After all the excitement of the previous few days, Henrik and I slept well in our couchette on the train to Paris.
Right on time, just after 0900, our train pulled into Paris Nord (North Station)) on Friday, June 22nd. We were ready to tackle the City of Lights—-or so we hoped.
Trying to follow the suggestions in my guidebook, our first mission —----buy Metro (subway) tickets. At the time, they were still available only in paper form. “Pauline Frommer” instructed me to save money by buying a book of 10 called a carnet. Henrik and I made a deal that we would both try using our best French while visiting the city. Most of our sentences started with “J’ai voudrais” (I would like) followed by a lot of hand gestures. I’m sure the French shook their heads at my hacking their beautiful vocabulary. Nevertheless, Parisians seemed to appreciate our trying to communicate in their language.
In 2007, neither Henrik nor I had a phone to refer to (thus no Google maps) but I did possess a good paper map and a chart I created giving fast reference to famous landmarks and addresses. Feeling emboldened after successfully buying our carnet, we set out to find our hotel. Travel agent Bill reserved a room at the St. Christophe in the Latin Quarter. He said that he didn’t know of anyone who had stayed there before but the reviews were good in the travel agency circuit.
It turns out Henrik had a pretty good sense of direction for Metro stops. I just wasn’t aware of this fact yet. It seemed fairly easy to locate the closest Metro to our hotel. The Parisians dug deep for their subways it seems. Our ascending escalator seemed to go upward for at least a football field’s length. When we made our exit onto the street, we found ourselves in the midst of a lively street market. A huge plaza was filled with tents, each offering all kinds of wares: hand crafted items, local foods, costume jewelry, and interesting housewares. I very much wanted to stop and look more but first, we had a hotel to locate and drop our bags.
With map in hand, off we set. Unfortunately, I was still in charge of the directions.
“It looks like we go up two blocks, Henrik,” I said rather confidently. Two blocks later, I again referred to my map and said, “Ok, now we go left”. Dragging our rolling bags up and down curbs and zipping around folks on the sidewalk, we continued. “Ok Henrik, another left”. With my confidence wavering just a bit, I said back to Henrik, “One more left”. Suddenly things seemed too familiar.
“Mom, we’re right back where we started”, said Henrik. “Hmmmm,” I said, getting a bit flustered. After taking over the map, Henrik looked around and said, “Mom, the hotel is right there. It’s in front of us.”
And sure enough, he was correct. With our hotel in view from the escalator exit, we’d gone in a complete circle.
“Henrik, from now on, you’re in charge of the map”, I told him as we dragged our tired selves into the hotel’s lobby. And it wasn’t even noon yet.
Our room turned out to be quite lovely with twins, a small desk, a nice bath with a
tub and bonus—-----we had French doors (how apropos) that opened to a slight balcony overlooking a narrow but charming residential street. Henrik counted two bakeries in sight from our window. His enthusiasm about taking this trip with me suddenly increased.
After quickly settling in, we set off for the nearest landmark from our hotel, Notre Dame. Despite this being the second time I’d visited the cathedral, seeing its majestic presence in the distance took my breath away once again. Henrik too became awestruck. We eagerly jumped in the queue so we could tour inside. Strolling quietly in line, we admired the beauty and savored the immense feeling of peace. Of course, we had no way of knowing that a fire would devastate the cathedral on April 15, 2019. Stopping here first seemed to get us grounded and refreshed for the rest of our sightseeing.
It would be quite daunting to list all the sights we saw over the next few days. Each morning, we hit the ground running after a lovely breakfast at the hotel and didn’t return until nap time late afternoon.
The next morning’s highlight was of course, Henrik seeing the REAL Eiffel Tower. This whole trip originated from Henrik's request to visit the "real" tower after seeing a replica at Disney's Epcot when he was age 8. The line for the elevator appeared quite lengthy so Henrik made the call to go up the steps, all 486, to the second platform. He zipped up those steps like a gazelle, going around and around—----and around with me following a ways behind breathing hard, heart racing. When you travel with a teenager, be prepared to move at a fairly good clip. Finally, we reached the second level.
Feeling like I had just been on a forty minute merry-go-round, I thought I was going to throw up. “Henrik, I'll be right back”. I dashed into the ladies room. Finding an open stall, I sat with my head between my legs to help stop the spinning. Finally, after gaining back my equilibrium, I joined Henrik outside on the second level platform for amazing views.
Name a famous landmark, I’m pretty sure we visited it. Henrik has always had a keen interest in art (thanks in part to my mother’s influence and his wonderful art teachers in school). During our stay, we toured two art museums extensively: the Musee d'Orsay (traditional) and the Palais De Tokyo Museum (modern art).
