Paris, Paris

Paris, big, bustling, busy and, oh, so cold when we were there. Arrived into Paris mid afternoon and were bused from the train station into the center of the city to our hotel which was situated across the street from the Palais Garnier, the Paris Opera House. The Intercontinental Le Grand Hotel is quite a grand old hotel. Opened in 1862 and with bragging rights of having held government heads of state, royalty and many of the rich and famous over the years, the rack rates certainly try and impress as such. The staff and the great huge lobby and concierge area was really impressive, while the room while nice was a little outdated and with a rate of some $900 euros per night could have been a lot cleaner. (Avalon River Cruises books around 150 guests or more here every week so the rate for us was done in the 100 euros per night range.) Loreen, ever diligent, upon inspection, requested that the dust bunnies accumulated under the bed spread and window drapes be rectified. This resulted in a thorough cleaning the next day as well as a bottle of Champagne, a box of artisan cookies and a dozen macaroons being sent to the room. Oh how I love that girl!!

Our first adventure was a walking tour that took us through some of the old city and ended up at Notre Dame Cathedral. Having been in a basilica or cathedral almost every day for the past three weeks I was prepared to kind of wonder off on my own for awhile, but I was more than pleasantly surprised by this Cathedral. The Cathedral is a very large and imposing structure,

Side of Notre Dame

Front Entrance

The inside is beautiful as Cathedrals can be with all the stained glass and ceiling painting.

The only Church type building I have been in where security officers hold back the crowd while the clergy is leaving, I think they performed three separate services while we were wandering around.

During the Service

As the walking tour was mostly going to retrace the same route back to the hotel we opted out and jumped on a hop-on, hop-off bus for the afternoon.

On the Hop-on, Hop-off

 We stayed on the bus most of the afternoon and passed some of the highlights of Paris.

Moulin Rouge

Arc de Triomphe

It was a cold blustery day so we did not do much walking around, just rode the bus and listened to the descriptions of the areas we were in and took in the sights.

The next morning we walked back down to the Louvre and decided that it is so big, that we would only do it and ourselves a disservice by spending only a couple of hours there. I think the Louvre would take two or three days  to actually be able to enjoy it properly.

In front of the Louvre

Then we took a hop-on, hop-off boat cruise on the Seine River.  The Seine runs through the center of Paris and gives one a totally different perspective of the city from the water as from the streets, plus it was warm in the boat.

One of about seven or eight bridges we went under.

Eiffel Tower, what a piece of engineering.

Back to the hotel and then off to look at some shopping areas. We went to the department stores Galeries Lafayette and Printemps where it is made up of three blocks of stores around the Opera House. All are six or seven floors and the amount of product is unbelievable. One total floor was for handbags and the Gucci handbag area was a closed section with security guards letting clients in. The line up was probably fifteen deep and they were letting no more than three customers at a time inside.

We were able to find some French chocolate and French olive oil in the basement area of the last one we went to. This floor had a medium sized grocery/liquor store plus a lot of eating establishments and then a huge French wine store with the 30 year old wines and 100 euro prices. We looked a lot and then went for our last meal in Paris. French Onion Soup and Croque Madame's, (fried ham and cheese sandwich with a nice fried egg on top).

French Onion Soup Paris Style!!