1 July

Friday

Well, embarrassed to say a very late start to the day.  We didn’t hit the streets of Paris til after noon, but what a great deal of needed sleep!  Nothing on the agenda for today as we have ‘done up’ Paris quite extensively over the years.  As we leave the hotel and start our walk to Gare du Nord, we watch the draw bride over the canal by the hotel rise above the cars and the oncoming boat traffic.  A different type of draw bride than I’m used to seeing, as it is lifted from all four corners. 

The Parisians are quite environmentally conscious, even when it comes to urinating in public.  They now have free urinals along the canal, but are VERY public…wide out in the open...but if you’ve gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now, it works.  I guess they don’t want you urinating on buildings, the sidewalks or secluded alleys anymore…but everyone still does.

Ah the frustrations of trying to book a reservation on the Grand Lignes. (TGV, Thalys, etc.)  We stood in line for over 2 hours to find the TGV we wanted from Paris to Besancon with no transfers from Gare du Nord to Besancon was full.  Several other trains were available, but we had to transfer in Dijon. Bummer!  Now the challenge of navigating the Metro and train station with bicycle boxes, suitcases, and carry-ons…adventure at its best!

After our seemingly forever visit to Gare du Nord, we made our way to dinner, again at Chez Clement because we knew where it was, enjoyed our dinner the night before, and we needed to eat!  As we sat on the terrace of this restaurant in the latin Quarter we were sipping our wine and marveling our time in Paris once again, when we heard this horrible crunching noise.  It sounded like a car accident, but no squealing of tires or anything.  As we looked in the direction of the sound (towards a parking garage), the masses we gathering in a fury to see that a man driving a Hertz van with an extended roof was wedged in the parking garage entrance.  He was assessing the damage and was quick to vacate the entry way and back out towards the street to show off his now ‘non-extended’ roof line!

Back to dinner…starter salad of fried goat cheese with lettuce, main entrée of Duck with potatoes and a carafe of red house wine.  We opted to get dessert elsewhere.

We strolled along the Seine realizing the commercialization and congestion of the river with tour boats, party boats, dinner boats and the ever growing population of individuals watching time pass as they enjoy their time sitting on the banks of the river.

Picture time at Notre Dame and the ‘Lock’ bridge. ..several padlocks with names of people professing their love for one another. 

We finally make our way back to the Eiffel Tower for some dessert of  crepes  and some night photos.  Mission accomplished and we’re on our way back to the hotel.

 After dumping pictures on the computer and getting our things prepared for our train adventure in the morning, I checked the time on the train tickets and found that our train was NOT leaving from Gare du Nord, rather from Gare Bercy!  Good thing I looked, but that also through a wrench into our plan…this was going to be no easy task as the metro stations are not easily navigable with large items…no elevators and few escalators…STAIRS will NOT be our friend tomorrow.