Subject: Back to an old favorite...
Date: Monday, February 16, 2009 4:06 PM
Bonsoir,
I just got back from Paris. Not quite home yet, but I didn't have time to send the email during the trip, so here's the obligatory email...
I left on Saturday morning, via Dallas to Paris, and the plane was an hour late in arriving. By the time I freshened up, took the metro from CDG to Gare L'Est, walked around looking for the luggage locker there, found it, dropped my roller bag off, then took the metro to the Cite metro stop, it was almost 1pm.
The rest of the day (until 6pm anyway), was spent walking around one of the most beautiful cities in the world on a day when the weather Gods were smiling! Mostly sunny and low 40's -- far better than back home!
I didn't need the thick jacket or gloves or hat that I had packed, and was walking around, with "no particular place to go". As it turned out, I ended up walking the entire length of the Seine river from Notre Dame to Eiffel Tower, crossing all the bridges along the way and alternating between the left and right banks. To those of you who don't know the city, that's quite a distance -- about 4 hours worth of walking and 1 hour worth of standing up. My feet are still recovering.
That's about it really, I spent the whole time there simply roaming around, taking pictures from all the bridges, eating lunch standing up and leaning against the railing of "The Society to exploit the Eiffel Tower". I'm not kidding -- that's exactly what I translated the sign to mean!
There was also a quick metro ride to Champs-Elysees and Arc de Triomphe, then back to Tour Eiffel for the rest of the evening.
I didn't stay until dark, although I should have. I had a train to catch to Frankfurt at 7pm, so had to leave the Eiffel Tower area around 6pm. The train ended up being close to 1 hour late, so I really should have stayed until sunset -- nothing like the Eiffel Tower at night! Oh well, maybe next time :)
The train arrived Frankfurt Main at just a little before midnight, and I went and bought a ticket to Frankfurt Flughafen, finally reaching my hotel at close to 1:30 AM.... then back up again at 7 this morning for the flight back home!
Now I'm in Dallas waiting for my connecting flight. The pictures from this trip will be here in about 15 minutes:
http://www.callmewanderer.com/europe/eur09-1/index.html#TOP
So until Memorial Day weekend from Switzerland again... (hmmm or is it Germany? I forget)
Auf Wiedersehen,
-moi.
Note to self for future trips: Some but not all of the RER-C trains have free toilets on board, and the portables at Champ de Mars are also free.
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