Paris - so much has been written about it, spoken about it, filmed about it; will it meet the expectation? After a day, the jury is still out. Our trip to Paris was brilliant on the Thalys train, arriving at Gare du Nord at midday. Made our way to our hotel with the benefit of Google maps showing the streets in detail. Having become so accustomed to living in Melbourne with its grid pattern of streets (thank you Mr Hoddle) it is quite a change to find your way around a city with roads running in every direction possible - some one way, so you don't know which way to look for traffic in order to cross. Usually best to wait for our friend - the "little green man". Although that is not always a guarantee of safety as we nearly found out tonight. Caution is always necessary.
Yesterday afternoon we went for a walk to Sacre Coeur at Montmartre. It was our first introduction to the dark side of life in Paris. Many beggars, many groups of African/eastern european men lounging around. One group tried to do some sort of trick with a piece of string with Rose without asking permission, and seemingly got offended when we brushed him off and kept walking. After that, we tend to keep heads down and keep walking as we approach these groups.
Why is there always water running down the gutters? We have only had a few extremely light showers, so the source must be something else. Not just in one place, but nearly everywhere we walked. Curious!
Today we went to Notre Dame, which was really quite beautiful. This year it is celebrating 850 years since it was built. I think it is great that it has continued as a functioning church over such a long time. While we were there, a mass started, yet the tourists continued to file in and around the church - while the service was in progress! Apparently this occurs multiple times per day, every day. We sat down, which was a nice rest anyway, and respected the service until it finished in just over 30 mins. Then we continued the wander around this lovely church. Moving outside, we found our way across a bridge to the south bank. Curiously, along the railings of the bridge were thousands of padlocks! Why? We then found an area set aside for the victims of the deportation at the hand of Hitler during WW11. 3% survived. Quite a poignant place.
I remember from my Form 1-3 French studies about the Ile de la Cite, however I didn't know much about the Ile de St Louis next to it. The architecture around this area is pure French - around 5 stories, all sandstone, balconies - very nice. This is essentially the outlook from our hotel.
After this we wandered down the north bank to the Louvre to find out times/costs etc. A good thing we did since it is closed on Tuesday. So tomorrow we might try to get to the Eiffel Tower.