Paris, day 2 corrected

Day 2 in Paris  July 17, 2015

This was our first full day in Paris.  Everyone has heard stories about Paris.  Most of these are true.  Some are not.  Up until this point, we have been treated courteously, even though we do not understand French and speak only enough of it to read a menu at McDonald’s.  (actually, we didn’t go to Mickey D’s and have no urge to do so.)

We awoke at about 5:30 after a full night’s sleep.  The nine hour time difference will still take some adjustment.  We called Kari on Skpe, who was still up on Thursday night. After looking over our tour books, we had a buffet breakfast in the hotel dining room and got our stuff together for a day on the city. 

We rode the Metro to the Louvre and made the transfer without any challenges.  We are getting to be adept at the subway system, even with the many staircases present.  As soon as we got on the crowded #4 train, a woman gave up her seat to Donna.  We have noticed this on every trip.  The subway cars are packed with young people.  In fact we saw few, if any riders of our age group.  Perhaps it is the difficulty of navigating the stairs.  Perhaps it was the just the pace of life in Paris.

We arrived at the Louvre at about 9:30 and spent much of the morning in the museum.  Of course we saw Venus di Milo, as well as many other notable sculptures.  We also made sure to see the Mona Lisa through the crowds.  Fortunately, John is taller than most of the Asian tourists and got some good shots of Leonardo’s most famous painting.  I thought a great trick would be to take a picture of another’s viewfinder just as he snapped a picture of the painting.

We walked along the Right Bank of the Seine for a bit after leaving the museum and the boarded the Hop-on  Hop-off bus for a  very thorough tour of the city from the upper deck.  The sun was out again and I was glad that I had worn sunscreen, as the temperature and humidity were both up.

The narrated bus ride took about two hours and visited all the expected sights, plus many we were unfamiliar with.  We chose not to get off, as we planned to visit some the places over the next two days.  The statue of George Washington pleased us and many other kind words were said about America. 

One thing that surprised us were the number of military monuments, commemorating France’s victories and defeats.  There was no shortage of palaces.  It really helped us to understand why the commoners revolted from time to time.

We got back to our hotel at 2:30 after a picnic lunch in a nearby plaza.  After a much-needed rest, we decided to visit Luxembourg Jardin, the most popular park in the city.  Google  Maps showed the trip as 1 km, just a short jaunt for us.  We discovered otherwise, as the spiderweb of streets and intersections must have tripled the length of the trip.  After asking several people for directions, all of which were answered courteously, we eventually reached the park, and walked around for a bit.  We looked in at one reception that was taking place in the Senate building, thought we were out of place, and were about to leave when a woman courteously signaled us to stay.  We enjoyed the appetizers, were served champagne and water, and departed, not really sure what the reception was all about.

We always mark the location of our hotel on our handheld GPS, and it directed us to home, using the shortest route.  We stopped by a neighborhood Lebanese restaurant at about 7:30 and ordered an elaborate dinner, which we had planned to share.  We ate so much we could barely move and, when the check was presented, discovered we had been served a dinner for two at twice the price.  Oh well, it’s our fault for not speaking the language!

Dinner in this part of Paris seems to start between 8:00 and 9:00 pm and by the time we were finished, there was not a seat to be had in any of the dozens of eateries in our neighborhood.  We will turn in soon.  We checked our pedometer at day’s end and discovered we had walked an amazing eleven miles in the heat and humidity!  Enough for one fine day and bon soir.