We left
Belgium
early Saturday on the high-speed train.
When we got to
Paris
we couldn’t check into our hotel for a couple of hours so we decided to go to the Louvre Museum because we would only have one hour
there on our tour the next day. On our way Laurene got stuck in the doors at the
metro station gate. They closed on her upper body. Everyone was tyring to get them
open. We think she may have cracked a rib.
We walked around in the park outside the Louvre where we also got our first sight of the Eiffel Tower.
We spent about five hours in the Louvre looking
at the paintings and statues. We had a difficult time finding key displays because the place is so huge. We finally found the
Mona Lisa.
Our night tour started at
8:00 P.M. to see the lights of the city. It included a trip down the Seine
River. I liked the river tour as they
told about all the bridges on the river. There are thirty five bridges on the
river. All were very different. Some were ornate with statues and gold leafing.
It was gorgeous to see all the lights on the bridges and the city.
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| Notre Dame Cathedral |
The trip was very beautiful and it was breathtaking to see the Eiffel tower lit up with twinkle lights. By the time we got
to get pictures the twinkles were gone. It was still very beautiful.
We
traveled around many monuments but Dad, Dave and I were in the back of the van.
We could only see about fifteen feet at the bottom while some monuments were over 100 feet tall. We did get some day
pictures of some of them. We got back to the hotel late, dead tired and went to
bed.
Sunday we got up early to get to our tour.
Laurene was still hurting but a
little better. She was very brave to continue on to see the sites. One of the
metro lines that we needed was closed but we found a good Samaritan to help
us find our way around. He walked us up to take the bus to get where we needed
to be. He spent twenty minuets or more helping us.
We found that most people
were very helpful and friendly to us. The tour turned out to be mostly a walking tour. We went back to the Louvre and our tour guide took us to the parts
of the museum that we had missed the day before. Then of course we had to see the
Mona Lisa again. This time it was better because she told us a lot about the
paintings that we had seen before. There was a lot that you missed without
someone there to tell you all the little details. In some paintings the painter had painted
himself into the painting as one of the characters.
It made the experience much
more enlightening.
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| David and Goliath |
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| Weddin in Caanan Where Christ Turned Water Into Wine |
Then we rode the boat on the River Seine to the
Eiffel tower
and took the elevator to the first floor to have some lunch.
Dad and
I had grilled salmon with risotto, a salad and cheese cake for desert. The lunch
was so good with lots of flavor. I will have to reproduce it sometime. We then went out to look around some.
But then we decided to climb the stairs to the second floor for the view. Dad counted 325 steps.
When we came down it
was getting time to meet the tour guide so we took the stairs down. Since we missed our
turn on the elevator we didn't just go back to the first floor but all the way down to the
ground. There must have been 500 more steps from the first floor to the ground. I thought my legs were going to fall off but the energizer bunny was on
his way to get just one more picture.
He told me to wait for him and not to move.
So I waited and waited and waited. Then I saw him and started to walk toward
where he was. He passed through some people and was gone and I could see him nowhere. So I walked back to where he left me to wait some more. He forgot where
he left me and by this time I was in a panic. When he finally showed up we had four minutes to get back to meet the tour
guide. We had to run all the way to the dock on the river. When we got there we turned the
wrong way and had to double back but we made it with a minute to spare. We then boarded
the boat down the river to
the Notre Dame Cathedral.
It was big but not the prettiest one we have seen. I think Westminster Abby
has it beat hands down. Laurene says that St Paul's Cathedral in London has it beat too. After we
were done with our tour through the church we had
three hours before our train back home left. As we walked
toward the metro station we ran across a cafe called Espace Petit
Pont which was an outdoor restaurant. We wanted to have a crepe before we went home and this
place was very entertaining. The waiters were very funny, jumping on chairs to
take pictures for people and so on.
Others drinks had fire works on them and our crepes had sparklers burning on the top of them.
I always wanted to stop at
one of these places. I really enjoyed the time we spent there. When we got to
the train station we found that it would cost us another hundred euros to
change our tickets so we could go back early. So we decided to wait out the two remaining hours. We walked around and had a treat and
water to get a place to sit down. Then we moved back into the train station.
We finally all got a seat just as the police came and evacuated the area.
Everyone was talking in French so we didn’t
know what was going on. We finally learned that the station was being closed down because they had found unclaimed luggage left in the station. It was confusing because everyone was
yelling in French but someone told us to plug our ears because the bomb squad was going
to detonate the bag. Now you know what the bomb blowing up the pants was all about. I don’t think I would ever want to claim that
bag. I don’t suppose there is much left of it. It was quite a big bang. All the trains were stopped outside the station so we had to walk quite a ways to our train. We got home about 10:30 that night. After all we left a few things unseen so we can go back some day.
