Paris

(John) The kids and I are trying out a new evaluation system we are having fun with.  When in Vierzon we noticed that only 1 in 4 fountains were working so we started using the out of 4 fountain system to rate places and accommodations.

Nov 2, 2010

Today we went to the Eiffel Tower hoping the holiday crowds had disappeared.  Sure enough it was just us, a few hundred tourists and a street vendor each.  There was a short queue to get up the elevator but the stairs were wide open, cheaper and better fitness, so up we went.  Now I have been up the Eiffel tower a few times and always via the stairs  - this would be the fifth effort– it felt good to be able to still do it.  I was hoping that this time we would find it quiet enough to be worth buying a ticket to get to the very top, but the line up was longer than I was prepared to endure, so maybe next time. 

Views: Sacre Coeur from the Eiffel Tower; Champs de mars; Trying to be romantic.

We had read about the #69 bus that goes past a lot of famous sites and is basically a cheap way to have a bus tour of Paris.  It starts from the Eiffel Tower so that was next on the list for the day.  The route was along Rue St-Dominique and we got off at Rue Cler.   We wandered around the neighbourhood, bought lunch from various stores and had to run to catch the next bus to Ile de la Cité. 

Next we visited Notre Dame Cathedral.  There were lots of tourists, but no line-ups.  I particularly liked the models of cathedral building. 

Outside it was a little wet and a bit brisk but we had nice lunch sheltered from the rain next to the cathedral.  We walked through the Ile de la Cité area for a while heading for the Latin Quarter.  Lesley spotted a café selling hot, spiced wine and encouraged me to buy a cup –bless her- so I did. Yum! 

On the Ile de la Cité we inspected the two bridges that had wire mesh railings with padlocks all over them.  Sam, having done his research, explained that the locks were put there by lovers, who removed them if they spit up.   Local tabacs will happily sell locks should you be in need.  However, given the population of Paris, the number of tourists they get and the sheer amount of loving that must be going on there were not that many locks.  Sorry, to be so cynical, but it just didn’t add up.  I think real Parisians just buy each other hot, spiced wine. 

Love - all locked up

After stumbling on a hiking store, I purchased a much-needed pair of hiking shoes, for about the same price as I would have expected to pay in Winnipeg.  We continued our tour eventually winding our way up to the Pantheon. We sent the kids in for their free tour while we waited outside.  Regretfully our kids looked a bit rough and they needed parental accompaniment.  Actually, they were too timid to give it a try once they read the “children accompanied by an adult are free” sign.  So we all sat on the curb soaking up the atmosphere and watched people while I changed into my new shoes.  Then we started playing with the camera and took lots of fun pics.

Nice n'est ce pas?

Cool dude

Two cool dudes

Sam took this - cool cobble shot

On those first two full days in Paris we found ourselves in very crowded metro trains in the evenings.  The rush hour peak seemed to be around 6:30 pm.  We were just swept in to the trains and squeezed in as tight as possible and then at the next station a few more would squeeze in until eventually the pressure was released as the Parisians found their way home.  We quickly learned to take the metro back to the hostel at less busy times.  Many Metro stations had themes.  Today we got off at Concorde that is tiled with the International Declaration of Human Rights.  We also really liked the Jules Verne theme at Arts et Metiers.

Concorde Metro - can you find -innocent until declared guilty?

We spent the evening in the Hostel, Mhari and I had a great time in the local supermarket buying a weeks supply of chocolate biscuits.  This is how you feel when you’ve had too many. 

Sam regretting his indulgences

(John) Nov 3, 2010

Today we started in Montmartre by walking up to Sacré-Coeur from Abbesses Metro.  We wandered around, in and out of the Basilica, got harassed very nicely by artists, poked around galleries and gift shops then went down on the funicular.  At the bottom we were gently harassed by street bracelet hawkers then we caught the Metro to Montparnasse. Sam, Mhari and I went up the Tour Montparnasse while Lesley went to the market. We more or less had the place to ourselves and wandered around at altitude for an hour before going down to find Lesley eating a patisserie and drinking a hot chocolate.  (Apparently we were about 20 minutes late for our rendezvous and she was feeling peckish and cold) After lunch at the market, we went down to the Catacombs.  Which is essentially a massive underground human remains storage facility.   Sam has explained it well in his blog.  It was kind of cool though to have been at the highest point in Paris one moment and then a couple of hours later to be deep underground poking around a load of old bones.  Needless to say it was a little creepy.  Although it was the spiral staircase that led up and out to daylight that was for me the scariest part of the experience.  As I climbed up the 200 odd stairs it dawned on me that it was a really narrow staircase.  The staircase was barely wide enough for one person.  It was really long and there were people in front that could decide to come down.  It was just a long tube with the potential for entrapment.  Just as I was considering panicking, I reached the top and hopped nonchalantly out and onto the street. 

These pics are not in order, enjoy anyway: La Defense, Jardin Luxemburg, Sam the big man and John the giant

Dare to enter?  We did

View from the top of Montparnasse Tour

Another view

Montmartre artists

Montmarte art

Eiffel Tower from Montmartre

Bad mime

We caught the Metro to Luxembourg Gardens for the afternoon and Lesley went for a run while the rest of us watched the toy sailboats on the pond.  Then Lesley and Mhari went back to the hostel for an hour while Sam and I went to La Defense.  The architecture was impressive but we ran into a lot of young people drinking heavily on the pedestrian bridge the other side of the Grand Arch.  We were also accosted by the exaggerated grins of an accordion wielding busker on the Metro. 

