A blog post from Heider

Well now it is really my turn to fill you in on what we have been up to…

Friday morning we headed to the Eiffel Tower, we stopped at a creperie for our mandatory dosing of the delicious food.  I had a ham, egg and cheese crepe and it was so good. I am not sure what cheese they use but it is very tasty!

 As we arrived at the tower the line ups were crazy! Turns out only one lift was working, we however were taking the stairs so our line was somewhat shorter. The last time I was in Paris I was quite sick so I was not able to go up the tower, and Lyle says everyone needs to walk the stairs at least once. We bought tickets to go all the way to the top. This consists of walking about 700 steps, with a one floor stop in the middle; and then taking the lift to the top observation deck. The stairs were killer on my already sore calves but I made it J We made it to the very top despite some very pushy tourists who disliked following the line.

On a side note, we are realizing why the world thinks Canadians are so polite. We have found people from many different countries to be pushy and quite demanding. Queue jumpers are common and it drives me crazy. This polite Canadian has about had it!

The top observation deck was quite cool; we had a wonderful view of all of Paris and its surroundings. We learned that the Calgary tower is about 181 meters tall, the Eiffel tower is about 320 ish metres (Lyle says that is a guess, but it was 300 something), and the CN tower is 553 meters.

Glad to say I survived all the steps, though my calves have been on fire ever since! The next adventure was to ride the carousel across from the tower. I had seen it last time I was here but didn’t get to ride it, so Lyle and I paid the admission and found our animals. Really Lyle let me pick mine and then he chose the one beside me; I rode the ostrich and he had a horse. I have a secret love for carousels, you can ask my friends Kim and Jen who are my normal carousel riding buddies. If ever you are in Helena, Montana head to the indoor carousel there, it is fabulous!

After riding the carousel and enjoying another round of crepes, we headed to a Seine river cruise that came with our Paris passes. We chose seats on the outside of the boat and settled in for our hour long journey.  We learned much about the bridges and the key buildings that we passed and the weather was nice enough to be able to enjoy being outside. We passed a second island that I had not been on and a bridge of eternal love. We will come back to that one in Lyle’s next post.

We wandered across the bridge to Trocadero square which has beautiful fountains and landscaping. We stopped for a while to watch a street dance performance, they were okay… not superb and we didn’t stay long enough to give them any money. So many people want money from you, performers in the subway, gypsies and all sorts of random people…including ones who will suck you in to buying string bracelets… just ask Lyle ;)

We headed into the Musee de l’architerture et patrimonie at the far end of the square. Rather than a museum about the actual architecture in Paris it was a museum of large scale molds of different pieces of Catholic churches around France… somewhat less interesting that we were hoping for…so we moved through it pretty quickly.

Next we were off to Hardrock Café for dinner, since we got a free hot fudge sundae courtesy of our Paris passes. I enjoy all of the music memorabilia in the cafes, Vegas has an amazing display! This one did have one of John Lennon’s jackets and some very cool signed guitars. Lyle ordered the nachos for dinner, and they were much better than the ones he had in London. I actually really enjoyed his nachos J most nachos over here come standard with beans and then meat can be added, he went meatless and the beans were so tasty! I ordered a chicken mac & cheese, it was pretty good… too many red peppers for my taste. We also only made it through a portion of our meals… apparently stomachs are shrinking. The hot fudge sundaes were very yummy and since there is always room for ice cream we were able to finish those no problem.

We saved Montparnasse tower for the end of the day because I wanted Lyle to see the lights on the Eiffel tower. We got to the top just before 9, but because the sun had not yet set the light show was not visible. We found a Ferris wheel in the skyline and I am still trying to figure out what it is… if any of you know please fill me in! We decided to wait for the next show at 10 and huddled in against the glass to avoid the rain (we have not been good about carrying the umbrella in Paris). The hour finally passed and the glittery show on the tower started, to me this is when the tower looks beautiful and Lyle agreed! He took many pictures and we enjoyed the sight before heading home for the night.

Saturday we enjoyed a sleep in day and got a late start, which was really nice. We had a list of 8 things we wanted to do but realized that wasn’t very feasible so cut out a few and headed to “Ile de la cite” to begin the day. When we got to the square in front of Notre Dame there was a bread festival going on, and vendors on the outskirts were selling sandwiches with the fresh baguettes. We decided on ham and brie sandwiches and found a space to eat. They were very good sandwiches, but strange as you can see from the photographs.

The line ups for the tours of Notre Dame were huge and we decided it wasn’t that important to us. We headed instead for the Archeological crypt, which took us far longer to find that it should have because signage in Paris is pitiful to say the least. Arrows do not go in the directions they should… eventually we found the Crypte and we were both fascinated by it. The crypte was the preserved and labelled archeological dig that occurred in the 70’s discovering foundations and building remnants from the last 1800 years on the site in front of the Notre Dame. Very cool, very interesting, highly recommended!

Musee Rodin was our next stop; it is housed in an old mansion and contains a number of Auguste Rodin’s pieces. Some of his plaster casts, a large number of bronze casts (many of which are housed in the stunning gardens, which are my real reason for visiting the museum) as well as some Van Gough painting and works from a few other artists.  The front rose gardens have some of the most beautiful colored roses I have ever seen. The gardens continue around back and are massive and make for a beautiful stroll.

We wandered from here over to Place des Invalides, to see Napoleon’s tomb as well as a few museums housed in the same complex. We started with the “church” that the tomb is housed in, I use the term church loosely because although it had an alter like a typical Catholic church the rest of it was simply shrines to dead military leaders. Napoleon’s tomb was a little dumbfounding for both of us, so an emperor who was exiled twice (and died in exile) end up buried in a massively ornate church with a tomb that is gigantic. I first commented to Lyle that for such a small man the tomb was overkill, seriously it could hold 8-10 coffins I am sure. Later we found out he was cremated… now it really seems like over kill. Anyhow the French like there pomp and displays of wealth and this was very typical.

We skipped most of the military museum, mostly because we were on museum overload, and headed to the museum of military models (I think that is the best translation). It was on the 5^th floor… have I mentioned my burning calves? So we hike to the top to find a dark, stuffy room with large models of cities and fortresses. During the first half I had heard of none of them and wasn’t very interested… if you are well versed in 17^th and 18^th century French history outside of Paris you might find this interesting… otherwise I would skip it. Near the end we did find the model of Chateau d’If and that was exciting. We will be heading there next week and I am excited to check it out! If you are unfamiliar with the Chateau d’If watch Count of Monte Cristo for the most famous, but fictional prisoner of the jail.

Upon leaving the museum it started to pour… oh how I love the rain when we forget the umbrella. It was now dinner time so we explored the area to find somewhere to eat. There was a café/restaurant offering non-stop service which is critical on days that you want to eat on a North American timeline, otherwise don’t expect to be served dinner before 7pm. The café was called La Source and was just a block from the museum. Lyle started with Foie Gras, which I reluctantly tried (we have an agreement to try something at least once) and did not like, definitely not on my list of try again foods. For a main course I had roast beef and mashed potatoes and they were very good, Lyle had a fish in a cream sauce served with ratatouille and both were amazing! For dessert I ordered chocolate mousse and it was heavenly, the perfect consistency and a nice chocolaty flavour.

We had another painful experience with the internet at starbucks (and appreciate the inability of the French to spell my name) before calling it a night J

Hope all is well with everyone back home,

Love you

H & L