It was a 8 PM flight as we had to wait for passengers from a connecting flight. Uneventful, and as always an underwhelming Air Canada crew.
We chose the beef with potatoes and spinach which was better than most plane food.
I watched Mary Poppins Returns and John saw Creed II and Vice.
April 28 Arrive Paris
Cloudy with rain on and of all day.
Apr 28
Terminal 2 A Charles De Gaulle Paris 8:40 AM
MEETING POINTS:
Terminal 2A : Front of Starbucks coffee
After an uneventful flight we arrived in Paris at 9 AM, simple customs, stamp passport, pick up luggage and our driver was waiting for us. She didn't say one word, and unlike a male driver, she didn't help with the luggage.
Mercure Paris Centre Tour Eiffel
20 Rue Jean Rey, Paris 75015 Mercure Paris Centre Tour Eiffel is less than a 5-minute walk from the Eiffel Tower and the Seine. The Louvre and Jardin du Luxembourg are both about 15 minutes by subway. The hotel features a French restaurant serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Guests will enjoy the calm of the terrace surrounded by a garden in the heart of Paris. The lounge bar suggests wine selections accompanied by tapas. Wireless Internet access is complimentary.
Checked in, and had the desk clerk ensure we keep the same room when we join the tour on May 2. It was only 10 AM so we were assuming we would be leaving our luggage and wandering for a few hours. Everyone around us was being told their rooms were not available. But she had a room ready for us! JOY!
It is small but perfect with fridge and microwave. Oddly the toilet is in one room and sink and shower in another.
We took our luggage up and headed out for coffee and croissants. The view when we stepped outside the hotel.
It was sunny but then it clouded over and we decided since we had our room to have a nap at 11 AM. We got up at 3 and headed out. No real plans in mind, other than to walk to Notre Dame. GPS said 14 minutes...later it dawned on us that was by car!
A placard explaining the new botanical concept for the Vertical Garden renovation of the Quai Branly Jacques Chirac Museum.
The Russian Orthodox Holy Trinity cathedral which we visited and will save for inSPIREd Sunday!
The Pont Alexandre III is a deck arch bridge that spans the Seine. It connects the Champs-Élysées quarter with those of the Invalides and Eiffel Tower. The bridge is widely regarded as the most ornate, extravagant bridge in the city. It is classified as a French Monument historique since 1975.The Beaux-Arts style bridge, with its exuberant Art Nouveau lamps, cherubs, nymphs and winged horses at either end, was built between 1896 and 1900. It is named after Tsar Alexander III, who had concluded the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1892. His son Nicholas II laid the foundation stone in October 1896. The style of the bridge reflects that of the Grand Palais, to which it leads on the right bank.
The trees are green, the lilacs and chestnut trees are in bloom. Tulips are almost finished and poppies and roses flowering! And love is in the air if you judge by the number of love locks!!
Thomas Jefferson was the Minister to France and Ambassador to Paris between the years 1785 and 1789, spending time in the walking, walking past this very spot where the statue stands every day, and a lover of architecture, he admired the building called the Hotel de Salm, which is how he has been depicted facing.
Musee D'Orsay is housed in the former Gare d'Orsay, a Beaux-Arts railway station built between 1898 and 1900. The museum holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1914, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography.
You wouldn't think that there had been a devastating fire at Notre Dame other than the streets closed off and still a police presence.
It started pouring and we decided we were hungry. We headed into the cliche Latin Quarter for dinner.
The Church of Saint-Séverin (French: Église Saint-Séverin) is a Roman Catholic church in the Latin Quarter of Paris, located on the lively tourist street Rue Saint-Séverin. It is one of the oldest churches that remains standing on the Left Bank, and it continues in use as a place of worship. It was on this burial ground that the first recorded surgery for gallstones was performed in 1451 by Germanus Collot. The patient survived.
Sorbonne
A quick peak, in sunshine, of Les Invalides on our way back to the hotel.
The entire streets around it still had the viewer stands and fences up from Saturday's Tour de France finish.
After we picked up some bananas and smoothies, along with a bottle of Armagnac, we were back in the hotel at 8:30 PM and done for the day.
A drink, a good movie what could be better?
