Bonneville to Paris

 On Tuesday we cleaned up our house, packed, and our neighbour Claire dropped us at the Bonneville train station.

The board didn't list a platform for our train, so we waited on Platform B (the only platform) for the first leg of our trip (Bonneville to Bellegarde, where we would transfer to a Paris train).  Waited in vain ... 11:30 came and went and no sign of our train.  When it disappeared from the board we panicked a bit, but we managed to book tickets for a bit later in the day (4 legs instead of 2, and arriving in Paris 2 hours later), and we also managed to get a partial refund for the second leg of our original trip.  During this process we found that our Bellegarde tickets we actually for the BUS not the TRAIN, d'oh!  Sonya says she will start checking our tickets from now on!

Once we got into Paris I punched in the wrong address into google maps, so it took a bit longer than necessary to get into our apartment, but after a day of mis-adventure we settled in to a lovely but quirky Paris apartment!

We are close to the Jardin du Luxembourg, a lovely garden next to the senate (? we think ? - the building is surrounded by police with machine guns ...).  On Wednesday we walked through the garden on the way to a walking tour.

Off in the distance, the Cathédrale Notre-Dame under construction.  (Fun fact - we asked our guide (the walking tour guide) about this and she said the Parisians don't really care about the Notre-Dame fire, "There are too many churches already!")

The start of our walking tour - it's a "foodie" tour with many stops to eat and drink, here is Sonya learning the finer points about French tomatoes.

Breakfast - snails (NOT escargots) with a carafe of wine, two kinds of cheese, and a baguette.  Home-made mayo for dipping, and seaweed for cleansing the palette.  (And a tomato of course.)

Walking the Paris version of the NYC HighLine.

After the walking tour (we did a LOT of walking, eating and drinking) we ended up at the Centre Pompidou, pictured below.

Among other things this contained the Modern Art Museum, which included a special retrospective of the architect Norman Foster.  So we decided to give it a go!

Here is the view from the top of the Centre Pompidou.

Paris is very flat, and most buildings are 5-story apartments.  There are just a very few buildings that stick up.  The tall skinny building on the left, next to the tower (the tower is close by so looks taller than it is) is some butt-ugly building nicknamed "The Finger".  Apparently there is some famous Parisian (maybe the president?) who has has his coffee there every morning because that's the only place in Paris where he can't see "The Finger"!  The other skinny building is of course the Eiffel Tower.

The Norman Foster exhibit was very interesting!  (So interesting I forgot to take any pictures!)  There were 2 floors of art - "Modern" and "Contemporary" (you explain to me the difference).  We took a look through the "Modern" but skipped the "Contemporary", by this time we had been doing a LOT of walking already.

Is this Modern or Contemporary?

Heading home, a view of the typical Paris architecture.

Apparently Paris is designed with tall buildings (these 5 story apartments are everywhere) and long, open wide streets in order to help crush the next rebellion.  No narrow little back alleys for the rebels to hide.

Paris sure loves it's statues!  Most are fairly traditional, but this one is more modern (or contemporary).

Day 2 (Thursday) is the Louvre visit!  We had "skip the line" tickets to get in.  (This is the line, the photo doesn't do it justice but it's the longest line I've ever seen!  And once this line gets inside, you just join an equally long line INSIDE to buy tickets.)  Officially we had a "30 minute tour" but the entire tour was skipping the line and walking into the museum.  That's our group on the left.

Once inside we joined jet another line!

We didn't get that close due to the crowds, but luckily I'm tall enough to see over the crowds, and I have a pretty good zoom on my camera.

The Louvre is HUGE, we spent maybe 2.5 hours total and saw maybe 20% of the museum.  As wella s all the art, the museum itself is incredible.  This is the room where they house the crown jewels.

A couple of shout outs - Lady Liberty leading the revoluion:

And the Wreck of the Medusa:

Too many paintings, including five Da Vinci's!  Afterwards we wandered over to the Jardin du Palais-Royal and put our feet up.

(Note for Louvre visitors - once you exit the museum to actually end up in a huge underground mall that it's almost impossible to escape.  We spent maybe 20 minutes walking through the mall before we found the exit.)

There are lots of gardens in Paris, and they are all well used by locals!

We found a nice restaurant for lunch, highly recommended if you are in Paris - on the Île Saint-Louis and abut a 30 minute walk from the Louvre - https://anysetiersduroy.com/

Another view of the Notre-Dame.

Next we visited the Sainte-Chapelle - built in only 7 years apparently!

15 towering stained glass windows telling the stories from Genesis to Armageddon.  On Sunday we are going to see a Vivaldi concert here (4 Seasons) - how incredible is that!  (After we watch the Tour de France finale of course.)

One the way home - a view of "The Finger" from our local park.

Friday we are going to see the Sacré-Cœur Basilica and climb the 300 steps to the roof of its dome!