Today we fly to Paris. It is my first time going there. We fly Air France business class. Business class within Europe is much worse than flying transcontinentally. And Air France’s business class is worse than Lufthansa’s. The flight is short and uneventful with a bad breakfast.
We catch a taxi to the hotel in Nanterre which is close to John’s work site. We get to Nanterre in about 210 francs and then spend another 50 because the driver can find the hotel. We are annoyed.
The Hotel Adagio is kind of basic though expensive. It has a terrible shower and only gets Sky News from Great Britain, not CNN. We watch TV and find out all about the sleaze debate in Parliament and cricket.
We take the Metro to Auber to look for tours. The information person does not want to be helpful since we do not speak French but we manage to book 2 tours, one for Paris and one for Versailles.
We walk down the Rue d’Opera to the Louvre and go in the I.M.Pei pyramid. The pyramid looks a little incongruous next to the architecture of the rest of the Louvre. We find out that they have audio tours. You can kind of figure out what the paintings are named by the French tags but if is always nice to have interpretations.
Then we stop for lunch because my feet are killing me! I have salad and a pizza (with pig!) and wine. Lunch is very nice and not too expensive. We walk across the Seine to Ile de Cite and see the Norte Dame Cathedral. I light a candle for my Dad who is in bad health and walk around the interior of the cathedral. The stained glass is from the 13th century and the rose windows are incredible! We go into the Treasury and see altar pieces in gold and reliquaries. It bothers me that with people so poor that the church spends all this money on these gold items and jewels. Certainly the best way to honor God is through charity and good works.
Here are some other pictures from our day.
We return to the hotel and have dinner there. It…Here is where my commentary abruptly stops. I know we have at least one more day in Paris because I take the tours or at least the one around Paris by myself. I end up getting on a train that does not stop in Nanterre on the way back to the hotel and then get on a second one going back that also does not stop in Nanterre. I spend a lot of time on the Metro that day. After that we probably head home. We have a babysitter for the kids and I cannot imagine spending more than a week away. I have found the pictures from this trip and there are no more after Paris.