We were so excited to arrive in Paris.. We dropped our bags off at our hotel and jumped on a bus to find Leigh. We arrived at the Arc de Troiumphe. It is breathtaking. As we left the bus Anna Katherine walked a few feet from me to take pictures and I called Leigh. Almost immediately Anna Katherine was approached by a man wearing a beret. I concluded my call to Leigh saying, "Gotta go Anna Katherine is talking to a stranger." As I quickly swooped in, the man kissed her on the cheek!!!! We had been in Paris less than an hour and Anna Katherine was getting a kiss from a Frenchman! The man did not back up when I charged in... Instead he asked me for money. I was low on Euros because I had just paid transportation costs and if I gave him money there would no dinner for AK and me. He offered us a gold ring and to which we said our no thank yous and walked off.
Paris was an adventure. We knew that our visit would not be long enough to fully see Paris. We only had 3 days. Our first day we saw the Arc de Troiumphe, ate a great salad at an outdoor cafe, shopped and walked down the famous street Champs-Elysees then caught our bus back to our hotel. We saw and went in fantastic stores. It was a shopper's paradise. On our bus rides we did see a lot of the city.
Even though our visit was short we decided to go to Versailles. I had my doubts because it meant that we would devote almost an entire day to one site but it turned out to be Anna Katherine's favorite part of our Paris trip. There are no words to describe Versailles other than the strongest: remarkable, amazing, fantastic, ornate. The vast properties include the palace, the church, Marie's home that Louis created for her, the Grand Canal, Marie’s miniature village and the unbelievable gardens! I read where you should plan to visit Versailles 3 times. 1 for the grounds, 1 for the palace and 1 for the rest. Anna Katherine had just studied the French revolution. We had seen the movie. Many of the paintings and sites described in both we saw firsthand. The front gate was majestic. As I was looking at it, the sun came out from behind a cloud. The way the gold on the gate glistened was unbelievable. As we toured there were signs cautioning about pick pocketers. One of our party found their camera missing and we wondered if they were not a victim of pick pocketers.
We went back to Paris satisfied that we had seen a one of a kind piece of history. Leigh and I agreed we had the best cup of coffee in our lives at a place called the public store. It was a high end restaurant. It was evening and we strolled past the Eiffel tower that was lit up-so beautiful. We were distracted and lost track of time.
We went to the rail station to catch our train back to the hotel. Travelling is like a puzzle. When all the pieces fit together then everything is fine. To successfully get back to our hotel we had to get to the Antony station, connect to the Orly station then catch the shuttle back to our hotel. The problem was that the Orly station was closed. At first we could not find anyone. We were almost entirely alone at a deserted train station in the middle of the night in Paris. I called the hotel
I selected a Hilton in the hopes that I would have English speaking people at the desk. Not the case. The man on the phone that I called at the Hilton did not have great English. I begged him to call us a taxi to pick us up at the train station. He said he could not help us. He gave us a name of a taxi service. Of course when I called the service no one answered. We finally found a lone taxi and we were on our way to our hotel.
Anna Katherine was a little shaken by the experience. The next day we arose, packed up, checked out and headed out to meet Leigh and Doug at the Louvres. We were almost to the correct stop after a change in trains we would be there. As we looked around for the line we wanted we were totally lost. We must have looked lost because a kind Frenchman came up and said, "May I assist you?" After the events of the night before, we were so glad to see him. He said that his English was not very good but it sounded great to us! He took us to the platform and agreed that it was confusing. We thanked him and turned to get our train. After reading the options of where the train was "calling at" we were still perplexed. Thank goodness the Frenchman was back. He said, "Follow me." He got on the train with us. He explained that he was a judge for international figure skating and he had been to the USA but only to Seattle. He showed us his badge. When we reached our stop he told us to get off and go up some stairs. He pointed directly at the stairs so we would not get lost. He cautioned us about pick pocketers. We thanked him profusely and raced to the Louvres.
We did not have much time and I did have a bucket list of what I wanted to see at the museum. You can check your luggage at the Louvres. That was great for us since we were going straight from the Louvres to our flight back to England. We saw amazing paintings and sculptures by famous artists. We saw Victory statue that I am told is the inspiration for Nike. She was exquisite. She has no head and I so wanted to know what her head looked like.
We toured the museum and then there she was, the Mona Lisa. She is beautiful but smaller than I imagined. As I looked at her and crowd that surrounded her, I wondered why she has such a following. We saw so many great works. We were running out of time but we did get to see Venus before we left.
We grabbed our luggage and after we glanced at the train station, decided to take a taxi for fear we would miss our flight. By the way, Taxis in Paris are ridiculous. Sure enough as we ran into the airport our plane was boarding. I was just about out of Euros due to the 2 taxis we had to ride. We had enough for a couple of snacks on the plane. Jet 2 has great prices but you have to buy your snacks. We were so busy in France that we may have only gotten 1 real meal per day. It was worth it to see as much as we could see. We had a marvelous time but not knowing the language was wearing on us, the plane ride is only 1 hour so we could not wait until we were back in England. It was so nice to be back around folks who spoke english! However, within a few days I was making my bucket list on what I wanted to see if I ever returned to Paris.
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