A couple days in the city of lights

Trip Start Apr 08, 2007
1
28
144
Trip End Oct 01, 2007


Loading Map
Map your own trip!
Map Options
Show trip route
Hide lines
shadow

Flag of France  ,
Monday, May 7, 2007

We've just come to the tail end of a couple busy days bouncing around Paris. Much of yesterday morning was spent recovering from the bumpy overnight train and then we blew all of this morning trying to finally catch up on laundry. In the time between though, we've managed to see quite a bit of the place. Both Mayu and I have been here before, so it's kind of a case of repeat material, but when you're in Paris, you can't really complain.

My Dad and his wife were in town for a little under a week up until this afternoon. I had planned for us to meet up with them for several months now, and we managed to do so for at least a good part of the afternoon and evening yesterday. It worked out to be less than planned due to itinerary changes, digestive bugs and simple logistics, but we had a good time together all the same. We met up at the ever-touristed Louvre about 3pm yesterday, just after Mayu and I did a marathon visit of the city's most central sights: le Forum des Halles, Centre Pompidou (without the museum), l'Hotel de Ville, Notre Dame and le Pont Neuf. From there we hit the obligatory Mona Lisa and Vénus de Milo and then passed a couple hours wandering through the 17th-19th French painters section. The grande finale was a lovely dinner at a brasserie in the Latin Quarter, where we got to watch the results of the presidential elections on French TV.

After dealing with the overdo washing, we headed down to Opéra and got promptly dosed in an afternoon shower. Ducking into a bookstore to wait it out, we then proceeded up through the Tuileries and onwards up the Champs Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe. Somewhere along the way, I noticed that my camera lens had developed an ugly mark on it. A frustrating and worrying discovery, to say the least. So far I can't tell if it's just something on the outer lens that needs to be cleaned off with solution and lens paper (neither of which I currently have) or something on an interior surface. Here's hoping it's the former - I'll have to hit a camera store as soon as I can actually find one. In the meantime though, it's not terribly visible in the images so far, so perhaps it won't cause too many problems. It just bites to have it happen so early in the trip!

The evening was a nice pleasure as I got to meet up with an old friend of mine, Manu, that I hadn't seen in years, one that I met back when I studied in France. We caught up over dinner along with his new wife, Roxana, which was really enjoyable. Considering that we had lost touch for a few years, it was great to meet up again after so much time. On the way back to the metro, we walked across the Champs de Mars and under the Eiffel Tower, taking some photos to permanently memorialize the occasion. Good times.

Tomorrow we're off to Amiens, my former home for French studies abroad. It'll be interesting to see how much the place has changed (probably very little) and visit the old haunts.
Print this entry Paris hotels