Continuing the saga of the April, the month of travel...
As I already said, we missed our train to Paris, but were able to catch the next one out and arrive only an hour behind schedule. After arriving at Gare du Nord train station, we wandered through the city, dragging our luggage along, trying to find the apartment Mom had rented for the week and praying that it actually existed. We managed to find the apartment, a lovely little place on the 3rd floor of a walk-up building on one of Paris's many canals. We unpacked some stuff and proceeded to conquer public transport in Paris to make it to the Eiffel Tower, where our 24 hour bus tour started. We only lost Carol once, on the first Paris Underground we jumped on. Luckily, we found her on the next stop. We managed to stick together for the rest of the trip.
We oooed-and-ahhed at the Eiffel Tower and found our tour bus without much trouble. We boarded and climbed up top to enjoy the sunshine and fresh air while we saw the Parisian sights. I actually took a few pictures of this process.
After the bus tour, we contemplated waiting in line for the Eiffel Tower to see the sun set and the city by night. We were put off by the line, though, we we went in search of food. After finding something to eat, we headed back to the apartment.
Tuesday morning we hit the Eiffel Tower again to wait in a 2 hour long line for our tickets to the top. One of the elevators was broken, which doubled typical waiting times. It was well worth the wait, though because we got a fantastic view of the city and were able to cross something off our bucket lists.
We walked from the Eiffel Tower towards L'arc de Triomphe. It was kind of a long walk, but the weather was wonderful so I don't think we really minded. We snapped some photos of the arc, then wandered down Le Champs Elysees for a snack at Haagan-Daz. We wanted to hit up the Musee D'Orsay, but didn't make it before it closed. Instead we took some picture of the outside and then went looking for dinner.
Wednesday, the Louvre, Notre Dame, Pont Neuf, and Sainte Chapelle. We enjoyed good weather until the late afternoon, when it started to drizzle. We waited in line for Sainte Chapelle (a less known but really pretty church near Notre Dame) for a long time and didn't make it to Les Catacombes before they closed. We ate dinner in the apartment and relaxed for the evening.
Thursday we had to catch our train home in the afternoon so we got up kind of early to see the last "must-sees" of Paris. We found our way to Moulin Rouge and Le Sacre-Coeur. The weather was overcast, drizzly, and cold which dampened our spirits a bit. We climbed the massive hill to the Sacre-Coeur and went inside. This was something I hadn't done the last time I was in Paris so I was quite impressed. This basilica is really quite beautiful. We had lunch and made our way back to the apartment to gather our things and head to the train station.
Our 3 day tour of Paris went by in a flash. At times it felt like we were running around without any real direction, rushing to see all we could see. My experiences with Parisians was better this time than the previous visit in 2007. The trip to Paris made me feeling exhausted and under the weather, but luckily I was feeling much better by the time I left for Holland on Monday, April 9.
