Brain train to Paris + environs 6/23/15 (Part 2 of the journey)

My brain was taxed trying to recreate the path through Europe and it was only one week old. I got myself through and to Paris and had to take a break. Thank goodness for date and place stamps on the new smartphones, b/c man-o-man does the memory not work like it used to. Never mind trying to use the mind's eye- mine is very myopic!

So we came into the Paris area and had 3 days to be tourists, with the idea of some wandering and some specific searching. People watching is also always great fun in large cosmopolitan areas.

By the way, here is how little we saw on the last leg of France's countryside:

This, in case you are wondering is an elevator in Dijon, France. That is all I remember! Road weary and ragged around the edges from jailbed mat's on the floor, all night revelers, etc. we decided on a comfy'er place and chose Dijon which seemed halfway between Switzerland border and Paris. Of interest to me was only the fact that the French have a ground zero.

 Also of moderate amusement was that after 37 tunnels throughout the alps and overcoming my abject fear of them, we came to this whimpy half tunnel thing in Talant. 

PARIS AND ENVIRONS

We hit Paris and found our little guest hotel which we called home for 3 days and then hit the streets running. And run we did, everywhere we could in 72 hours. Here is the blur of Parisian environs from a road-weary traveler.

First to learn is the lay of the land. Hotel was between the 10th and 3rd arrondissements. There are 20 arrondissements (administrative districts) of Paris, France. This snail-shaped map shows the clockwise spiral grid starting in the middle with 1 being the right or North bank of the Seine River which runs thru the city. We quickly learned to navigate in relation to the river.

 The city is so dense with these little, narrow streets that it felt like a maze of city-within-a-city. 

 Despite the narrow and small feel, this guest hotel actually has 6 floors.

 It was incredibly charming and we thoroughly enjoyed our stay.

 Tasteful, funky, fun. and functional would be the words I use to describe the hotel.

This is looking down onto the courtyard from out our 3rd floor window.

While we did do the Hop-on bus and a river cruise for an overview, there also were some specific things we wanted to see which were in the 5/6 (Latin Quarters) and the 18th arrondissements (Montmartre and Pigalle). Finally, we wandered a bit into the suburbs or outskirts also in search of specific sites. 

Here are the general sites, which I'm sure have been photographed a zillion times, and now a zillion and one.

Thermes de Cluny Boulevard Saint Michel Latin Quarter. This was one of the first relics we saw as we came into the city and we were like, "Oh cool,  Roman baths vestiges. This shit is old and historic."

And then we saw all this guilded splendor! Palais de Justice – gates of the cour d'honneur. Wow, pretty darn fancy.

Our eyes widened at the size of this, Sainte-Michel Notre-Dame. Oh we had heard of Notre-Dame (not in our Pastafarian un-bible of course, but somewhere). But wait, this was the one in the Latin Qtrs., not this one:

Yeah, this is the one in the island on the Seine, THE Notre Dame, and yup it was impressive, but then so weren't these:

 Even though grossly overshadowed by that tower, Jardins du Trocadéro were also a sight to see!

 Hôtel de Ville (town hall) was impressive

My favorite buskers were set up in this massive square:

 Theatre du Chalet

But of course the two winners were these:

The shocker was how huge the site was. I had no idea. 

And I.M. Pei's Pyramid was as odd to me up close as I'd imagined it would be.

Even my attempts at a Pano shot of the Palace didn't capture the enormous place. And the answer is "No, we did not go inside. Neither one of us had a burning desire to, so we skipped it."

 And our taxi cab driver told us about the one regretful piece of architecture that France had and you can espy it in these two final Eiffel Tower shots.

You can see it off in the distance, Tour Montparnasse, it is a 210-metre office skyscraper located in the Montparnasse area.

 And finally it got so you saw all this stuff as just sort of dull gray ornamentation that was stuck ALL over everything EVERYWHERE!

Except this obelisk. This did not belong here and I have a big sneaking suspicion it was stolen from another country and put up here as a big 'ole "in your face" to the losing country.

