Our last day in Paris starts off sunny and with promise...
Michelle has our day all planned, despite being Friday the 13th and all, and the museum that we wanted to see - Musee de la Conciergerie which was a 14th century prison where over 2600 people waited to have their heads chopped off... was today closed for some concert setup...
our son Matthew would have been right at home with all the trusses and gear that was being trucked in...
Here Michelle gets the bad news from the Gendarme in front of the museum about the closure... I think she is getting too good with the parler, everyone understands her!
Soooo we wandered around the oldest street on the second island on the Seine, Ile St-Louis with the buildings dating back to the 1600's. While wandering the streets, we turned a corner and walked into the middle of the filming of some Italian movie... hmmm hope it's not a "***" flick!
Somehow, (yeah, I wonder how!) after a while we ended up in front of a Harley Davidson Shop in the southern part of Paris...
The Metro is getting to be a fun way to get around... the only problem, we were never quite sure where we would pop out onto the streets as there were so many exits with connecting tunnels at each stop.
After the Harley shop we stopped for a morning snack at a little cafe around the corner in a real 'regular' part of town.
Realizing that there is still too much to see and our time was almost up, we decided to call it quits and we headed back to the Hotel for an afternoon of postcard writing.
Let me tell you a bit about what the area is like around where we are staying. While it is very close (walking distance) to all the main sites - the Louvre, Notre Dame, Ste Chapelle and mosts of Paris if your adventurous, we are on the edge of a bit of a seedy part of town. Next door to the hotel is a gun shop... okay a paint gun shop but they had machine guns, flack jackets and more.
Down the street, as Michelle went in to get our lunch time baguette, I noticed next door was a store with traps full of rats hanging in the display window.
A grotesque display, certainly an odd place for an exterminator shop to be stuck, between a cafe and a bakery (boulangerie).
Next to the hotel is a small square with a fountain...
where it was time again for lunch and ... oh look baguettes and wine...
Right next to the square is a large underground mall which is called Forum des Halles. More than 1000 years ago, this area was a massive bazaar which was moved in the mid 1800's and in a recent attempt (1986) to fill the void - this underground mall sprung up to provide a green space above. It is considered the biggest masterpiece of underground urban planning ever undertaken in France.
While the area is under constant police watch, it's nice and safe in the day (we watched the local police pat down a couple of people for drugs, but they didn't find any), the night is a bit of a different story. Sex shops down the street and all-night bars and dance clubs that go on for blocks. All that said, we never had problems, the odd drunk at night walking with a bottle in hand but not much more.
The other items of note: all the billions of scooters and little cars all battling for space at every intersection. How we never saw an accident I will never understand. Scooters shooting up between buses and cars, and cars going from the far right lane to the far left... horns used as a signal - I'm coming through - and the constant wail of police sirens. You can almost turn any direction and see the flashing blue police/ambulance/fire lights flashing going somewhere. Imagine 4 policemen crammed in one of those little 4 door smart cars... like out
of a movie. Paris is certainly a wonderful place to visit and see.
As we prepare of our last dinner in gay Paris, we begin to pack our
bags and get ready for our 6am wake-up call...ouch! And off to the
airport for our flight to Montreal and then our train home to Ottawa.
It's been a blast, one we will never forget. Au revoir Paris.
Michelle has our day all planned, despite being Friday the 13th and all, and the museum that we wanted to see - Musee de la Conciergerie which was a 14th century prison where over 2600 people waited to have their heads chopped off... was today closed for some concert setup...
our son Matthew would have been right at home with all the trusses and gear that was being trucked in...
Here Michelle gets the bad news from the Gendarme in front of the museum about the closure... I think she is getting too good with the parler, everyone understands her!
Soooo we wandered around the oldest street on the second island on the Seine, Ile St-Louis with the buildings dating back to the 1600's. While wandering the streets, we turned a corner and walked into the middle of the filming of some Italian movie... hmmm hope it's not a "***" flick!
Somehow, (yeah, I wonder how!) after a while we ended up in front of a Harley Davidson Shop in the southern part of Paris...
The Metro is getting to be a fun way to get around... the only problem, we were never quite sure where we would pop out onto the streets as there were so many exits with connecting tunnels at each stop.
After the Harley shop we stopped for a morning snack at a little cafe around the corner in a real 'regular' part of town.
Realizing that there is still too much to see and our time was almost up, we decided to call it quits and we headed back to the Hotel for an afternoon of postcard writing.
Let me tell you a bit about what the area is like around where we are staying. While it is very close (walking distance) to all the main sites - the Louvre, Notre Dame, Ste Chapelle and mosts of Paris if your adventurous, we are on the edge of a bit of a seedy part of town. Next door to the hotel is a gun shop... okay a paint gun shop but they had machine guns, flack jackets and more.
Down the street, as Michelle went in to get our lunch time baguette, I noticed next door was a store with traps full of rats hanging in the display window.
A grotesque display, certainly an odd place for an exterminator shop to be stuck, between a cafe and a bakery (boulangerie).
Next to the hotel is a small square with a fountain...
where it was time again for lunch and ... oh look baguettes and wine...
Right next to the square is a large underground mall which is called Forum des Halles. More than 1000 years ago, this area was a massive bazaar which was moved in the mid 1800's and in a recent attempt (1986) to fill the void - this underground mall sprung up to provide a green space above. It is considered the biggest masterpiece of underground urban planning ever undertaken in France.
While the area is under constant police watch, it's nice and safe in the day (we watched the local police pat down a couple of people for drugs, but they didn't find any), the night is a bit of a different story. Sex shops down the street and all-night bars and dance clubs that go on for blocks. All that said, we never had problems, the odd drunk at night walking with a bottle in hand but not much more.
The other items of note: all the billions of scooters and little cars all battling for space at every intersection. How we never saw an accident I will never understand. Scooters shooting up between buses and cars, and cars going from the far right lane to the far left... horns used as a signal - I'm coming through - and the constant wail of police sirens. You can almost turn any direction and see the flashing blue police/ambulance/fire lights flashing going somewhere. Imagine 4 policemen crammed in one of those little 4 door smart cars... like out
of a movie. Paris is certainly a wonderful place to visit and see.
As we prepare of our last dinner in gay Paris, we begin to pack our
bags and get ready for our 6am wake-up call...ouch! And off to the
airport for our flight to Montreal and then our train home to Ottawa.
It's been a blast, one we will never forget. Au revoir Paris.
posted by miker at 5:31 PM (Paris Time)
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