Paris - Day Two

Hotel room with limited head room!

Booking a hotel room in Paris is a crap shoot...you know that if you find a place in a popular location, you'll pay through the nose.  I figured this place, which is a ways away from all the action but still pretty close being on a Metro line, would do...it looked so romantic on the website - it's billed as a 'Mansard Chambre'.  Yes, that's the interior view of a mansard roof...you lose headroom when you get the 4th floor room...poor Dave kept bonking his head trying to get dressed.   

Mansard Bathroom

...and the shower!  Don't get us started!  Yes, you see a tub...you would normally stand up and use the hose to wet your hair, etc...well, the roof doesn't permit you to stand up!  OY!  I had to wait to return to Nantes to wash my back.  Oh well...on to the rest of our city tour!

We had experienced rain the first night and luckily missed another one in a bistro yesterday.  Today, the weather was clear, sunny and COLD.  Guess what I thought would be a good idea - to book a day tour on an open top double decker bus, called Open Tours - you can hop on and off anytime you want so you get ferried to your sites!  What a good idea....but man - it was chilly.  Our first stop we decided was at the department store area so we could go into Galleries Lafayette and buy hats and gloves.  Now. on to the tour! 

The Louvre is such a captivating sight - there was simply no time to view the museum, but we wandered around the grounds and enjoyed the architectural blend of old and new.

I M Pei pyramids at the Louvre

Back on the bus, we next landed close to Notre Dame Cathedral.  First, lunch.  Had french onion soup to check another food item off the list.  Another first at this bistro...usually big places like train stations charge you to use the toilet.  Well, this joint had stalls with coin-operated doors!!!  Wow....

Dave in new cap & scarf - a true french man!

I have been to Notre Dame a few times, Dave experienced it for the first time.  He of course was amazed by the architecture inside and out.  It is a place that you can spend a lot of time exploring.  He also was impressed with the religious feeling you get being there.  We witnessed a group of Japanese women who were obviously pilgrims - they were very inspired and rushed around rubbing the statues and crossing themselves. 

We sadly moved on, picking up the bus one more time to be taken to the Champs Elysee for a walk to the Arch de Triomphe, a monument that honors those who fought and died in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. In order to reach the arch, you have to go under the road and back up to the center so you can see it up close.  It is wild watching the cars careen around the circle, seeing as how there are 12 streets that intersect at this place!

We found life in Paris to be more frenetic than Nantes, but people here really have to move - we simply strolled and watched them fly by.