Ile Saint Louis

Saturday 23,000 steps

Pretty good flight, I managed to sleep a good part of the way, and Andre did not too bad either. Tough to get a full nights sleep when it is such a short flight. 

All of us have carry on luggage only so it is a quick trip through the airport. This is a cool airport, you go through these tunnel enclosed tubes from your gate that are actually outside, felt a little bit like the Jetsons.

Very cool airport in Paris, we are on moving ramps through tunnels that are outside here 

Love immigration in Europe, hand over your passport, you get a stamp, that is it. No questions, no hassle, no rude agents, if only US was this easy. From getting off plane and immigration to taxi queue maybe 15 minutes. Taxi queue non existent, must be long lines sometimes as there is quite a long walk through what should be the queue. Taxi fare is 50 or 55 Euro depending if you are going to the left bank or right bank. Traffic is extremely light, we made extremely good time. 

Our taxi didn’t drive us the entire way to the apartment, it turns into a one way street going the wrong way for the taxi so he asked if we didn’t mind walking 5 minutes instead of him going around the block. We were more than happy to get out and walk. It is a gorgeous day. We are in a not so touristy part of the city, so lots of local action on the street, it is busy with locals going about their business.

Arrived at our VRBO apartment with the instructions on how to enter. We got in the first locked door fine with a punch code. Next instruction was in the hallway the mailbox would be unlocked with keys and instructions on next steps to enter. This is when we got stuck, the mailbox was locked. I love AIRBNB and VRBO, but am always very happy once we reach the apartment and actually get in. Sometimes it is a challenge to just find the places. Well we found this one, but were stuck in a narrow hallway at this point. I have a phone number that we try calling but even though I call internationally daily at work it is always different when you are actually in the country, do I add the (0), do I need to dial 011 etc. Anyway I couldn’t get the number to work, maybe a bit of jet lag setting in? Just as frustration is mounting the outside door opens and it is the cleaner, yeah. I had asked the owner if we could come by early and drop our luggage off before hitting the sites. We were so quick through the airport and taxi that they had not even been to the apartment yet. 

We are let in, shown how keys and fobs work, leave our luggage, use the safe and we are off. The cleaner helped us call Felix on the apartment phone, we arrange a meeting time of 2PM to meet back at the apartment to pay up for the rent. We have 3 hours to explore so we are off.

Kitchen and view into living room of our apartment

So to kill the 3 hours wait we continue with our exploring and walking. We start off looking for somewhere to get some food, no meals on the WestJet flight, so by now we are hungry. There must be 100’s of places to eat within 10 minutes walk in all directions from our place. We find a place which is like a French Subway. Except that the sandwiches are served on yummy baguettes and the desserts are much better than the cookies you get at Subway.

Saw mail carriers quite a few times during our week, they don't carry the mail here, they push it like a baby stroller

After our breakfast/lunch we walked and walked. Found some markets we had seen on the way down in the taxi. Just walked the streets and got a little lost here and there, but that is part of the fun. Of course visited some churches, and just hope that this weather keeps up all week. We stopped to pick up a few groceries and we have a nice wine store not far from where we are staying, so picked up a few bottles of wine as well to get us started. We anticipate having breakfast at our place each morning, then head out for the day.

Outside Church following service, snacks and wine!

Our street sign

We are really tired by about 1:30 so walk back to the apartment with our wine/groceries, it wasn’t long before Felix arrived. Was hoping to squeeze in a 20 minute nap, but that didn’t happen. 

Had a great discussion with Felix, he stayed for about 1 hour chatting with us. Discussion on AIRBNB and VRBO and how many are now illegal in Paris, as well as many big cities in the world. His apartment is legal because it is zoned as commercial, so no worries he said. Other rentals we have been told that if anyone asks us we are friends of the owner, which I hate, but he said not to worry about this one at all. The apartment is great, huge by Paris standards. We have 2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, a huge living room and kitchen. Free phone to Canada, and free great wifi. Kitchen table seats 8, living room has 3 couches, I think it is bigger than our house! Bathrooms are set up really strange, when I booked it for some reason I thought it was 2 ensuites, but they are actually both off the living room/kitchen area right across from each other in a hall with 2 pocket doors. One has a tub/shower combo, the other a shower only. It seemed like a strange set up at first, but it worked out perfectly for us. 