And then there was all the rest. All the rest of the little things that got were so insignificant next to the giganimous stuff that one almost forgot to look. Except me of course, because I am always looking. And here is what I found that I enjoyed.

I thought this shop, albeit not Charlie Hebdo, was adorable. And speaking of that magazine (which although I wanted to, we did not visit), we did see signs of "Je Suis Charlie" (We are Charlie) and I was surprised where it was:

The surprise is that this is the town hall. And let me remind you again of its size:

We saw gads of people in all sizes, shapes, colors, and creeds. And yes we did see armed people in uniforms in a few places, but for the most part we did not see fear or violence. We saw a busy, bustling major cosmopolitan city not unlike the ones we have seen around the world.

 Missed a real grocery store, but still fun to run into this "7-11" type store.

 I really like the design of this public Water Closet.

 Couldn't read the French, so I didn't utilize it.

 I thought this street sweeper was adorable!

 Very funky door knocker.

Just a random shop in Paris.

We saw tons of these cryptic wall stencil/small art comic objects such as the blue little critter in the upper left on this corner wall. We never did figure/find out what it was all about.

We saw very little construction in Paris, but this one big site. Unsure why the Palais Justice needs a new bldg. b/c I swear we saw some huge, garish gold-guilded fence thingie bldg. that was the current Palais Justice.

 My favoritest picture is of hubby:

This is Peter Wasted in Paris!

THE RIVER SEINE

Who knew that one could be so effusive about a silly River, but for some reason I was drawn to this one. We have been many places and done many, many river cruises. But the River Seine seemed so active, vibrant, and integral to live of Paris that I was very drawn to it. Enough for its own page! 

Somebody more knowledgeable than I has a great blog on the river, so check it out:
http://www.aparisguide.com/seine/

 One of the 37 bridges that cross the river.

 The lovely and the sad story of Paris Bridge's Love Locks

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/02/world/europe/paris-bridges-locks-of-love-taken-down.html?_r=0

 But despite the NY Times article, we did find some extant locks. And no we did not add one of our own.

My favorite River Seine boat.

 

 This was a hard concept to figure out. Unsure if it was a alternative way to visit Paris (b/c that container looked to be about, if not bigger than our guest hotel room!), or some sort of art.

The later proved to be the case:
http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&u=http://lesberges.paris.fr/agenda/city-camping/&prev=search

 I was fascinated with this whole process, thinking in my mind that one day I will write a story based on this so I just shot away with my synthetic memory storer!

 I envision the carrot-top gray beret guy as the artiste supervising the either installation or removal of instillation piece.

 I know little on these oddities on riverbank. Couldn't find any information on them.

 We got a big kick out of watching this doggies in the river drama unfold. Apparently "no dogs allowed" is enforced as the water police quickly arrived on the scene to shoo these folks and their pooches along.

 Oh and we ran into our frenemy, Mr. Thomas Jefferson!

 We searched high and low for his "companion" Sally Hemings, but couldn't find her. But I can see why Mr. Jefferson is depicted in this puffed out, pompous pose, for we found a great deal of hypocrisy in the morality of the times (late 18th century) and much tacit acceptance of infidelity. In France it seems words like concubine (from Old French, from Latin concubīna, from concumbere to lietogether, from cubare to lie) are worn as badges of honor.

 Loved watching stuff go by on the river. Little life's pleasures, right!?!

 We just missed the lunch cruise, so instead ate here at a stationary boat restaurant deal thingie.

There was something that was incredibly interesting to this boat crew. I was dying to know, but alas had no way to find out! Imagination will have to do.

On our riverboat cruise we once again saw that ugly, oops we screwed up skyscraper. It really does stick out like a sore thumb (I don't know why I just typed that silly idiom, I have had many a sore thumb and they did not stick out. I mean heck, thumbs always stick out anyways as they are opposable and attached at quite a distance from the other fingers).

 The River Seine is a pretty busy place.

 As are its river banks as well. These little green boxes lock up and store whatever the vendor has. This was a mishmash site w/ mostly books.

And this gentleman was hawking his (?) art.