abqtoadam: Summer in Paris

We experienced some (metaphorical) turbulence in traveling from Gent to Paris. We allowed ourselves approximately one hour to get from our apartment to the train station, but the tram we took – which should have taken approximately 20 minutes to get to the station – stopped halfway and forced everyone to leave for reasons beyond our understanding. By the time we managed to get to the station, we had missed our train to Brussels by the time we arrived at the station. Then, when talking to a clerk at the train station, we discovered that a) our tickets from Brussels to Paris were non-refundable and non-transferable, and our tram effectively rendered our tickets to Paris useless, and b) we (and, largely “I”) had misread the train tickets anyway, and we would have missed the connection in Brussels even without the tram kerfuffle. Ultimately, we had to buy new tickets (a little under $100 per person) and take a different route to Paris.

Well, adventures in travels. If that’s the worst thing that happens during a trip (and, it was), the trip should probably be considered a success. We arrived at Gare du Nord in Paris around 3:00pm and, after being chatted up by a Frenchman who was chased off by a police officer for being a known (or, at least, estimated) pickpocket, we metro’d and walked to the Rodin Museum and garden, where we saw The Thinker and several other works with names unknown to me, but that I would describe as “Entrance to the Gates of Hell,” “Three Demons,” and “Blind Smelter” (I am guessing that my descriptions do not have much in common with the actual names).

After Rodin, we made our way to our AirBnB apartment, which was on the sixth flood of a building in the middle of the Latin Quarter, which is one of the most historic and, at this point, touristy areas in Paris. The apartment was about 300 square feet, with a plumbing system that did not allow water to be drained through different pipes at the same time (shower, toilet, sink), a pullout couch in the living room (where Ruben slept), and a dusty queen sized mattress that Doug and I shared in a cramped loft that was only accessible via a narrow, nerve wracking ladder. But what the apartment lacked in comfort and luxury, it made up for in location and view.

The street view from our apartment window

Looking to the right from our apartment window over the adjacent church

Notre Dame at night

The back of Notre Dame at night, over the Seine

A more detailed look at the Notre Dame exterior

The Seine at night, near Ile Saint Louis

Wallabies(!) in a park we walked through

Lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens

Ruben loves Paris. And he has "wine teeth" at 1pm.

Statues on the bridge near Invalides

The Arc de Triumph

Our two full days in Paris consisted of walking, walking, drinking a bottle of wine in a park, walking, walking, going to a museum, walking, eating a crepe, going to a church, more wine, and more walking. I’d guess that we walked about fifteen miles over the two days. On Monday from our apartment west along the Seine to Mouffetard, where Doug and I had stayed in a hostel during our trip to Paris in 2002, to the Luxembourg gardens, to the Champs Elysee, to the Arc de Triumph, to the Bois do Bologne, back to the apartment, and then to Invalides and the Eiffel Tower. Then on Tuesday to the Musee D’Orsay back to the apartment to Notre Dame to the Louvre to dinner to the Toulleries Gardens to Pont Des Arts back to Notre Dame and the apartment.

As during my last visit to Paris in March, I was struck by how large and, generally, impressive Paris is compared with Amterdam. I can’t think of (or, perhaps more accurately, imagine) a city on earth with more history and famous landmarks concentrated within a few miles than Paris. Just along the Seine, and a mile north and south of the river, we passed the Eiffel Tower, Invalides, the Arc de Triumph, Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Musee D’Orsay, and the Champs Elysee. But the city is also dirty (the urine smell along the river was occasionally nauseating), loud, stressful, and, if not rude, lacking of warmth and affection. Lacking in the “coziness” that defines a large part of the Amsterdam experience. Although I love Paris – and it will always have a place in my heart after living there when I was 20 – I felt relieved to return home to the quiet bicycles, warm glow of apartment windows at night, and general coziness of Amsterdam.