London Paris 2019

We rose a little earlier than usual to arrive at our appointed destination: the Palais Garner, home to the Paris Opera. The English language tour was scheduled for 11 AM, and we had about a forty minute walk to get there, mostly along the Rue Reaumur.  This street is also the address of the Bourse, which we passed on the way. We arrived at about quarter until 11 and found our way to the entrance at the back. It was no trouble to buy tickets, which we did, and then waited for our tour to begin. Our guide was named Isabelle. At this time, the Palais Garner was currently the home of some very modern art installations, which Isabelle told us was to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the founding of the art and dance academy by Louis XIV. The Palais is obviously not that old. It was named after the architect, Charles Garnier. It opened in 1875 after construction had begun in 1861. When construction began, it was during the reign of Napolean III; when it was completed, the revolution h...

Today will be a slower day as most of the activities (with the exception of our canceled day trip to Luxembourg) that we had planned have been completed. Almost all museums are closed on Mondays, but the Grand Palais, which had an exhibition on the artist Miro (final day today as a matter of fact) was open. We walked to the Les Halles modern shopping center to find a quick sandwich place and inside there was a place called "Paul." We each had a ham and cheese baguette with butter — okay, but we were told “there are better sandwiches in Paris.” We exited the mall and admired the St. Eustache church (we later learned it has the largest organ in France). Then we continued on to the Rue de Rivoli, admiring a building called Samaritan’s, partially under scaffolding with nice mosaic tiles. We entered the great courtyard of the Louvre, which was quite busy, as it is one of the few places open on Monday (it closes on Tuesday). Today was overcast and very cool, but not breezy, so to...

Our plan for today was to explore the Montmartre and Sacre Coeur area. We spent a little time planning how to get there on the Metro and looking at the recommended walk from our guidebook. The book recommends using a different Metro stop than most tourists would use, so that is what we did. We rode to the stop Lamarck-Caulaincourt. Exiting the station, we made our way down some steps and along a residential street and then after about three blocks, Roy realized that he had guided us in the wrong direction. Retracing our steps, we climbed up the steps and found Avenue Junot. This lovely avenue was very nice, and we saw the building where Edith Piaf entertained her lover Yves Montand. We also admired a nice cul de sac called Villa Leandre. We walked up the avenue some more, overshot our right turn, then again retraced our steps to find the Moulin de la Galette. We took a few photos and then walked along the Rue Lepic, which was entertaining to us because a restaurant in San Francisco has...

Today we planned to explore the Marais. We had our guidebook, which recommended a Marais walking tour, but some of the sights on the route didn’t seem too compelling. We walked along through the narrow streets toward the east, which is where some of the more commercial areas are. The Rue Vieille du Temple seems to be a central street. The Marais neighborhood was home to wealthy Parisians who build small palaces. As you walk around, you can see them. Even though they are “attached” to their neighbors, these palaces have grand entrances, and if you can look through the gate a nice courtyard. These palaces are no longer homes, but contain museums or have other uses. Good examples include the Librairie des Archives, the Musee de la Chasse and de la Nature, and the Musee Carnavalet. The Museum of Jewish Art and History, just a few steps from our apartment, is another excellent example. We were looking for a place to have lunch/brunch and didn’t see any candidates that looked appealing. Cont...

Our plan today was to tour the Left Bank, where we have not spent any time yet on this trip. Our first destination was the Ile St. Louis, where we wanted to have lunch at the St. Regis Cafe. This place was named by actor Tony Shalhoub as his favorite breakfast choice in Paris (he just spent a fair amount of time here filming season two of Mrs. Maisel). We walked through the Marais and overshot our intended path, but that was okay as we were enjoying the walk. We saw an impressive library. The Marais was a neighborhood for the wealthy Parisians, so there are a lot of palaces; most of which are now repurposed into other uses (like libraries!). The Cafe St. Regis was very nice and we both had “chicken burgers” (grilled chicken sandwiches). They were pretty good. A neighboring table of Americans was enjoying French onion soup with escargots — what a cliche! Lunch now over, we crossed over to the Ile St. Louis, looking at the back side of Notre Dame, then we continued on to the Left Bank....

Today we planned to visit the Eiffel Tower! We walked to the Hotel de Ville metro station and the young man at the ticket sales counter sold us our tickets to the Champ de Mars station (changing trains at Charles de Gaulle / Etoile). However, we made one error and couldn’t find the signs at Charles de Gaulle and exited the system. However, the agent at CDG let us back in with no trouble. Exiting the station, we followed the Seine River to the Tower. The weather today was again cool, but not raining. We found the entrance to the area (all fenced in with more x-raying and security to go through — these guys are serious about making sure you don’t have metal on you!). There was no charge to enter the area, just security. We walked around for a bit, admiring the views, then exited and walked toward the nearby park area, called the Champ de Mars. We were taking lots of pictures, including of the hospital at the other end of the park. We exited the park to the north to look for the address...