Sunday 23 August 2009

Honeymoon - day 4

During the day, we spent our time hopping on and off the Metro for a whistle stop tour of central Paris.

First stop, Notre Dame de Paris.




After joining the wrong queue we found ourselves viewing the interior of the cathedral instead of climbing the towers. We should have know better as we has also joined the wrong queue at Versailles! After viewing the interior we decided we had had enough of queuing for the time being and gave the 2 hour tower queue a miss.

Jon wanted to see the Basilica. We found our way to Basilica on the Metro but, at street level we could not find our way to The Basilica. A short conversation at the Tourist Information office revealed that nothing (other than a few stones on the platform) remain. Only this column serves to commemorate its existence.


Moving swiftly on as we don't want to be late for this evenings reservation.

We didn't have time to tour the Louvre Museum but as we were passing on the Metro, I insisted that the get off to at least see it.




Back on the Metro, heading for Station Charles de Gaulle and lost in conversation.

Me: "Were are we?"
Jon: "Not sure."
Me: "Charles de Gaulle!".
Jon: "This is our stop, quick."
Me (as doors are closing): "Too late!"
Fellow passengers: good humoured laughter.
Fortunately the next stop was not far from our destination, L'arc de Triomphe.

We had seen the Arch on our first evening but Jon wanted to climb to the top, especially as we had not been up the tower of Notre Dame.

Fortunately, the queues here were not too long as we were running short of time. However, there are 284 steps to climb and I had hurt my knee when I fell over on the first day (I don't think I mentioned this before).


But the views were worth it. From here I think you possibly get the best idea of how Paris arranged.



And you get a really good impression of how la tour Eiffel towers above this city.


Going down was more difficult than going up and I got a real sense of virtego.


At the bottom we paused to appreciate the architecture.


And those who have fallen in war.


We had planned to be back at the hotel by 5.00pm to get ready for the evening. Now it is already 6.00pm. We really must hurry to be there on time for our evening reservation.

1 comment:

Susan Elliott said...

I am really enjoying the honeymoon tour. I"ve never hiked to the top of the arc but I loved seeing the pics of that vantage point...esp. Le Tour Eiffel!