It was our first full day in Paris and our hotel is about a kilometer away from the Eiffel Tower so we headed in that direction first. Our destination was actually the Arc De Triumph but we had to get a few shots of the tower first. It's a very nice tower. Nicely designed. Very tall. Stands out against the rest of the city. The areas leading up to it from our direction were not very clean. Certainly not as clean as areas in England. We'll get a better look at it later in the day.
We attempted to have a nice breakfast at a French café but were initially frightened away by prices and waiters wearing aprons. We felt we weren't worthy of these fancy cafe's. We ended up at something a bit lower key and had chocolate croissants and a lemon tart. We'll need to do some more exploring before we figure out what style café is for us. I did notice that most of the cafe's have their seating in tables for two with the chairs beside each other looking out towards the street. Not sure how I feel about this yet.
We made it to the Arc de Triomph. Luckily Callie knew in advance that there were stairs leading under the street. It would have become apparent to us anyway because there was way too much traffic coming and going to expect tourists to make it across over the street. We made it onto the other side and sorted out how our tickets worked. I initially didn't understand what they were for. I just thought it was a big arch. Turns out there are stairs leading up and down each side.
The stairs were very windy and take you up 284 steps to an area on the interior that has a gift shop, a lobby like area, as well as a bathroom. It even has WIFI. The arc was started by Napoleon but wasn't finished until several years after his death. It originally represented victory for the armies but has evolved to represent the tomb of the unknown soldier for Paris. The view from the top is amazing and it's interesting to see how so many streets radiate out with the Arc as the center. We also met up with Melissa while we were there even though we had intended to meet her later in the day.
From the Arc we walked down the Champs-Elysees. (Add a few random accents in there. My keyboard is in English mode right now.) We saw a number of yellow bike groups touring around town. Same brand but with different helmets at times. My guess is they were advertising the yellow bike company because everyone had the exact same bike which you wouldn't expect from a smaller club. The real teams are doing the actual tour right now. It ends on the 23rd which is after we leave. Probably for the best. I imagine it would have made our stay a lot more expensive.
After lunch at Five Guys (traditional French food I hear) we headed back to the Eiffel Tower. Kerry, Melissa, and Ethan had tickets to take the elevator to the second floor. It had already been messed up by the fireworks before because it was scheduled at 8:00a but was moved to 1:00p because the tower was closed. We dropped them off and it took them almost 3 hours in the rain to make their way onto the elevator. The tour company hadn't pre-purchased tickets so they had to stand in the slow line. They eventually made it. The rest of us had gone back to our hotel to wait.
After their elevator ride up the tower, we separated families again and we attempted to make it to the Musee D'Orsay. It was about a 40 minute walk that we thought we could make but were delayed a few times and ended up getting there at 5:15p. It didn't actually close until 6:00p but they stopped letting people in at 5:00p. We would still have time the following day to try again. This was on our museum pass that we got from my brother so we made plans to go back the next day.
Our next destination was to get to a book store Callie had wanted to go to. It was another 30 minutes from our hotel. We hit the 30,000 step mark again with walking. The bookstore was very neat. The first floor had books you could buy and the second had older books for reading. There was a line up to get in, but once you were in you could technically stay as long as you wanted. There was a no photo taking rule which I think disappoints the Instagrammers. The store itself is very old with timber frame construction. Callie picked up a few more specialty books for her collection.
At this point we caved and grabbed a taxi. We had to get back to the Eiffel Tower for our 8:00p tickets to walk up and we still had to have dinner. We had dinner at another Italian place. I'm sure there are millions of options for food in Paris but we found many menus seemed the same and there was some big differences in prices at places. Our food was still good. Our walk up was uneventful, with us getting through security, walking up and back down in less than an hour. View was great. Stairs weren't that hard or scary.
We finished our day avoiding getting scammed by street vendors. I did get asked to fill out a petition. Bart Schwab however, was unable to make a donation so they quickly went on to their next mark. I found it funny that they started by asking for people that speak English. I think it was so they could then quickly tell you the name of the group benefiting from the charity in French to make it sound official. Carter wanted to by a souvenir from one of the bed sheet sidewalk vendors but I said the 3 for 1 Euro was likely just a way to get you talking. He donated to the street dog instead.
No comments:
Post a Comment