Paris Pictures

Paris skyline from inside the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Austin with model of Pantheon inside the Pantheon.

Palais du Luxembourg

Jardin du Luxembourg

Louvre

Lover's bridge with locks on it crossing to Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame.

Statue with hound, Louvre, Ferris Wheel at Tuilerie Gardens.

Child with toy sailboat at the sailboat pond, Tuilerie Gardens.

More typical tourist pictures. 

Austin and I took the train from London's Saint Pancras Station to Paris via the "chunnel" under the English Channel, whizzing through the countryside of northern Kent, and then down through Normandy and northern France (flat as a pancake and perfect for tanks and also, apparently, wind and solar farms) before coming in at the Gare Du Nord station in Paris. The trip was fast and simple, and the countryside very much like that of the U.S., except where I spied earthwork along the track I assumed rabbits rather than groundhogs.

At Gare du Nord we switched American cash for Euros (killer exchange rates everywhere), and got a subway ticket to the Latin Quarter. It was a short hike to our hotel on Blvd. Saint Mitchel, but when we got there it was a small step up from the place in London, with its own bathroom the size of a closet (Austin almost knocked himself out on the sink while sitting on the commode), but still no air conditioning. No problem -- it worked for us, and with 30 to 40-mile days ahead, we could have slept on a roller coaster.  Plus, as in London, it was pretty cool during the day (75 tops) and cooler at night.

We hit the bricks pretty hard in Paris, as in London, walking a lot. We saw the Jardin du Luxembourg and Palais du Luxembourg, the Sorbonne, Notre Dame and the Ile de la Cite, Saint Chapelle, the Pantheon (where the author Antoine de Saint-Exupéry is buried), the Eiffel Tower, and the Champs de Mars.  We cruised past the Musee de l'Armee, the Ecole Militaire.  The size of the Louvew is -- a palace-turned art museum -- is truly jaw-dropping.  We gazed at the Arc due Caroussel, walked through the Tuilerie Gardens, the Les Halles district, the Opera and the Opera district, Place Charles de Gaulle and the Arc de Triomphe, took a gander at the Petit Palais and the Grand Palais, cruised through the district packed with shops for rich folks off of the Champs Elysees (Dior, Gucci, Ralph Lauren, etc.), some incredibly absurd parking jobs (what the hell are these people thinking?), some more packed McDonald's (what's the attraction there??), and of course walked the full length of the Saint Germain district.

We had coffee and beers and generally had money hoovered out of our pockets for sitting in a cafe in the biggest tourist areas of Paris. No surprise there! We had a great salad loaded with chicken at the Sorbonne and later a pretty bad pizza with an egg in the middle at another place where the pigeons had real boundary problems. 

My French turned out to be more than passable for getting around, and I had full conversations without too much problem (no doubt mangling syntax at times, but you can say a lot with simple words if you put your mind to it).

Austin does not speak French and though he like Paris, he liked it a little less than London in part because he felt a little more like a fish out of water and a little too dependent on me to get us from point 'A' to point 'B'.  Paris is a fine city, but it has a slightly grittier feel to it than London does for some reason.  I could live in Paris in a red hot minute!