sue_n_julia: (Default)
[personal profile] sue_n_julia
, but getting a hotel room was more problematic. They lost our reservation -- so Julia has to track down the deposit info and get it refunded. The hotel put us up for the night, but were booked solid the rest of the week.

Monday, we got a room at a place down the block. It was a decided step down in quality, but they had a room with private bath and toilet -- and it cost less. So after we got that done, we went to the HQ of a tour bus company and bought a 3-day on/off pass that included boat tours. We spent the rest of the day sightseeing. Monday night Julia talked to her dad and discovered her grandmother had had a stroke or seizure (I mentioned this in the last post).

Tuesday, we went to the Eiffel Tower. We got there very early, which was nice as the lines were quickly getting long. We rode the lift all the way to the top (required two different lifts). It was so cool -- I even got a nice pic of the Eiffel Tower's shadow. We spent a while there, then went to Sacre Couer. We climbed all the steps but didn't go in the dome. It was starting to get a little cloudy/hazy and we wanted to make sure we had the energy to climb the steps at Notre Dame. It was pretty. After we walked back to the tour bus stop, we decided to get lunch at a patisserie. Julia got a mushroom tart and I got a sandwich. We also got a baguette -- with a paper wrap to use as a hand-hold, just like the Parisians do.

Finally, we got to Notre Dame. We spent some time walking around inside the cathedral, which was very lovely. I was distressed by people's lack of respect for the worshippers there -- lots of flash photography and talking. We got some pictures (without flash) that I hope turned out well. Then we went back outside so we could climb the tower steps. It had rained while we were in the cathedral, so they closed the fourth level. That's okay -- climbing to the third level was quite strenuous. I'll tell you, climbing a narrow, spiral staircase for over 250 steps is tough. But we got lots of cool pics.

Wednesday we went to the Louvre because it was open late. We had lots of fun. We decided to follow our guidebook's advice and focused on those things we really wanted to see most. The Louvre is big -- 700 meters long and covers hundred of hectares. The guidebook said that if you spent 10 seconds looking at each item, it would take you 9 months to look at everything. As it was, we got over 700 pics -- again we were taking photos without flash and needed to take several to ensure the clearest photos possible. Really fun.

Thursday we spent at the Cluny. The Musee Nationale de Moyen Age de Cluny is housed in a 15th century townhouse. More and more pictures! And lots and lots of info about things medieval. That night we went to a little Turkish place near the hotel. The owner/cook kept coming out to talk to us (they were a mostly lunch place and we were their only dinner patrons). He kept chattering at us in French because his English wasn't very good. We both felt that he was hitting on us. Regardless, the food, while basic, was quite good. In fact, all the food we had in Paris was good. Some was even great!

Friday was my cooking class. Julia went out to St. Deny Cathedral (I wasn't going to have time). We had made arrangements to meet at a little cafe near Notre Dame. That said, we were idiots and didn't realize exactly when the Pope was getting to town (we thought he was coming in Saturday and he was actually coming in Friday). My class was taught in French with minimal English translation (which was still great because I am enough of a cook to follow what the class was doing anyway). It was supposed to end at 1:30, which the cooking did. We still needed to eat our creations -- which lasted until 3:00. So, one and a half hours late, I tried to get to the cafe. The Metro went past my stop and the next one. I got out at the third and hiked back to the bridge going to the island that Notre Dame is on. It was blocked. I got through the security and I went to the next bridge, which was also blocked. So I went back to the hotel. I figured Julia would have gone back there because we had no chance of finding each other in the chaos. I got there about 5 minutes before she did. We then went to a museum dedicated to the Legion of Honor. More pictures!

Getting back to London airport Saturday was an adventure. On Thursday, there was a truck fire in the Chunnel that took 22 hours to put out. The train service was running on reduced service because one of the two transit tunnels was closed. We got to the station at 7:50 for our 9:15 train and got into line to go to the platforms. They shoved boarding passes into our hands and told us to get on the next train (8:07). We were thrilled because that would give us a lot more time to get to the airport -- or so we thought. We hadn't counted on a half hour delay at Calais while we waited for authorization to go through the tunnel. When we went through the tunnel, it certainly smelled like there had been a fire. We ended up getting to St. Pancras only 25 minutes before our previously scheduled train should have. Turns out they didn't run the 9:15 train at all, so we were lucky to get the train we did. We got to Heathrow in time and went to our gate, where we met Shauna and Renee.

The rest of the trip was uneventful. We got home around 11:00 Spokane time. This meant we were up for over 24 hours -- 22 of that was spent in transit!

Julia's grandmother is still hanging in there. She's a tough, scrappy woman -- the nurses thought yesterday would be the end.

S

June 2012

S M T W T F S
     12
34 56789
10111213141516
17181920212223
24252627282930

Most Popular Tags

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags