June 29, 2018 (Friday) Our Italian adventure begins! We fly via Westjet from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and arrive in Paris (via Calgary and Halifax) at 10:00am on Saturday, June 30. This is our first visit to the city of lights! Our first task, getting from the Charles De Gualle Airport to our hotel, the Montpensier, about 140m from the Louvre. We spoke to a knowledgeable, pleasant, helpful, young lady at the Info booth at CDG. Not only did she provide the quickest and most economical transfer info to our hotel, but also we got "skip the line" tickets for the Louvre!
After a quick shuttle from terminal 1 to terminal 3, we boarded our first train headed into Paris. We sat opposite a wonderful young man from Paris who was friendly and again very helpful about managing our upcoming transfer from one train to another. His kindness and consideration allowed us a seamless transition and with very little stress, we arrived in the heart of the city!A 10 minute walk from the train stop and we were at the Montpensier. The hotel was very economical for the location, having said that, let's just say, it did not have some of the conveniences of the big chains! We were on the 5th floor, the top floor of this building. The "lift" had a maximum occupancy of 3 (3 very small persons mind you!), once I stuffed two suitcases in, there was only room for one person, me! Munchie took the stairs. The first flight was a grand wide staircase, which narrowed as you went up. By the time you reached the 5th floor, the stair case was about 2' wide! Our room was quite spacious, complete with a toilet and shower, although these were not in the same location! There was a outer entrance door to our suite, with a hallway to the bedroom. The doorway to the bedroom was 5'11", I'm 6', needless to say, I was reminded of the 1" shortfall on more than one occasion!
After getting settled in the room, we headed out to find a cafe, our last real meal was breakfast at the YEG (Edmonton airport). Just up the street we found a sidewalk cafe and had a wonderful meal! The waiter was a pleasant and courteous young fellow. After the late lunch, we did a bit of exploring, however the journey getting to Paris was catching up to us and we opted for a bit of a rest back at the room.
We ventured out again at about 4pm (Paris time). As it happens, the “Gay Pride” parade was underway. Wow! There were thousands of participants and the Quai Francois Mitterand was the route. The crowd was generally joyous and boisterous and the music and celebrations were deafening! The whole thing was really quite spectacular (or a spectacle depending on your personal beliefs!) Regardless, the sheer magnitude of the event was something to behold.
Munchie and I wanted to take a walk along the Seine, but to do this we had to cross the Mitterand, which of course required us to briefly become part of the mass of bodies moving along the parade route. We made it through without incident and went on the the river. We took a stroll onto the Passerelle Léopold Sédar Senghor (bridge). We sat on the benches and watched the river traffic for a bit. We noted some of the old river boats, now converted to floating homes. I sure they would make wonderful accommodations! This bridge also had the “love locks” attached to the barriers on each side. Although not as famous as the Pont des Arts Bridge, I’m sure each lock was placed there with the same intended sentiment and carries the same treasured meaning for the owner even if not on the more noted location. On our walk back to our hotel we stopped at one of the many sidewalk restaurants and had a great meal. After the meal, we headed back to the room to retire for the night!
Sunday, July 1st, Canada Day, happy birthday Canada!
Today we headed out and jumped on the “Batobus”, a hop-on hop-off water bus on the Seine. We “hopped on” at the Louvre stop and “hopped off” at the Champs Elysees stop. We walked up to the Arc de Triomphe taking in the wonderful history and architecture along the way. At the Arc, Munchie opted to take a seat at one of the sidewalk restaurants to wait for me while I headed up to the top of the Arc. There are 284 steps to the top (about 50 meters up). The view of the city was pretty good! It is quite impressive when you consider when this was built and how it had to be constructed. The ingenuity of the human race is really quite extraordinary!
Munchie patiently awaited my return from my little side excursion and we strolled back down the Champs, which had been closed to automobile traffic and was open only for pedestrian use, a local told us this was a regular monthly event for the summer. There was a very strong presence of security, an unfortunate necessity considering the nature of recent vehicle attacks by radical extremists. My hat’s off to the members of the security forces who put themselves intentionally in harm's way so you can safely enjoy the treasures of Paris!
We opted to take the 24 minute stroll from the Arc to the Eiffel Tower and walked down to this modern Wonder of the World! Standing below this truly amazing feat of ironwork almost takes your breath away once the significance of this iconic landmark sinks in!
We jumped back on the Batobus and made our way back to the Louvre. We had our priceless “skip the line” tickets in hand and walked up to the gate, past the throngs of art lovers waiting in line to buy a ticket to get in, there were millions lined up! I know, I’ve been told a billion times not to exaggerate! We entered the pyramid, which at the top is like a greenhouse and the temperature must have been in the 40s! This is not an exaggeration! I don’t know how the ticket takers at the top were able to stand it! The main lobby of the museum was significantly cooler, but still stuffy and warm. The place was wall to wall people! I guess they didn’t get the memo Munchie and Johnny were there for a private visit! The magnitude of the Louvre is really quite astounding. We knew it was a big place with lots to see, so had already decided to take in just a few of the wings, of course our first stop was Mona! She is very popular! She sits there, alone on the wall, staring at the crowds gathered in her honor, to observe, get inspired, wonder, appreciate and to ogle! I found if you stand just in the right spot off to her left, you can see a twinkle in her eye that says “I need a beer!”.
I will not even attempt to describe this museum and its wonders, I don’t possess the talent or ability to adequately convey a worthy account of this amazing place. When you think about each piece on display, of its origin, who made it, why did they make it, and what type of journey it had to arrive at its location in the display case or on the wall, the mental effort is a momentous task! All I can say is you could spend your entire holiday exploring this place, and then risk overloading the artistic and creative side of your mind and end up spending years trying to mentally correlate all the data you gathered. It could lead to madness! So beware and choose wisely when deciding what you absolutely must see!
With the internal temperature of the Louvre pretty much matching the temperature outside, we cut our exploration of the museum short and headed out. A side note, when we left the Louvre, we walked around the back of the pyramid and could hear the wonderfully soothing strings of a cello! Seated beneath one of the archways leading to the east courtyard was a fellow playing the cello. It was really quite lovely!
The archways provided a fabulous acoustical backdrop and helped to provide an enchanting enhancement to the classical pieces the fellow was playing.
We found another great sidewalk restaurant and had our last evening meal in the “city of lights”.
We turned in after preparing for our departure the next morning.
Monday, July 2nd. We had decided we wanted to see a bit of the french countryside and had rented a car to drive down to Nice. We picked up the rental from the Thriffty rental at the Louvre parking garage. Our little chariot was a Clio (Renault).
We asked for a car with a GPS. The Clio did have one, however we could not get the audio to work on it! We even stopped at a Renault dealership to see if we were missing something simple in the instructions. The Renault salesman couldn’t get it to work either! Being somewhat “old school” I did have a backup plan, I had Google Mapped my route out of Paris the night before and jotted down a rough set of notes of the roads and turns I should take to get out of the city. Thank goodness for my co-pilot! Munchie was instrumental in keeping us on track and we were able to get out of the city relatively stress free! Our journey to Lyon was a bit of an ordeal. The GPS was showing a route different than the one I had scoped out on Google, and I decided to trust the GPS, again, who wouldn’t speak to us! The GPS route must have been calculating a route using the parameters “most obscure”! We ended up seeing some truly rural settings! We stopped for lunch in Nemours and then continued south. Again, foolishly trusting to the GPS for guidance!
Our next leg took us to the nuclear power plant near Belleville. The GPS took us into a petit village near the plant and down a lane ending at a barricade that converted the road to a pedestrian walkway!
With the internal temperature of the Louvre pretty much matching the temperature outside, we cut our exploration of the museum short and headed out. A side note, when we left the Louvre, we walked around the back of the pyramid and could hear the wonderfully soothing strings of a cello! Seated beneath one of the archways leading to the east courtyard was a fellow playing the cello. It was really quite lovely!