STEPS 19,131 DISTANCE 14.5 km or 9 miles
Not a bad first day without any sleep!
These photos are from our first trip to Paris which we combined with a visit to Brussels Belgium and Dublin.
This is way before digital and the internet had not been heard of by us regular folks. These are our scanned photos.
To book our hotel, I HAD to go to the library and get a tour book, I found a hotel under BUDGET, then we HAD to incur a long distance phone charge to book the hotel.
Upon checking in the clerk asked how we had found the hotel, we said tour book, she said, oh we've done some major renovations...
It still exists as a four star property.
Located on rue Git Le Coeur (translates curiously as "there lies the heart") in the Latin Quarter, the Relais Hotel du Vieux Paris is the former Beat Hotel, birthplace of the Beat Generation.
The Relais-Hôtel du Vieux Paris has a history all its own! Built in 1480, it belonged to the Duc de Luynes and the Duc d’O and was once the dwelling place of Pierre Seguier, the true Marquis d’O. In the 1950s and 60s, American poets adopted the site and created the “Beat Generation”. Among them were Burroughs, Kerouac, Ginsberg, Corso.
All the magic is there, right around the corner.The banks of the Seine, the Latin Quarter, its typical cafes and restaurants, the Flower Market, Notre-Dame, the Louvre. All the charm of memories is here, in the hotel which was the starting place for the Beat Generation.
And did we get a surprise when we checked out! Our bill was $1,000 for three nights! Don't forget this was 1992! I can still see us staggering down the street laughing hysterically wondering how we were going to pay our credit card bill!
Anyway, on to the sights. I didn't do a good job labeling photos back then.
Pont Alexandre III It connects the Champs-Élysées quarter with those of the Invalides and Eiffel Tower. The bridge is widely regarded as the most ornate, extravagant bridge in the city.
At the centre of the 7th arrondissement on the Left Bank, the grand complex of Hôtel des Invalides is easily recognisable with its magnificent gilded dome. Inside the church lies the tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The obelisk known as the Place de la Concorde was one of a pair given as a gift from Egypt to France the the late 1820’s. This single piece of red granite some 75 feet tall, and weighing 280 tons, was erected in Paris in 1833. Its mate is still in front of the ruins of the temple at Luxor. Too heavy to move, the French government formally returned it to Egypt in 1990.
Along the Seine.
The Louvre
The Hôtel de Ville de Paris has been the seat of the Paris City Council since 1357. The current building, with a neo-renaissance style, was built by architects Théodore Ballu and Edouard Deperthes on the site of the former Hôtel de Ville which burnt down during the Paris Commune in 1871.
The Petit Palais is an art museum in the 8th arrondissement of Paris, France. Built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle, it now houses the City of Paris Museum of Fine Arts. The Petit Palais is located across from the Grand Palais on Avenue Nicolas II, today Avenue Winston-Churchill.
Arc de Triomphe de l'Étoile
The Arc de Triomphe honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.
A highlight was climbing to the top of the Arc and watching the insane traffic.
Standing at the western end of the Champs-Élysées at the centre of Place Charles de Gaulle, formerly named Place de l'Étoile — the étoile or "star" of the juncture formed by its twelve radiating avenues. The location of the arc and the plaza is shared between three arrondissements, 16th (south and west), 17th (north) and 8th (east).
In the gardens at the Musee Rodin. I can't believe we didn't that a photo of The Thinker!
We could see this imposing church from various spots and went to Montmartre to check it out.
The Sacré-Coeur, consecrated in 1919, is one of the most iconic monuments in Paris. At the top of the Butte Montmarte, it has one of the most beautiful panoramic views of the capital, from 130 metres above ground. In a Roman-Byzantine style, the Sacré Coeur is recognizable by its white colour. Inside the building, the ceiling is decorated with the largest mosaic in France measuring about 480 m².
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Moulin Rouge is best known as the birthplace of the modern form of the can-can dance. Originally introduced as a seductive dance by the courtesans who operated from the site, the can-can dance revue evolved into a form of entertainment of its own and led to the introduction of cabarets across Europe. Today, the Moulin Rouge is a tourist attraction, offering musical dance entertainment for visitors from around the world.
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