We eagerly boarded the Eurostar for our 186 mph train ride to the regal city of Paris, France. After a quick metro ride to the charming Medieval section of the city, Le Marais, we call our contact who meets and escorts us through two iron gates and two aged wooden spiral staircases to our quaint apartment. From home, on the Internet, I took a leap of faith and rented an adorable one bedroom apartment, complete with living room, galley kitchen, and full bath, and clingy, ravenous, possessive gosh darn washer.( more on this later). It looks out over a charming courtyard from which sparkling sunshine flows through the windows. We feel like real Parisians as we negotiate the narrow winding streets of Le Marais and then return to our own residence. The streets in this section are peppered with stately churches, cafes, patisseries, and gay bars. The sugar laden patisseries cause our mouths to water longingly as we gaze at the flaky almond croissants, decadent chocolate tarts and sweet mini berry pies. I am feeling light headed and yinny just looking at them! I find out later they frequent every other storefront and are there just to torture me!
The first afternoon we decide to follow Rick Steve's walking tour in our guidebook from which I read aloud in my "I love history", authoritative teacher cadence. We stroll up the Rue de Rivoli to the Bastille. Many of you may remember this spot from Les Miserables, Victor Hugo's novel, and later stage play and movie, where, during the French Revolution, the prisoners blockaded the road where the prison stood to boldly protest unfair government practices. All that remains is a obelisk shaped marker in the middle of a very busy intersection. Next we follow the tour to Place Des Vosges, home to the obscenely wealthy who built enormous mansions which form a ornate rectangle with a lovely green space in the center. It is here that we pay a visit to Victor Hugo's home. The writer who presented us with The Hunchback of Notre Dame and Les Miserables had a wife and mistress and built two identically furnished homes for them. His wife was aware of this and did not, presumably complain. Now that's a sweet deal for any red blooded male, right? Le Marais is a neighborhood built on a swamp so
many building are actually sagging as the ground is not able to support them efficiently. We rush quickly past those! In the 1940s many Jewish citizens lived on the Rue des Rosiers and there is an unassuming tablet on the school reminding us of the day the Nazis stormed into the building and rounded up all the young students and their teachers and sent them off to the concentration camp, Auschwitz, and to certain death in the gas chambers. This was a dark time in French history as the Vichy government fell to the Germans and many French turned in their Jewish neighbors to the enemy. Now the street is lined with an unassuming synagogue, delis, felafel joints and bakeries filled with apple strudels and potato knishes. We sample the chickpea laden felafel which is a tasty delicacy surrounded by pressed salad like slaw and cradled in a warm pita bun.
I researched all the vegan restaurants listed on Happy Cow before I came and then coordinated their locations with the sites we wanted to visit. Le Potager du Marais was recommended by Macrotravelfriends. The ample menu is enticing with its vegan versions of French standards. We settle on the French Onion soup, Spinach Lasagna, Eggplant Rolatini and a refreshing green salad. Everything tastes very authentic and it is so nice to be able to have vegan versions of our favorites.
When we arrive back at our apartment we make the ominous decision to do our laundry as I am down to no clean undergarments and do not want to go au naturel the rest of the trip. KO, of course, still has a suitcase full of clean clothes as he, well, he's a guy, and I will leave it at that! So we confidently negotiate the tiny machine and it runs its noisy little course. Fine, great, my panties are on their way. I remove all the laundry and hang it on every surface and hook in the apartment, anticipating an entire clean wardrobe when I awake in the morning. KO, in his efficient way, decides to use the quirky dryer and puts everything back and turns on the machine. It runs its course. But wait, we are dealing with Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors. The machine has been holding our laundry prisoner for two days now and we can not get the darn door to open. We leave for Amsterdam tomorrow so we are thinking of dynamiting the evil contraption tonight. Don't worry, I keep hand washing my one pair of underwear every night!
We visited the usual Paris sites today including the Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Tuileries garden, a walk down the Champs-Elysees, across the Seine and all the way to the Eiffel Tower. Talk about a full day! My poor feet are screaming at me to give them a rest, but we soldier on as we only have one day left and I have an agenda. As it is, we arrive at the Louvre too tardy to see it, as the museum has closed,
so we purchase tickets for tomorrow. The most notable observations of the day are the massiveness and opulence of every structure in this area, including the wide avenues and decadent palaces of a bygone day. While the masses starved, the royalty poured millions into these enormous gilded mansions. Hence the many revolutions experienced here where the unfortunate rose up to overthrow the oppressive and unfeeling government and royal families.
Pausing to rest at a boulevard cafe we indulge in a welcome glass of wine and rest our weary feet. In the distance we can see our target, the imposing Eiffel Tower. We plan to arrive there right as the sun is setting so we can see it in the light and then lit up. Visitors of every nationality are lining up to take the lift to the first viewing deck and capture a spectacular scene of the whole city from above. Exhausted and sated we head for the metro and the three subway change journey back to Le Marais.
You have probably read the entry to this point wondering where the pickpockets come in. This morning I was sitting with one hundred other tourists at the fountain next to the Hotel du Ville subway stop enjoying the sunshine, the fountain and the delicious couscous and lentils I had purchased at the local farmers market. Suddenly I noticed two women obnoxiously harassing an unsuspecting young American tourist by thrusting petitions in his face and yelling a foreign language at him. Then they suddenly vanished into the crowd. There was a group of French teenagers lounging next to me and surprising one tall young man jumped up, ran after the women and triumphantly returned with the American guy's cell phone, which he had not even realized was missing! What a lucky day for him, thanks to those eagle eyed kids and their sense of civic responsibility. Later we learned that pickpockets are plentiful here and are often less than 10 years old and that the police have little power over them. I start wearing my backpack in the front and KO starts keeping our phones and camera in his front pants pocket as a precaution.
More tomorrow on our visits to the Louvre, the bohemian Left Bank and the Sacre Coeur. I might mention that my high school French has proved useful for asking directions, reading signs, talking with the locals and ordering meals. So...I hope you listened and learned in eleventh grade as your teacher droned on and on about French language and culture!
Another note...We did find time to visit some boutique shops and observe that the European man is built similar to our Macrobiotic male friends. KO has difficulty clothing his slim frame in the states, but here it is no problem. He eagerly eased into some lovely sports coats and they fit him like a glove. Unfortunately at 600 American dollars a pop, he had to pass on purchasing them, but as soon his next cheffing gig pays off, he'll be back! Same for that Maserati we saw circulating the avenues today.
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