Paris

Until I got the great deal from Skyscanner.com, Paris was never on my bucket list. After the usual trans-Atlantic hassles I staggered into my Hipotel. Although bare-bones, I found a cheap, clean and totally acceptable room via the garden.

The metro here is pretty good. Not London good but not bad and not expensive.  $2.00 semed to get me everywhere.

The Seine twists it’s way thru the city and so it can appear repeatedly as one wanders. And there are canals throughout. I wouldn’t call it a clean city nor filthy. A city with all the accumulated mess. And smokers. Criminy, but they do like their tabac here. Sad to see so many gorgeous gals with a cancer stick in the hand. But they put them out proper like, no tossing to the curb. Speaking of women, the reputation that Paris has for pretty ladies is well earned. Whilst probably not a majority, those that are attractive, model like,  seem to be everywhere. In fact as I walked along the Rue de Villette tonight I was amazed how many very nice looking Chinese woman standing against a storefront smiled and said hello or rather BonJour. Nice people (Yes, I’m not stupid, I know they were working).

The he-haw of the sirens is a constant background sound. And there are a ton of bikes, Smart and other small cars as is typical, I believe,  in a Euro City. They even have bike lanes between road & sidewalk. Drivers don’t seem to be as, well, crazy as what I saw in London. Probably comes from using the proper side of the road to drive on. Or maybe the folks here are more laid back.  Dakar.

The water here is as good as bottled.

Knowing French would, I am sure, make a visit here a whole lot more enjoyable and less confusing. I’ll leave it at that as it is my problem, not the natives if I don’t speak their language in any country.  No America, everyone does not have to speak English. Yet even in Liverpool, whilst I couldn’t understand the spoken words, I could at least understand the written ones!

If you wish to see the Louvre, (and if you don’t pronounce it properly you WILL be corrected with disgust) I recommend buying your billet (ticket) in advance as the one hour line I waited in was closer to double that by the time I entered. It is a mind-blowing building. To think of the number of artisans needed to create such a structure boggles the mind as it was once the home of “royalty”. But as a museum though, I don’t think it is quite up to the grand museums in London. The Mona Lisa’s smile, to me, was as if she was laughing at he gawking crowds.  When I said that outload to myself, a number of people chuckled agreement.  By no means the finest work of art in the building. If the painter had been Joe Regular guy, it would attract very little attention.

And it is a very difficult slog maneuvering through the place. The building is UUgge as Donald Trump (shudder) might say.

I liked Notre Dame. A good sized church although not the Glasgow Anglican Cathedral which is a much less historic but a more beautiful adoration.

Paris for me was a stopover not a destination otherwise I’d have spent more time. The only reason I even went there was the low cost flight. My original plan was to fly to London, head to Dover and shoot over to be able to say “I lunched in France”. The goal was not France but rather to see the white cliffs of Dover from the water. The cheap airfare allows b]me to do that from tis side of the Channel.

Technical issues prevent a slide show but I hope the selected photos prove enjoyable.