London Day Six -- over to Paris!

Again, click the title for pictures. During our Cotswold tour, we decided to switch our originally planned schedule around a little bit to fit in a day trip to Paris. Europe has a train called the EuroStar that goes 186 mph in a tunnel underneath the English Channel getting you to Paris in 2:15 hours. It was slick!! And quiet and smooth….wonderful. We went through Grayline again, but opted for a different kind of tour. We just paid for them to get us there, take us on a double-decker route around once, metro tickets for the day for us to get around, and a ride back home on the train. This gave us more time to spend at Eiffel Tower, the Louvre and Notre Dame. Our day started by being picked up at 5:00am from our hotel. Grayline’s “taxi” took us to Kings Cross railway station. There was another couple in the back seat, so Rikki took the back and I got to sit in the front and drive on the wrong side of the road to the station. It wasn’t quite too hairy because the driver was very, very careful, but it was still an experience worth mentioning here. My mind would expect the car to go certain directions, and then it would do differently. The train ride was smooth and quiet. The countryside whizzed by and we felt our ears pop a little bit as we hit the Channel tunnel, which I learned later was called ‘the chunnel’ by experienced travelers. Passing other EuroStar trains was a rush! I’d start counting one-one thousand as I saw them, and by the time I had that out of my mouth, they’d already passed us by. Our tour got off to a rough start. Apparently the Paris team wasn’t’ quite communicating very well with London. For some reason they separated Rikki and I as going it alone, and had us follow a woman out to the double-decker bus. We climbed on and waited for a few minutes. There were already a few other people on. Suddenly it took off and we started driving the streets of Paris. Like London, the cars were very small and the roadways even smaller. A lot of people drove mopeds and motorcycles. It was common to see dozens and dozens of bikes/mopeds/scooters parked next to each other along the sidewalk. We were almost to the Opera House when the bus turned around and followed the exact same route back. For some reason the driver didn’t wait for the rest of our group. He was under the impression that he was on a normal route, while our dark and handsome guide argued that this bus was supposed to be a dedicated bus just for Grayline tours. It took them 15 minutes to straighten that out and then we were off again. We again headed to the Opera House. We didn’t get off the bus, just drove completely around it. It didn’t seem like anything from Phantom of the Opera, but maybe I was just missing some Hollywood embellishments. It still was a beautiful building. Our guide tried to talk to us, but I missed a lot of his words. He was standing in the middle of the bus, with the majority of the group in the back. Rikki and I were in the front because we were a little chilly, so he spoke mostly with his back to us or would turn his head and say a few last words of his sentence in our direction. Ah, well. We also drove up the Avenue des Champs Elysees. It was a long, green avenue with the Arc de Triomphe at the end. Along the avenue was very expensive shopping like Luis Vitton. I snapped a shot of a Disney store for my benefit. We circled the monument erected for Napolean and got a closer look at the statuary on it. Pretty impressive stuff. We also drove around a famous square full of monuments and an obelisk. I totally missed what the guide said about this square, and have no idea what we were seeing. But it was nice as far as parks and monuments and fountains go. Our second stop was the Eiffel Tower. Rikki and I jumped off and got into the queues along with hordes of other people. The top floor was closed while standing in line, but fortunately it opened as we approached the ticket counters. YAY!!!! It was closed the last time I was in Paris, and I was thrilled with the opportunity to go all the way up…..on an elevator that is. Last time I took the stairs to the first floor. I still haven’t forgotten the calf pain. We took the elevator clear to the top then worked our way down. It was a stunning view. The top was so high that it was all a little hazy, and the lower level was a little better for details and color. They had pictures of the city up there for you to look at and identify certain main sites of Paris. We didn’t know exactly how far we were seeing, but there was a sign that said “Los Angeles 5,000-something miles” pointing to the west. I got a kick out of the workmen working on the OUTSIDE of the tower, hanging there by a few cables. Not my preferred line of work. We went to the Louvre Museum after this and spent a long time here. Huge doesn’t describe the place adequately. It took 10 minutes of walking through courtyards just to find the entrance underneath the glass pyramid – new since my last trip in 1986. Very modern looking amid this very old structure. We got set up with an audio tour again and were off. The disappointing thing was that we chose the first tour which was “Highlights of the Louvre” and listened to 45 minutes of commentary on 3 items. Who has 45 minutes to spend on 3 items at the Louvre? We quickly shut off our auto guides after this and just found certain things along the way and pressed in specific numbers to the exhibits that we wanted. My very favorite sculpture in this place is the “Winged Victory.” I could go on and on about other artifacts and history, but I won’t. It’s a place that you drink in slowly and savor the items that grab you, and I won’t ever again expect to ‘get it done’ in a few hours. It’s one of those places where you meander for a couple hours one day and come back in a few more days and meander in another section. I loved it all – I loved being in one place, in one country, yet seeing so many art pieces from all over the world and from different centuries. We next headed to Notre Dame cathedral. It was getting close to the time when we needed to be heading back to the train station, so we didn’t give ourselves much time here. I’d forgotten about the unique gargoyles at the top, and wished we had a little more time here. All we did was walk around the inside footprint of the cathedral, and although it was beautiful in its own way, we had already seen 2 other cathedrals and they were starting to look the same, if you know what I mean. If I were to do things differently, I would have gone straight to the top and examined the gargoyles more intently, and then made a quick sweep of the ground floor. But what did I know? Live and learn. We took Paris’ Metro back to the train station and ended up waiting for ½ an hour for the other people in our original tour group. The thing we noticed on the Metro was that Parisians, if that was whom we were traveling with, don’t shower as often as Londoners. Going through ‘customs’ or check-in or whatever it was that we did was a piece of cake at the station. We were told to get there an hour ahead of time, and 15 minutes ahead of time would have covered all our bases. Ah, well. We played it safe because we were new, right?