Observations – almost every time we go through the turnstile on the metro there is somebody jumping over it.  After careful research and painstaking calculations we deduced that one in ten passengers on the Paris Metro don’t pay.  We also noticed there are no buskers in the stations or on the platforms but they are frequently on the trains.  Paris is a busy busy place. People, people, people!

Mhari and Lesley came back out to meet us later for the evening.  I was nervous about the meet up as we had picked a station, a time and a numbered exit.  Whether we could pull it off was up to chance and good luck.  We had both as we arrived at exactly the same time and waved and set out in search of a meal.

(John) Nov 4.

We started off in Rue St-Michel after selecting to take the long way there on the RER.  It turned out to be a good choice although some of us had been sceptical.  The RER goes above ground a fair deal and allows glimpses of Paris whereas the Metro is almost always submerged.  At St-Michel, Lesley tried to sell some books at a buy and sell bookstore we had seen earlier in the week.   She was successful too, got 2 Euros.  Then we went off to Musée D’Orsay.  We managed to get the bus there, and that went well.  Musée D’Orsay was a very nice lovely place, lovely art, interesting stuff on Gerome.  Then we went in search of a cheap lunch.  While waiting and arguing about which bus to take, traffic was halted for a military brass band on horseback.  At the time, we had no idea why they were parading and could only assume that they were there for us. It was quite a treat.  We later learned that the Chinese President was in town being hosted by Nicolas Sarkozy.  There might have been a connection there. 

Horse riding, tight breeches and blowing your horn - Wow!

After Musée D’Orsay we got the bus to Les Invalides, found a small alimentaire and bought baguettes (the longest we have ever seen), some meat, an apple, a banana, and a can of beer and found a park in which to eat.  The park had its own oddly behaving man.  He was tearing branches off bushes and making a pile of them. The park workers were alerted to his presence and very quickly security arrived; they politely and respectfully got him to leave and began investigating the man’s home in the bushes.  It was all very entertaining, if a little bit sad. 

After lunch, we went across the street to the Rodin Museum.  We had a lovely time, wandering around the statue garden and exploring the mansion full of Rodin’s sculptures and artwork.  It was quite a contrast to D’Orsay as it was very relaxed.   Then we all decided that we had done enough and came back to the hostel via the patisserie. 

Sam at the gates of hell

The Thinker

Two thinkers

Lesley and Sam had not had enough and they went to get supper in the Latin Quarter. Mhari and I opted to visit the supermarket and cook back at the hostel.  We had a great meal of fried sausages and tomatoes with baguette and tabouli salad. Then we rested and played cards for two hours.  Lesley and Sam came back at 10:00 delighted with their night tour of Paris.

As hostel experiences go, Clichy leaves a lot to be desired.  Grimy rooms, iffy showers, 1 out of 12 hot plates working, fridges that blow their fuses, uninteresting breakfast food, anatomical impressionist graffiti under the bunk bed, some bored staff, ill equipped kitchen, and no imagination given to needs of clientele.  For example, there was no book exchange.  That or all the books were stolen.  It was also obvious that because eating in rooms was not permitted people hid the fact that they did by throwing their garbage out of the windows and onto the rooftop below.  On the plus side, we had free parking, quiet rooms, a room to ourselves and an all you can eat breakfast, and was near to a Metro station.  It cost us 90€ a day and considering parking in Paris costs 25€ a day and the fact that we stuffed ourselves at breakfast; it was a pretty reasonable deal.  Some staff were friendly, if apologetic about the hostel and it’s limitations.  I’d probably go back.

So 4 out of 4 fountains for Paris and 1 out of 4 fountains for the hostel.

(John) Friday Nov 5

Time to go.  Our Metro passes had expired, we had to be out of the hostel by 11:00 am, and we had to make our way south.  Our objective was Vierzon; a ‘not in the guide book’ town that happened to have a cheap hostel and was half way between Paris and our destination on Saturday: a gîte in St-Nectaire, south west of Clermont Ferrand, in the Massif Central.  The drive was uneventful and I cannot remember much about it other than we proudly drove out of Paris with ease and no mistakes, congratulating ourselves for having come in and out of Paris very smoothly.   We arrived in Vierzon and were early, as the hostel would not open until 5:00 pm.  The place looked pretty grim.  There was a pretty section of old town but as the sky grew darker and rain threatened even that was looking bleak.  We had not booked the hostel so as we looked around we were sizing up the options if we should be out of luck.  The B plans looked pretty dodgy.  We showed up back at the Hostel as it opened and discovered that we would be 4 of 6 people staying that night, in an 87 bed hostel.  We decided to let them make us breakfast and the kids and I went to get supper provisions while Lesley chatted up the staff.  We made ourselves comfortable in the kitchen and I cooked a big chicken curry.  Around 9:00 pm the staff came to tell us that they were leaving and we then had the whole place to ourselves as there was no sign of any other guests.  We hooked up to the Wi-Fi and wasted time trying to find people to Skype with.  We should have been planning our next day. 

We loved the hostel.  The staff were great, sleep good, showers powerful, kitchen well equipped and the place was clean. 

4 out of 4 fountains for the hostel 1 out of 4 fountains for the town.  

Vierzon Hostel

Inside Vierzon Hostel

Curry time.