Paris (Oct 15-19) - Euro Adventure 2023https://static.wixstatic.com/media/7f23fc_4debb5da276d498199e6490c962df3cf~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_1000,h_750,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/7f23fc

We’d visited Paris on a few other occasions, so while I LOVE the city, it was not necessarily a required stop. Especially, because they were in the midst of a bed-bug infestation that news outlets suggested had spread to the Metro and possibly the Eurostar Train to London. We seriously considered not visiting, going to so far as to call our hotel on multiple occasions to better understand their prevention policies. In the end, I couldn’t leave Europe without spending time in Paris.

As I mentioned in a prior post (see Basel Oct 4, 2023) we bought a book along our travels, Slow Train to Switzerland, in which the author, while expressing some disdain for Paris, also mentioned a must-see sight, that we had missed during previous visits. For this trip we identified a few new areas to explore and a few old haunts to revisit.

We departed Ghent, after visiting with 7-week-old Border Collie puppies (I’m always up for a puppy fix!) at the train station, and traveled through Kortrijk, Belgium, to Lille, France before heading on to Paris. After a lengthy discussion with a taxi driver at the station, who wanted to charge the equivalent of a trip to space to take us to our hotel, we opted to navigate the Metro and crossed our fingers about the bed-bug scare. Traveling from our arrival station at Gare de Nord to Gare de Lyon, we exited the station and found our hotel, the Tapestry Camille, within a few blocks. Dropping our bags and venturing out in search of food, put us in the midst of Rugby World Cup fever. We watched some of the game while eating at Ground Central, then returned to our hotel to see France lose to South Africa in the quarter finals.

EXPLORING THE CTIY

The next day, we were awakened to construction noise, which would have been nice to know prior to our stay. At least there were no bed bugs! Regardless, we put our metro passes to good use and rode out to Chateau de Vincennes, one of the two new places we had not previously visited. After touring the expansive grounds and visiting the museum regaling France’s military history, we returned to the Metro and rode to the 8th arrondissement to stroll the Champs-Elysees and the Seine. We visited Notre Dame, so grateful we had toured it extensively on a previous visit, and read about the on-going and extensive reconstruction efforts.

The second must-see attraction we previously missed was the Cimetiere du Pere-Lachaise, the largest cemetery in Paris and the most visited necropolis in the world. The grounds were spectacular, with well-maintained cobble-stoned alleys, and more than 5,000 trees, a few more than 100-years-old. Beautiful examples of sculpture, and sometimes incredibly ostentatious mausoleums, adorned the 70,000 tombs honoring the dearly departed, almost always named after the patriarch.

Because we had seen the movie “Barbie” (see Amsterdam Oct 4-11, 2023), which for me called out the patriarchy’s ironclad rule over our society, I found it nearly comical that each tomb was grander than the next, almost as if families were keeping up with the Jones’s. If a prominent man died, the next man had to have a larger, more expensive final resting place, oftentimes overshadowing everyone else. Even in death, people seek to leave as large a footprint as possible. Notwithstanding the ludicrousness of ever-increasing tombs, it was a charming, memorable and magical visit.

Next, we revisited the 18th Arrondissement, Paris’s most famous district, Montmartre and the white-domed Basilica of Sacre Cour. During our last stay in Paris, more than a decade ago, there was no such thing as TikTok. However, during this visit, we recognized the social media sensation, playing the accordion with his cat, as we strolled along the backside of the Basilica.

On our last day, again gray, cloudy and cold, we wandered through the 1st Arrondissement, starting at Chatelet Metro, over to Ile de la Cite to see Ste-Chapelle and back toward the Louvre. When it started raining hard, we ducked into Westfield Forum des Halles to see the three-hour Killers of the Flower Moon, followed by food and shopping for gifts for our London hosts. It was a good way to spend a rainy afternoon!