France Day 12

Today started out on the moderately early side. I realized I had all day ahead of me and was staying Paris all day. I had visited at least externally most all of the major sites in Paris and wasn’t really planned on what to do. I started out by heading back down La Fayette to Opera then crossing past the Louvre and doubling back to Notre Dame. This early in the morning there weren’t a ton of visitors and I was able to get inside with relative ease. I was hoping to visit the towers but it appeared they weren’t going to open those parts of the cathedral until some time later in the day so I decided that two trips inside the place after an external walk around it with relatively little change to what was open was enough for me. From there I headed back to the Louvre where along the way I decided to have a cup of coffee and a croissant at a café.

After having the croissant I had killed enough time to run through the shopping of the gifty places along the Louvre and I managed to finish off the rest of the shopping I had to do (I hope). From there I chose to head back to the hotel because the bags of stuff were rather bulky but before I got the room I had a quick lunch at the Quick (no pics included) then dropped off the bulky items and got them mostly packed into the suitcase. I rested for less than half an hour before heading back out again.

Back down La Fayette and to Opera my goal this time was L’Hotel Invalides where the Armories are. It’s sort of Frances poor man’s version of the armories in the Tower of London but after all there was a reasonably large number of items to view. Practically every bit of weaponry from older times was behind glass so I took relatively few pictures there as I don’t like the look of pictures of things behind glass or Plexiglas. They also had an exhibit that ran through WWI and WWII which was actually what I visited first and spent the most time in. It was again interesting to get the French perspectives on what we consider two wars they were deeply in need of being bailed out of. Having done the museums in Britain I know their perspectives already and to see the opinions of the French fighting forces portrayed in a positive light is of course unique. Either way there were still admissions that the French handled WWII especially as a national government at the very least very poorly even if they tried to portray the everyday Frenchman as more active when it came to the resistance.

There was a very high tech and new fangled exhibit on the history of Charles De Gaulle which on some levels was fairly successful and others was a bit awkward. The visitor was given a headset that would read frequencies from various points in the exhibit and follow along with movies being played. Since they had to follow along the movie was inevitably either halfway through or mostly finished by the time it was visited. It ended up making me less likely to wish to sit through half the movie then start it over again so that I hadn’t really the vim or vigor to see the exhibit as they had intended. After the Charles De Gaulle exhibit is where I visited the ancient weapons armory then I realized I was really done.

The day had me walk to the Louvre then Notre Dame then back to the Louvre then back to the hotel then back to the Louvre and beyond it to Invalides. I was very tired especially because the switch from destination walking to museum walking really took a lot out of my legs. As it was though when I had gotten back to the Seine on my way back towards the hotel I thunderstorm rolled in. I pulled out my jacket and put up my hood (I was again one of the few sans winter clothing in the heat) and made my way to the street where all the shops were across from the Louvre. Of course the rain picked up harder the further I went. When I found myself at Le Carousel (the place I had already eaten with the very helpful waiter) and I saw the same waiter was right there I realized it was time to wait out the storm. I had a couple Affligem and the special of the day which he suggested was the best choice. It was roast beef with mushrooms and au gratin potatoes. It again was very good as he suggested. A woman from Toronto ended up sitting next to me and we chatted for a while about various things. She’s obviously been traveling for a very long time and has been to France and to Rome for the past several years she said. She also turned out to be a former English teacher. This killed off the majority of the time that the storm ran across the city and then I made up my mind to have one more beer and see if I could make it to dark to get pictures of the Eiffel Tower at night. Unfortunately I realized after I was done with that beer that it was not going to happen and I headed back up La Fayette where I got into the hotel at about 9:15 or so. The sun really hadn’t set yet as it was. With that behind me I checked through packing and got myself ready for the return trip to Boston as best I could without accounting for the morning cleanup. Since I had scouted the train station I was pretty sure I knew what I had to do to get back to the airport and on my way eventually.