Paris Day 5 - Best laid plans...
Trip day: 19 / 21
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| This took several takes to get right – tough work but we soldiered through 😉 |
The weather gods favored us today, probably for the last time. With little to no chance of rain today and temps pushing 70F again, we were winning the weather game here in Paris. I doubt that luck will continue tomorrow, our last day, as rain is forecast at 100% probability through 2PM when it drops…to 90%. I think it will be a wet day tomorrow.
Given the favorable weather today, we decided to take a Seine Cruise. Since we had already seen much of what we would see on a Seine Cruise, we opted for another one offered through Viator, Seine River Cruise and Paris Canals Tour. Rather than a one-hour tour, this one was scheduled for 2.5 hours and it mainly traveled the Paris canals (we didn’t know Paris had canals), navigating multiple locks and touring little-seen areas of the city. Sounds great!
We headed off in that general direction, but since we had time to kill, we stopped in the Invalides area and walked around the Hôtel des Invalides – a series of army museums including a church and the tombs of many famed officers, including Napoleon.
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Looking north up Esplanade Des Invalides toward the Grand
Palais. |
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| Hôtel des Invalides |
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| Another overly fancy government building - French government buildings make US government buildings look like…well…government buildings |
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| All that gold... |
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| Can you take a bad photo of the Eiffel Tower? |
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| Paris doesn’t seem to have an “Embassy Row” like other cities – embassies are scatted through the city – this is Columbia’s embassy |
We walked all around the area and then headed north up the Esplanade des Invalides toward the Grand Palais.
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| Pont Alexandre III - an ornate bridge informally known as the Russian Bridge and named for Czar Alexandre III |
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Watch for this from another viewpoint later… |
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| Grand Palais |
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| Watch for this later as well... |
After wandering and taking in the sights, we decided to head toward our cruise departure point so we would know we were there with plenty of time. Once in the vicinity, we stopped for lunch at Istanbul Gourmand and enjoyed mixed chicken and kebab sandwiches.
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| One of the few restaurant meals we’ve ever had where the meal itself looks exactly like the menu photo |
While there, I received a phone call. I wasn’t going to answer, but it was from country code 33 – France. It was our tour operator. Due to a technical issue, they were canceling our cruise. Dang it. I messaged Viator and they quickly issued a refund, so there were no issues there. Still, we were looking forward to it, and tomorrow won’t be a good day for a boat tour.
Armed with free time, we wandered across the street. It is an area known as La Villette and features the Paris Philharmonic, park areas, Grande Halle de la Villette (a convention center), the City of Science and Industry (a museum geared for kids), and more. We had fun wandering and just looking at the interesting architecture and sights.
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| Paris Philharmonic |
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One of the canals in this area of the city |
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| City of Science and Industry |
Like everywhere else we’ve been in Paris, there were tons of folks out and about here. Paris is quite vibrant and seems to have come back well from the pandemic.
Since it was such a nice day, we decided to try to salvage the cruise idea and headed to the Eiffel Tower area where we knew there were other river cruises. We were able to hop on the 4PM Bateaux Parisiens cruise on the Catherine Denueve.
The cruise took an hour and sailed east on the Seine past Pont Neuf and Notre Dame before turning around and sailing back.
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| Heading out |
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The American Church |
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One of the multitudes of drinking and dining establishments
on the Seine |
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| Russian Bridge |
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Remember these? |
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I told you that you’d see them again… |
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Palais Bourbon – houses the French National Assembly |
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| Hôtel de Salm |
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| Musée d'Orsay |
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| Swans on the Seine |
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| Académie française |
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| Académie française |
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Sailing under Pont Neuf – the bridge with all the goofy
faces |
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| There they are |
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| Notre Dame |
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| Statue de Sainte Genevieve |
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| We passed several of these half-circle areas, each with different music playing and dancers, dancing away the afternoon |
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| Paris City Hall |
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| Conciergerie |
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Who knew we could have taken a limo? |
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Pont du Carrousel |
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| Louvre |
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| Louvre |
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| Grand Palais |
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Grand Palais and the Russian Bridge |
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Hey – there it is again! |
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Does this look friendly? |
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You never know what you’ll see on the Seine… |
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| The Zouave by Georges Diebolt |
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Again, never a bad photo… |
It was interesting seeing the sights from the river and an enjoyable experience.
After the cruise, we decided to head back to yesterday’s lunch stop, Mokus l'Écureuil. We enjoyed garlic bread and cocktails at a table on the sidewalk. It was beautiful out and we liked just watching the Paris life.
Our world cruise buddies, Kathy & Steve, are in Paris. We liked the vibe of Mokus so much, we recommended it and they are meeting us back here tomorrow for lunch. We’re looking forward to seeing Kathy and Steve, who were gracious enough to host us for an evening at their house in Virginia when we were traveling to Maine last summer.
So while tomorrow will likely be a washout in terms of weather, it will still be a great day and a nice way to spend our final day in Paris – with friends.
We’ve seen all kinds of things on the subway. Beggars that come on, pontificate for a bit, and then walk through the car with their hands out to accordionists – also with their hands out, to tonight’s feature, a ukulele player and singer who probably shouldn’t quit his day job. We didn’t see anyone put anything in his hat.
Tomorrow – lunch with friends, and packing. We’ll see what else the day will hold.
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