The archways provided a fabulous acoustical backdrop and helped to provide an enchanting enhancement to the classical pieces the fellow was playing.
We found another great sidewalk restaurant and had our last evening meal in the “city of lights”.
We turned in after preparing for our departure the next morning.
Monday, July 2nd. We had decided we wanted to see a bit of the french countryside and had rented a car to drive down to Nice. We picked up the rental from the Thriffty rental at the Louvre parking garage. Our little chariot was a Clio (Renault).
Our next leg took us to the nuclear power plant near Belleville. The GPS took us into a petit village near the plant and down a lane ending at a barricade that converted the road to a pedestrian walkway!
When we got back onto the main road I reverted back to my memory of the Google maps and after spotting a road sign pointing to the highway number I was familiar with we were able to get back on track. We arrived in Lyon after 8pm. So all in all, our road trip and GPS sightseeing sidebars, only took a couple hours more than I had estimated this leg would take.
Tuesday July 3rd. We had found an Ibis Hotel just off the highway and for a place to overnight it was just fine. We did have to ask for clean towels, housekeeping had forgotten to replace the use ones and they were still in the tub. Other than that, no issues with our stay at the Ibis. In the morning we had a quick bite at the hotel then headed south. This time the only thing I used the GPS for was to verify I was on my Google map route! We stayed on the major highways (about 50 euro in tolls!) and made it into Nice in about 4 ½ hours.
Nice! What a wonderful place! The weather was gorgeous, and this seaside city was awesome! We were able to locate our hotel with relative ease, the Interlaken was right across the street from the main train station. The car rental return was at the station. The Interlaken was an older place with
character! Our room was on the 1st floor and easily accessible with luggage. The room was quaint (meaning quite small!), but for one night it was just for a bed and shower so it met our simple needs!
Once settled in at the hotel, we went for a walk (about 15 minutes) down to the seaside. The rocky beaches were not deterring the sun worshippers! The beach was packed! We had dinner at one of the restaurants on the beach and then walked back up to our hotel.
Through that wonderful travel assistant, Google, I found a laundry just down the road from our hotel. So while Munchie was taking care of this domestic task, I went to the train station to familiarize myself with the layout and get information on our train the next day over to Ventimiglia,Italy. It was at this time I learned the train track from Menton, France to Ventimiglia was closed for service until July 5! I was able to find a very helpful station information personnel and she was able to guide me through what we would need to do to get to Ventimiglia to catch our train there.
Although our stay in Nice was only an afternoon and evening, we were really quite taken with the place! It is now on our list of places we’d like to spend some time at. This lists grows continuously as we get small tastes of different places!
Nice! What a wonderful place! The weather was gorgeous, and this seaside city was awesome! We were able to locate our hotel with relative ease, the Interlaken was right across the street from the main train station. The car rental return was at the station. The Interlaken was an older place with
character! Our room was on the 1st floor and easily accessible with luggage. The room was quaint (meaning quite small!), but for one night it was just for a bed and shower so it met our simple needs!
Once settled in at the hotel, we went for a walk (about 15 minutes) down to the seaside. The rocky beaches were not deterring the sun worshippers! The beach was packed! We had dinner at one of the restaurants on the beach and then walked back up to our hotel.
Through that wonderful travel assistant, Google, I found a laundry just down the road from our hotel. So while Munchie was taking care of this domestic task, I went to the train station to familiarize myself with the layout and get information on our train the next day over to Ventimiglia,Italy. It was at this time I learned the train track from Menton, France to Ventimiglia was closed for service until July 5! I was able to find a very helpful station information personnel and she was able to guide me through what we would need to do to get to Ventimiglia to catch our train there.
Although our stay in Nice was only an afternoon and evening, we were really quite taken with the place! It is now on our list of places we’d like to spend some time at. This lists grows continuously as we get small tastes of different places!
More to come.....
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