The alarm has finally gone off. I don’t sleep well thinking we might miss the train. But we get to Gloucester Road Station in plenty of time. The trip to Waterloo is uneventfully. The train to Paris leaves on time. The ride is smooth and fast once we get outside of London. The ride under the Channel lasts for 20 minutes. We arrive on time.
The adventure begins in France
The first thing we try to do is buy a Metro ticket. We wait in line for about 10 minutes. The person at the counter does not speak any English we of course do not speak any French. A young man who has just bought a ticket helps us we purchase 3 1 day passes. We now navigate to the Metro line that goes to the Cite.
Upon arrival at the Cite, I steer us in the wrong way on the island. We end up at Point Neff not the Isle De Louis. So we turn around. This is long island, especially if you’ve been up since 04:35. We find the Guest Apartment Services and check in. They take us over to our apartment. It is very nice, especially the kitchen. After they show us how everything works they tell us where the closest grocery stores can be found it sounds like “Sample” but Sam figures out later that they were saying “Saint Paul”.
We find the store but we are starved and decide to get a sandwich first. After we have regained some strength we head up to the George Pompidou Center. We find the St Merry church and the Hotel we stayed in 20 years ago with my mother when we came to Paris last. I tell Sam that this is the hotel that we stayed at with no luggage, because it was 23:30 when we got back to the room. I thought it was too late to go back to the train station to get the luggage we had checked on arrival.
We go into the St Merry church it was nice but somewhat run down. The gold above the alter was dusty and not shinny or polished. We walk past the Pompidou Center then on toward the Tuileries. We take several wrong turns and end up in the Lass Halles area. The St-Eustache Church is on the north side of the Forum area. The construction on this church began in 1214. The current church is 328 x 144 x112 feet high. It seems much higher that that. There is a class here and someone is playing the pipe organ.
From here we wonder down to E. Dehillerin Le Specialiste Du Material De Cusine. It is a restaurant supply store crammed full of stuff. After looking some time I purchase two copper pots. They are Mauviel, a well-known copper pot manufacturer in France. I soon discover that they are quite heavy to carry and later discovery that Julia Child shopped here.
We finally make it to the Tuileries and sit in the park for a while. They we decide to take the Metro to the Arch since we have day passed. We sit across from the Arch and watch the traffic circle around. It is quite dangerous looking.
We take the train back to Saint-Paul. It is rush hour and the Metro is packed. Just like in London. Rhonda returns to the apartment with my pots and Sam and I go shopping. We buy the fixings for spaghetti, onions, squash, carrots and other essentials. The total comes to 27.50E less that our fish and chips were last night on Gloucester Road.
This is what we bought.
Our First Supper on Il De Louis.
We return and while Sam sleeps I prepare the meal. After a slight rest we walk up to Point Neff. Everybody is out having their supper on the point and watching the sun go down. We make our way back to Norte Dame where there are entertainers out doing tricks with fire.
Sam and I watch a little WWE on the telly. It’s time to go to bed now. Both Sam and Rhonda are already there. No internet from our apartment, We tried to connect to the available wireless access points but no luck.