Of the two, the Tokyo has forever remained indelible in both of our memories. The artwork seemed, well, really disturbing overall. Neither of us suffered from depression but after two hours in the museum, we both walked out speechless and overall feeling very numb. It’s safe to say, neither of us spoke much for a while. And as for modern art? The Tokyo finished us both up for a long while.
Food highlights were many. Outside of Sacre Coeur, Henrik enjoyed his first boeuf bourguignon. That meal still tops his list of all time favorite meals. Also at the top? Fresh croissants. Each day at our hotel, he helped himself to at least two for breakfast, enjoying every crumb. Becoming super adventurous, Henrik also tried his first escargot and later, crepes sold from a food truck. Paris is a city of amazing experiences to be enjoyed by all the senses. But we also learned, as tourists, it’s especially prudent to stay alert.
We had been warned about the pickpockets so I invested in a sturdy leather cross body bag before this trip. Henrik kept his passport around his neck in a passport keeper I purchased at the AAA store. Our hotel room did not have a safe so we never left our rooms without our passports and money safely tucked under clothing or in zippered compartments.
Travel Tip: Be especially vigilant when using the escalators in Paris. Pickpockets are known to pick your pocket and throw your valuables to an accomplice on the adjacent escalator moving in the opposite direction.
No pickpocketing, but we experienced one disconcerting moment when we left Sacre Coeur using the multitude of descending steps to get back to a Metro. We hadn’t gotten too far when we encountered our first flim flam man who wanted to put a Chinese finger trap on Henrik. “Non merci”, I kept telling him as I instructed Henrik to just keep walking. The annoying con artist followed along, step after step. “Keep walking Henrik and do not give him the chance to put that thing on”, I said as we kept descending without breaking stride. Finally, to our relief, he gave up as we reached the last steps. His persistence was no match for “Mama Bear”. The episode lasted only minutes but reminded us to stay mindful of our surroundings at all times.
Each day brought a whole new list of sight seeing spots. One was especially off the beaten track, Les Catacombes. Located eighty feet below the Paris streets, is the final resting place of the bones of almost 6 million Parisians. In an effort to stave off disease, bones from multiple cemeteries were transferred to this one area as early as 1785. Les Catacombes is thought to cover around 11,000 square meters. The path of this fascinating almost mile long tour is lined top to bottom with carefully placed bones, many fixed in ornate patterns. If you enjoy a bit of unconventional history, I highly recommend taking this tour.
Henrik and I chose to dine near our hotel for two evenings. Well, to be truthful, we were just too darn tired to wander far for our supper. We discovered a narrow street (no auto traffic) near the Sorbonne with one interesting looking restaurant after another. How to choose where to go for our favorite meal of the day? It became Henrik’s job to attempt to decipher the restaurant’s dinner menu written on the board in French (of course) outside each restaurant before dashing inside to see if the “ambiance” looked inviting.
Henrik hit it perfectly! The traditional French fare tasted fantastic and was deemed a big notch above the usual meals served at "Chez Moms”.
The pace was maybe too fast and furious but our visit was wonderful and thankfully, void of any surprises or incidents. We visited Luxembourg Gardens, saw the Louvre during a Batobus (boat) tour, and made a special effort to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night while standing on one of Paris’ incredible bridges (definitely recommended). We ventured to Montmartre in the late evening to see the windmill of the Moulin Rouge. The blockbuster movie Moulin Rouge was hugely popular at the time. It turns out Hollywood made this iconic Paris symbol way more glamorous than it appears in reality. Nevertheless, it was a “magnet moment”.
It had been a wonderful visit but on Monday June 25, we had a train to catch! We were both excited to be taking the Chunnel to London. By this time, Henrik had mastered the Metro system. It was so, so nice having him say, “Mom, it’s this way”, particularly on that last day. I was exhausted from the seemingly 100/mph pace we’d kept.
I have now visited Paris four times and the city never bores me. The beautiful architecture, the lovely cafes, the shopping, incredible museums, and the glorious food and wine make this city my all time favorite to visit. Henrik tells me I was a bit overly ambitious with the sightseeing and I do recommend not trying to see the entire city in three days.
Our upcoming visit to London would last for less than 24 hours. I had no idea how to cram a whole city in just one day. And more worrisome –-would we actually find Pete in time to see anything at all? He was flying over from Philadelphia, arriving late this morning to begin the third leg of the trip. Planning to meet up at our hotel, we had no idea how difficult or easy it would be to find each other in the city of 7.5 million. I knew one thing for sure----Henrik would be in charge of the map!
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