I finally tell Felix we have to start moving as I can feel myself falling asleep talking to him. So we are off again.

This afternoon we visit Ile de la Cite and Ile St. Louis.
A few shots on the way to the two islands.

RIght outside our apartment, a great landmark for us.  This was an original entrance to the city.  Look closely at the top left hand corner, Wendy was reminded at of work every day, she works at Dovico in Moncton



Saint Jacques Tower - First place I saw a rat on another night!

First views of the Seine

It is extremely busy around Notre Dame cathedral. We go check out where you get tickets to climb the tower, they are all out of slots for today, but we find where the machines are to get tickets for another day. We wait in a line to enter the Cathedral, it is a long line but goes by quickly. There is a mass going on when we enter, we can’t believe how noisy the visitors are. It is extremely packed, lots of people just walking around, I have had enough, not the experience I wanted here, I just want to leave and come back another time when it is not so busy. It is only a 2 KM walk straight down from our apartment so I know we will be back by here many times over the next 9 days.

Huge Lineups at Notre Dame Cathedral on this beautiful afternoon

We went inside the cathedral, but a service was on and too crowded, so only a quick visit

 

We next walk along the river banks to Ile St. Louis.

Beautiful day to just relax along the Seine

Packed river cruise, we want to do this at one point this week, but not on such a big boat!

It is so much less crowded here than around the Cathedral. We did a little walking tour that I had downloaded before we left, a fun way to spend some time. This area in Paris that has the most expensive real estate.

Back of Notre Dame Cathedral



Part of Nuit Blanche, we had no idea what this was at this point, but found out lots later

Berthillon - Famous for it's ice cream, beautiful day means get ready for a line up, we went more than once :)

We stopped for some crepes, not sure if it was lunch or supper, but it was good to get off our feet. But I have discovered I still don’t really like crepes. We shared a bottle of apple cider. We asked if we prefer sweet or dry. No clue what to answer but the waitress suggest dry (brut). It was a good choice. 

 Washroom breaks before hitting the road again. Always an adventure and you never know what to expect. These ones are in the basement down spiral stairs which are about 1 foot wide.

From Ile St Louis we walk back toward Ile de la cite. On the side of the river banks, Bars are setup with music playing and some barges with seating areas as well.

 We continue on with our walking. We have seen signs everywhere about Nuit Blanche, and realize that it is tonight. Andre asks someone about it and we find out there are all kinds of free events going on around town. So we decide to just join lines when we see them. First one is at city hall. We wait in this line quite a while, but finally get in. This is a beautiful building inside, we are taken upstairs on what we think is a tour, but are all seated, it is a fashion show. Probably the most bizarre fashion show, but now I can say we have been to a fashion show in Paris! Not sure where the clothes and models came from, but it was a fun experience.



Line up at city hall for Nuit Blanche



Fashion show time, inside city hall

Food vendors are setup for the evening outside city hall.  Looks good but we had supper a couple of hours ago, so no room.

Many restaurants are open with street side dinning.

Next line up was at a Church, so we decide to join that line as well. We get inside, not sure if it has been decommissioned, but there are wood sculpture things everywhere and some musicians playing as well. We don’t spend too much time here.

Inside the Church

Inside wood carving

We are now heading towards home and see another line. We join this one too, but the guys go forward and see it is a very long line. Not only that I think we are about 40 years older than anyone else in the line, so we decide to skip on this one, maybe it was a club lineup, we’ll never know.

Decide it is enough for one day and head back to the apartment.

Centre Pompadour - really neat inside out building, not too far from our apartment

It is now about 11PM, definitely a long fun first day, time for bed. A bit of a discussion on what time to start tomorrow, we have no definite plans so lets just sleep, Andre figures he’ll be up by 7 working on pictures, but we all need a good nights sleep.