Blog Day 8 Tuesday June 24, 2014

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Paris

A last real morning in Paris started again with fresh baguettes and croissants from the bakery across the street.  They are so delicious, they just melt in your mouth.

Then Dick, Patti, Ramon and Sandra were off walking to get to a boat ride on one of the canals going through Paris.  Paris, actually all of France has a LOT of canals-100’s of kilometers worth.  This ride allowed us to ride slowly through some quiet neighborhoods enjoying the sights and going through a tunnel and several locks. Dick was fascinated at the mechanisms. And it was lovely to savor the views.  The trip was made more fun about half way through our 2 ½ hour ride, when a group of over 75 kindergarteners got on with their chaperones.  These cute kids with their name tags and backpacks were quite well behaved, and really seemed to enjoy the trip.  Many of them crawled over Dick’s legs in the front of the boat, squealing with joy.   And Patti totally loved taking their photos.  Cute kids are her favorite photo subjects, and there were some cute ones!

We then split up, and we headed to another great church overlooking the city Sacre Coure, the Sacred Heart.  From there you could see the whole city.  And we poked around that neighborhood, including see some artists painting in the square and we got to see the only wine vineyard still left inside the Paris city limits. We have drunk some great wine while here, but fun to imagine more vines around the city.  The Sacre Coure church was beautiful, but no photos allowed inside.   The view of the city were breathtaking.  We also saw the famous nightclub Moulin Rouge.  Not very impressive from the outside, but this is where the scandalous "cancan" dancing was premiered.

Although there were still a number of different things we would love to have visited, late afternoon we were out of gas and ready to just go back to the apartment, do some laundry and take a nap.  Dinner was a family celebration, home-cooked food in the apartment, celebrating our last night in Paris, and Ramon’s promotion to becoming a Full Professor at the University.  It was a very nice dinner.

We wandered through the streets one last time.  How has the week gone so quickly!?  After dinner, we went back out to see if we could catch the fireworks that were to go off  to celebrate the fest of John the Baptist.  No fireworks in sight, but one more time walking along the River Siene and seeing Notre Dam lit up in the night sky.  A gelato to top the evening over, then off to bed.  Good night Paris!

“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast.”
― Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast