roadquill1

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

We arrived in Paris on Friday, September 5th in the early afternoon, and, after a bit of confused queuing at the Gare de l’Est, we were able to determine which underground tunnel to vanish into in order to get to a station close to our Hotel Loiret a couple of blocks from the Seine River in the heart of Paris. Well, almost…we had to backtrack, and climb the stairs again to correct a misdirection…not so easy for a couple of seniors with over 40 pound backpacks! An 8 block walk at the end of our subway trip got us to our destination, with Sandy acting as navigator.

The hotel is a half block off of a major throughfare…Rue de Rivoli, so it is convenient, but the street sounds carry to our room – mostly, the two-toned emergency vehicles (you know the sound from movies), that have a Doppler effect of lowering their tone as they fade into the distance. We can see a Starbucks coffee shop about 40 meters away from our hotel, a grocery selling fruit is a couple of steps away, and an epicery with beautiful baked goods is less than a half block beyond that.

We have walked many paces over the past few days, as we took advantage of surprisingly good weather to see the sites. On Friday afternoon, after settling into our room, we wandered across the Seine River on the Pont Neuf to get our first view of Notre Dame Cathedral, and a mile long queue to get in. Then we crossed back on another bridge and headed east along Rivoli, and finally completed a triangle within Le Marais District.

On Saturday, we again crossed the Seine for a visit to the Latin Quarter, the Luxembourg Gardens and then crossed another pont (bridge) to Les Halles (major shopping district) before drizzly rain drove us home to dry before supper, and early bed.

Sunday brought unexpectedly good weather, and we took major advantage of it to cross off a large number of scenic sites on our list: the Louvre, where we bypassed a lengthy queue, the Jardins de Tuileries, the Champs-Elysses and the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower – and another queue to pass, and too many gardens and side streets! Dog-tired, we finally headed back towards our own corner of Paris, and found a small Italian restaurant – with no queue – for supper. After a short rest, we headed back to the Latin Quarter to see Notre Dame lit up at night, and to listen to the street musicians out front.

Today, we awoke to a fairly steady rain, and me, to a nasty chest cold, and sore throat! Nevertheless, we headed out, once again, to stroll down small back streets, and, since my watch had died, to look for a place where I could buy a battery. Unfortunately, “most shops are closed on Mondays, monsieur!” A walk back to Les Halles found that monster underground shopping area fully active, and a good place to dry out and have lunch. A new battery did not fix my watch, so I tossed it out, and on the very wet stroll home, I bought a 10€ watch at an outdoor stall. (The battery would have been 20€!)

This afternoon, we have read, and slept, and now Sandy is waiting for me to finish this blog so that we can see how long the queue is to get into Notre Dame Cathedral. So, I will take my cue from her, close this down, bid adieu to all, and close our Paris chapter with “au revoir”, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Soon…after tomorrow…it will be our turn to “doppler down” as we join the queue at Charles de Gaulle airport.

Love and best wishes to all!

Q, et Q’ter

P.s. how many “Qs” in the “Q-test”? (You didn’t read the title, did you?)