f r e s h s t a r t
Tuesday, July 04, 2006
Catching up, Paris
Out of the three days I spent in Paris, the second day was the best by far. The days surrounding it were filled with the Louvre, Notre Dame, Musee d'Orsay, Musee de l'Orangerie, and the Eiffel Tower. Which were lovely days of course, but just didn't have the same feel.
Before my trip I contacted a woman named Julie who I know through Flickr, the photo site. She lives just outside Paris, and we decided to meet up for part of the day. She picked me up from my (completely awful, but that's another story) hostel, and drove me around for a while to show me some sights. She parked illegally so I could jump out and get some photos, which was fun. She has moved around a lot, and actually lived in DC in the States for several years. When she returned, she lived in a hotel, and decided to spend time in all of the arrondissements (neighborhoods) of Paris to decide which one she liked best. When she came to number 18, Montmartre, she decided to stay. We parked near the Sacre Couer, and got out for a while.
We decided to get lunch in the neighborhood, so we drove down the hill and found a small bistro. Julie said that if a place is full of French people around lunch time, it's a good sign, because it means they come back. I was the only tourist in the place, and the food was amazing. From the wine to the goat cheese-apple pastry, to the duck, to the chocolate torte, it was all fantastic. Julie had to go, so half-drunk on my several glasses of wine, I climbed up to the Sacre Couer. Unlike most of the cathedrals that I had visited so far, this one wasn't crowded. When I climbed the tower there were only three other people up there enjoying the view. After climbing down the tower, I wandered the twisting streets, taking photos and stopping at a cafe for coffee.
My evening plan was to go on a night bike tour of the city. I met up with a group of other English-speakers under the Eiffel Tower, and walked to the tour office to get our bikes. Biking through the streets of Paris as the sun was setting was fantastic. We biked around and through many sites (biking around the Louvre pyramids with no one around was weird), and our guide was hilarious.
There were two highlights of the bike tour. The first one happened when we were stopped near Notre Dame Cathedral. We had parked our bikes on the sidewalk of one of the bridges, and were standing on the other sidewalk. As our guide told us about the flying buttresses, some dude walked by, hopped on one of our bikes, and took off. The guide (formerly of the Texas A&M track team), sprinted after him and caught him. His excuses were 1) he's French, and he lives here, and 2) he was going to meet a friend. Later that night the same sketchy guy walked by us again while we were getting ice cream on the Ile Saint-Louis. I pointed him out to the group. No attempted theft the second time. The other major bike tour highlight was the hour-long boat cruise on the Seine that we did near the end of the night. We smuggled on a bottle of wine for every 2 or 3 people, and finished them all.
The local connection and the cool perspective of a night bike tour just really made that day.
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