What can I say? There's just not enough time in a day to see all we want to see in Paris AND blog about it at night!
First things first, as is tradition with my travel blogs, I typically take a photograph out of my hotel window to share what I see with all of you. I didn't do that with Day 1, so here it is now:
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| To the Left - contrary to what it may appear, this is a nice part of town located only a block or two from the Louvre. The Pizza sign across the street has been a life saver numerous times since it is easiest to see. Paris streets are not easy to navigate! |
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| To the right which is in the direction of the Seine River and the Louvre. |
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Day 2: Yesterday Mom and I headed towards the Louvre first thing with the plan of spending most of the day there. The size of the Louvre is not something that can be explained in words other than to say, it would take at least a week to see everything there
if you went ALL day EVERY day. We quickly figured out that Europe (or France at least) does not adhere to the same standards the U.S. does in terms of handicap accessibility. While we are not
handicapped per se, you are probably aware that mom has rheumatoid arthritis and climbing stairs causes her great pain... well, the Louvre is full of stairs and
lifts (Europe's word for elevator) are far and few between! When we did find a lift it was often available
only for handicapped and since she's not in a wheelchair we had a very hard time getting them to understand that she needed to use the lift - our French is just not that good! Needless to say, we saw the most important thing we wanted to see which was the Mona Lisa (and was, of course, up about nine flights of stairs). We also meandered through the Egyptian Antiquities and a few rooms of fabulous sculptures before finding a cup of coffee, a croissant, and some ibuprofen for mom and ending our trip to the Louvre. In all honesty, I think I enjoyed the outside of the Louvre as much as the inside - it is made up of fabulous architecture. In case you didn't know, what is now the Louvre was at one time home to the Kings of France. Below are a few pictures from our short stay at the
musée du Louvre.
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| Entry way to the inside of the Louvre grounds. |
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| One of the hallways that leads from outside the walls of the Louvre to the courtyard where the glass Pyramid is. |
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| The courtyard of the Louvre. |
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| One of the beautiful sculptures we saw. There were a lot of cherubs and other sculptures depicting a belief in a heavenly realm and in Christ. |
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| The Mona Lisa. Much smaller than one would think. However, this photo makes her look even smaller because we were not allowed to get very close. |
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| All of the ceilings had beautiful paintings on them. We are unsure if this is from the days that the kings lived there or if they were done this way when it was turned into a museum. |
To finish the day, we got to attend a concert by Celtic Women - Mom had seen them before and I had not. I am hooked - it was an absolutely fabulous show in a beautiful theater. It was their first show in France, it was a real treat to be in attendance!
Following the show, we decided to catch a taxi back to the hotel. We had a difficult time navigating our way to the theater in the daylight, so we thought it best to not try it in reverse order after dark! However, I did proceed in my best "Fren-glish" to tell the taxi driver he was going the wrong way... see Roy - I don't just do it to you! Turns out - I was right... it is as good of a feeling in France as it is at home :).
Day 3: Today mom and I had reservations to eat lunch at the famous Le Jules Verne that is located on the second level of the Eiffel Tower (some 125 meters above the ground). We opted to get to the Eiffel Tower via an open-air bus so we could see everything and also be able to go see other sites tomorrow via that route as well (I think we've already put 1,000
miles kilometers on our shoes). It was such a memorable experience for the both of us - the food was fabulous, the service was great, and the view was the best part of it all! As a side note, somehow everywhere we go, the people know we are not French. Before we ever say a word, we walk in and are immediately greeted with "Hello." At the restaurant, I greeted the waiter with "Bonjour Monsieur" and he looked surprised and said "You're French?" So, we can't figure out why we look so non-French, but it seems to be quite apparent to all of the French (I
was quite pleased that he recognized my French as being actual French - good sign!).
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| The Eiffel is so big and my camera so small, we couldn't seem to ever get it all into one picture! |
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| The view directly outside the window next to our table. |
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| The beautiful view I had during lunch (besides the beauty of Paris)! I'm so blessed with the opportunity to go on a mother/daughter trip like this with my mom. When I asked her I was afraid her Lupus would keep her home, but she decided to try it and I'm so thankful that she did! This trip wouldn't have been the same by myself (which was the original plan as a side trip from Barcelona - you know, because I was so close being on the same continent and all). She did start getting a sore throat today, but we picked up some vitamin C and some medicine and turned in early this evening... daddy might whip me if I take her home sick! |
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| This was the final course of our six course lunch - I decided to take a picture of it since we were WAY too full to truly enjoy it! We waddled out of the restaurant as they handed us each a bag of three French cookies, Madeleines. It was hard to fathom another bite of food at that moment! |
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| The Eiffel Tower is said to have about 2 million and 500 rivets holding
it together, we decided that Dad might have wanted to come if we would
let him bring his tools... |
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| As we were walking off our lunch, we turned and got this beautiful glimpse of the tower. |
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| This was even further away. |
Thanks to National Treasure, we knew that Paris had the twin to NYC's Statue of Liberty, however anyone that we asked about it acted like they didn't know a thing about it and it wasn't on any site-seeing tours. So, we located it on the map and realizing it was within walking distance from the Eiffel Tower, we set out after lunch to find the Statue of Liberty. There was no signage to it and barely a walkway to it, but we did find it!
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| Obviously, we weren't able to get very close. |
I looked online to find out how it measured next to the one in New York and found one place that said it is one-fourth the scale of the one given to New York by France. I also discovered, there is a third one here in Paris located at the Luxemburg Gardens. Apparently these were both prototypes made before the actual gift to the United States was made. Mom and I are discussing finding the third one tomorrow so we will have pictures of all three. :)
Just in case I forget to tell you at the end of this excursion - many American's have been told that the French are "unfriendly". I want to be sure to clear the air on that - we have not encountered even one unfriendly Frenchman - they have all been very hospitable and welcoming and I would come back in a heartbeat!
My love to all! Good Night!
Donna
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Posted By Donna Worley to
Worley Family Blog at 9/24/2011 02:49:00 PM
