do so because of a short term Federal Gov’t Shutdown…. Bad Karma you might
call it, in both cases!
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| Colorful old Carousel near Champs d' Elysee |
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| The
River Seine - Kind of an uninspiring concrete lined channel by day, but much more
romantic if cruising on it at night, or so we've heard - We, however, did not opt for the "cruise" option
during our short Paris visit |
Anyhow, we survived the “crushing disappointment” of not
getting to go up the Eiffel Tower and closed out our Paris adventure with a
wonderfully delicious trip up to the Sacre' Couer Basilica on a high hill overlooking all of Paris, followed by wine at a corner café below the
cathedral; and, a bit later, by some more wine and food (do you detect a
pattern here?); not to mention some serious people watching, at another corner
café near our wonderful little hotel.
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| Sacre' Couer in Montmarte district of Paris, a Great place to gather for a panoramic view of the City |
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| Hard to beat the sidewalk cafes of Paris |
Soon, the very next morning as it were, we would be off to
the Bordeaux region of Southwestern France. Paris was a greatly enjoyed four night stopover for us enroute to more adventures soon to be discovered on the European continent. And we were renting a car this time. Oh Boy; let the road trip begin in earnest!
