I love the streets of Paris.
This was the Palace of Louis IX, the only king to be sainted. There is a museum inside the former chapel.
I met the tour group at 11:00 to do a walking tour of Paris. It was good to get the lay of the land but I had trouble knowing what the buildings were or remembering because of the French names. The stories she told about them didn't always help to identify them and we passed by lots of interesting looking buildings which wern't mentioned.
Twins.
Today was 25 degrees at mid day and there is everything from coats to shorts being warn.
Many chimney pipes.
We covered a lot of ground quickly, walking for four hours with a stop for tea.
I walked another couple of hours after that and took a cruise on the Seine too.
It seems so impossible that these long two and three story buildings are everywhere. You walk past all the ones you can see and there are more. It is really like being transported into another world.
They have a law that higher buildings can't be built in central Paris. On the cruise we went out past the center and saw the modern buildings. It was like walking out of a movie and back to life.
University Paris - Sorbonne.
This is the first University of Paris, 700 years old.
In the day the students spoke Latin hence the name Latin Quarter for the area.
This boat is like the one I was on.
There is a funny story about this bridge. The faces are of all the Lords and dignitaries who attended a drinking party with the King at which there were many artists hired to draw pictures of everyone. The pictures were then used to create the drunken faces on the bridge - an early facebook.
A bridge where couples come to swear their never ending love by writing their names on a lock, fixing it to the bridge and tossing the key in the river.
Periodically, the city comes and snips off the locks so they don't get too heavy.
This is the inner courtyard of the Louvre. We entered through the back gate. No need to pay unless you want to actually enter the museum.
Exiting out the front of the Louvre. The tour didn't include going inside, which takes hours. The glass pyramid really doesn't look at home here.
From there to a park which I am sure has a name but by now I don't even know which direction I am going.
The obelisk which sits at one end of the Champs-Elysees. The Arc de Triomphe is at the other end. 
First glimpse of the Eiffel Tower with zoom lens.
It is near the Seine way down there.
The river cruise covered a lot of the same area from a different perspective. I did get closer to the Eiffel tower though.
There were quite a few private boats of various kinds.
They have a lot of bridges. You can see Notre Dame on the left in this one.
The beautiful weather brought people outside and the river banks were full of people having meals or just enjoying the day.
Rear view of Notre Dame from the river.
Notre Dame is on an island in the river which was the original settlement of Paris. Now it even has a metro stop.
After the cruise I was at the Eiffel tower and I decided to walk back to Notre Dame area. To do that I passed one of the long arms of the Louvre. It took quite a while to pass it even on the outside.
It was 8:30 when I got back to my hostle and I decided to have supper at a neat little local place at a street table. The lingering daylight lasted until almost 9:00
My plan is to see the Louvre tomorrow but my feet are complaining so I will have to see.
One week will hardly be enough to see everything, because it takes quite some time for these big attractions.
No comments:
Post a Comment