June 9, 2018
Ok – I’ll get back to more background later, but I should
write about the first day while I still remember – now that I’m on the backside
of 40 (obscure country music reference that nobody other than my brother Paul
will get), my memory isn’t quite what it used to be – other than details of
wrestling matches, things seem to start getting fuzzy after a few days.
We were up early and headed into Paris. We found a park on the outskirts where we
could park the car for free for the day, and we walked about a mile or so to
the nearest metro station. On the way,
we found a Patisserie, and we had to try a few chocolate pastries. First place we went was to the Paris Catacombes - someplace I hadn’t visited before, and... I
still haven’t. The workers there were on
strike, so it we got to experience that aspect of French culture. We left there and went instead to the
Archaeological Crypt near the Notre Dame Cathedral. It was cool, but not nearly as cool as the
millions of skeletons would have been in the Catacombes.
Then after we waited forty-five minutes through a line at a
self-cleaning toilet (don’t ask – let’s just say, they’re very inefficient), we
walked through Notre Dame which is pretty impressive. It was Dee’s first time there, and the first
time that the kids really remember it.
Zac asked a lot of questions – some I knew that answers to and some I
did not. I may have him talk to any of
our Catholic friends for things I just didn't know. Then we ate some pretty good lunch crepes at
a Café complete with a grouchy French waiter and a statue of Quasimodo.
I have been to Notre Dame multiple times now, but I have to
admit that reading Ken Follett’s books has increased my appreciation of
Cathedrals. So after Notre Dame, we
walked over to the Saint Chapelle and visited this hidden Cathedral with the
amazing stain glass. Another short walk
and a metro ride, and we walked around the outside of the Louvre Museum (we had
talked about a possible visit inside, but there’s only so much you can do in a
day).
A few metro stops later and we made it to the Arch du
Triomphe – this was the only time that we appreciated not having Alex on the
trip because she would have mocked the rest of our out of breath and
sore-legged scaling of the 284 steps to the top. Aunt Dee said the triumph of the whole
experience is that she made it. The view
is pretty spectacular (and a lot less expensive than going up the Eiffel Tour
for us budget travelers).
Still, even though we did not scale the famous monument, we
did make the obligatory pilgrimage to get our picture taken with the Eiffel
Tower in the background and walk underneath the iconic landmark (although the
new security measures made this more difficult than it used to be). By this point, it was close to 8 pm, and even
though we had used the metro as much as practicable, we still had walked over
ten miles and climbed multiple sets of stairs – and this was taking its
toll. We mapped out a route back to the
car that required minimal walking and maximum use of buses and metro.
All in all, we had good day.
In some ways traveling is easier than the last time we were here with a
year two-year old, but the ten years have not been as kind to Becky and I. We saw a ton, but we may be feeling it a
little tomorrow.
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