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Paris, France

We planned to follow the Rick Steve ‘Historic Paris – City walk” today which started in the Latin Quarter just across the bridge from the Ile de la Cite and Ile St Louis. These two islands in the middle of the river Seine are essentially the centre of Paris. The Notre Dame cathedral is on the Ile de la Cite, and the actual spot where all distances are measured from Paris.

Before starting our walk we had lunch in a cafe to set us up for a big afternoons site seeing. There are so many cafes in Paris that you could spend a life time eating your way through them. Having said that we are finding that they have limited variety menus – they are the same everywhere we look in the city. Popular in Paris are salads which are very simple with just lettuce leaves and a little topping – more of a garnish and often just a drizzle of balsamic dressing or similar. To exercise your jaw whilst eating you get a basket of dry french bread – no butter or oil (probably wash it down with wine). Other popular menu items are snails, onion soup, a beef burgundy or coq au vin, grilled cheese ham on toast (croque monsieur), or a couple of grilled goat cheese rounds on toasted baguette on top on lettuce, ceasar salad, salmon salad, a couple of prawns on a salad AND hamburgers!

You can get lunch specials for entree and main for about 16-18 euro or just a main special of day for around 14 euro average. Sounds ok in principle but you do not get much for your euro and burgers and chips are around 16 euro (over 20 dollars!). The quality ranges from blah to ok but nothing I have seen yet at that price that excites. The items themselves can be very tasty when well done or good portions but in scanning diners tables I am often disappointed. We had a veal special and ceasar salad which was in the ok category and small portions which are prevalent.

The Notre Dame is free to enter which is great, but you have to pay to see the treasury or to go up the stairs and make friends with the famous gargoyles. There was a bit of a queue to get into the church part but it moved fairly quickly along and we didn’t have to wait more than about 10 minutes. The cathedral itself did not impress either of us, just our personal opinion and vibe-o-meter. It is 850 years old and gothic in style, so not overly decorative but large and has some nice stained glass. We both felt the 1000 year old Norman Gothic cathedral at Bayeux was a lot more inviting, airy, and impressive – not to mention high on the vibe meter. We wanted to climb up to the upper levels but there was a very long queue for that and it was quite hot so we will do it in the evening on Saturday instead.

The walking tour took us to the Deportation Memorial behind the cathedral which was interesting. It is an unusual concept as the entrance descends down narrow steps and then you enter a bunker style room through a narrow gap through a wall to see 200,000 lighted crystals in memory of the French victims of the concentration camps.

When we came back up into the park we saw a funny sight of an old woman walking her old bedraggled persian puss up and down, obviously for toilet time. The cat looked hilarious as occasionally it would look over to us with a pained look in its big yellow eyes. They were framed comically in the middle of a fluffy head at the front of a not so fluffy body Ba ha ha ha. The lady was a slow walker but the cat was even more reluctant at times, it was so comical. It took about 6 circuits before the cat obliged and it was nice to see the lady bend down and pick it up in a poopy bag.

On that note, we heard that Paris was quite dirty with lots of animal poop around. Not sure where but so far the places we have been have been are quite clean in that respect. We have seen a small amount of litter and graffiti but very little other.

Next stop we went across a bridge to the other island to line up and get an ice cream at a very popular and famous shop and then we came back across the river via a bridge with a million padlocks on it. Not sure if I have mentioned it but it is a european thing for lovers and married couples to write their names on the locks and put it on the bridge to symbolise their for ever love. Yeah right in todays age! Vernon suggested one could make a lot of money cutting them off and selling the brass, such a romantic I am married to!

Enjoying the slower pace and sunny weather we ambled along the river side and paused the historic tour to take a river cruise. The departure point was just in front of us next to the islands. It proved to be a good decision and a highlight.

Our boat was a double decker and the cruise took 30 minutes down stream to the Eiffel Tower and back again doing a circuit of the islands on the way. In between pointing out the sites they played a variety of French music which was strangely not corny but very mood enhancing. The cruise showcased Paris as a truly grand city with beautiful bridges and amazing huge buildings, palaces and museums along the way. Wow wow wow. The river is quite wide and green and whilst not clear by any means does not look really dirty either.

Some bridges were wooden, others had lots of decorative faces on, some had eagles, angels and the grandest was by the palaces and had huge gold statues and other sculptures adorning it. Unfortunately my photos do not do the trip and scenery justice as I was blocked a little by the man in front and was facing the sun a lot, but it was one of those treasured experiences that we wont forget. A definite must if you are visiting Paris.

When the cruise finished it was around 6:30pm and we didn’t feel like completing the whole historic tour. So we just picked it up at the Latin Quarter and had dinner there before heading home. The Latin Quarter is quite touristy and is full of more immigrant Parisians. Cafes and bistro type little restaurants line the historic streets in their hundreds and shop staff tout vigorously as you pass by. Doner Kebab places abound along with Italian and Asian with ‘traditional French’ establishments inbetween. We settled for French down a side street and had a nice entree of onion soup which was more like an onion fondue and the best part of the meal, a goats cheese salad followed by beef bourgeon and coq au vin. Dessert was a creme brûlée and chocolate fondant. Mains were poor, dessert poor to ok. It cost us 16 euro each which I suppose is good value for Paris but not taste wise ……

We didn’t seem to do as much as we would have liked but the logistics of planning and getting around Paris in the warm weather are all tiring. I think that the rigours of our long trip are beginning to show in that our stamina is not what it was when we first began. In some respects we are both feeling now that we need a holiday to get over the holiday! For a couple of weeks now we have been running on low charge, still enjoying things of course but just not as fresh and energetic. The flip side of this is that with the slower pace we do take time to smell the roses as it were and get to experience the things we do fully rather than feeling a bit of pressure at times to be a tornado tourist fitting in as much as possible.

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