Three Days in Paris-theThird Day

In which we went back to get the car and waited in line forever and got lost on the way back to our apartment in a maze of one way streets...

We finally got back and headed to  Mariana's to pick up her luggage as she had to be out by noon.  Luis found a place to park the car and we got her stuff up the stairs...Paris students really have a lot of books!

We then headed to Montmartre and to Sacre Couer-it really is lovely  sitting up on the hill in Montmartre.

We hiked up the hill and went in..Mariana had been there before and the woman at the door would not let her in in a dress with straps and no sleeve.  we came prepared for the Paris version of Bali sarongs and scarves...but today door attendant was holding a free-for-all and anything was fine.  This after lugging arm covering sweaters in 95 degree heat!!

A couple of panoramics from the top of the hill before we went inside.

Looking up from the front of the church.

I love the shape of  the white turets...domes.So lovely and delicate  for such a large building

A couple of photos of us in front of the church with Paris in the background. There is not time to edit and crop the photos but I will later-it's impossible to get photos without strangers doing photo bombs even if not on purpose.

Other  shots I liked from up top..really show how big Paris is and how far it stretches out.

The girls looking beautiful!

Stone carvings which I loved. Next on to explore Montmartre.

I snuck a photo of the painters' market just to show what it looks like.

We walked around windy streets and found cool spots.

Lovely street scenes and restaurants and flowers.

Loved the stone streets.

I loved the flowers woven into the greenery.

Three Days in Paris, Continued

The next morning we got up and walked to Notre Dame...not far from our neighborhood.  I think we ended up walking many miles a day, but it was all so beautiful that we really didn't notice until night time.  The walk to Notre Dame meant meandering down towards the Seine and crossing to that little island.

This is from my Instagram feed

I remembered some about Notre Dame from nearly 40 years ago, but not much.  It was beautiful and huge.  We decided not to get in the long lines to go up as we would see many other Paris views from above in the next few days.

The cathedral was as beautiful as I remembered and I really enjoyed looking around, taking photos, and being there.  Mariana and I both talked about how although we are both not particularly religious, we love being in Catholic churches...maybe it's the quiet or maybe it's the art, but I do like them.  It is hard though not to think about how much money was spent on these things when wars were raging and people were sick and starving..

After we left, we headed for some lunch in a cafe...love how everyone eats outside all the time...it's warm enough here.  Walking through neighborhoods is the best way to feel a city.

Purple cafe chairs-the perfect touch

The Beginning of my study of Paris doors

We walked through the Marais on our way to find out rental car.  They had told Luis that they were not open on weekends so we would need to get a car we would not need until Sunday on Friday...they had no car, but were open on Saturday so we would have to go back..it was good to see it though because it was obvious we would have to store some of Nana's stuff...which we later did at Gare du Nord-easy to do.

That night we met Mariana for dinner in her neighborhood-across the city from her school...she now things it was a good thing as they were all forced to get out and about and really got to know the city.  We had a good dinner and then Mariana went out with her friends on the last night.  She suggested we go to Champs Elysees to walk to the Arc de Triomphe..What she neglected to tell us was that it was a long walk down to the monument but we walked super fast-glad I have been speed walking-and made it before sunset...We bought tickets and headed up to the top...lovely views of Paris from up there.  I love how it gets dark at 10 pm...it makes for long sightseeing days and we were able to get a lot in during daylight hours.

Looking down the Champs Elysees from above in beautiful twilight.  

So you can really see that thing  from all over Paris.  Love twilight.

Way off in the distance is Sacre Couer and we went there the next day.

This is taken looking down the opposite side from the Champs Elysee-just as the sun was setting close to 10 pm

Taken looking down the stairwell from the top of the Arc de Triomphe.  We took the Metro home and collapsed.  However, out night was not over.  There was a party across the courtyard until 4 am and then one of  the residents must have gone out because he came home at 5 am  fighting with his girlfriend-screaming at each other..we could only shut the windows and sweat...It will go on our review of the place.  Luis says that is typical of weekends in Peru and no one complains...(it happened the next night too-different apartment, live music, no fighting, but a long and rousing chorous of Happy Birthday in several languages.  The neighborhood was great and the atmosphere very Parisian I am sure, but my sister's foam earplugs were no match for partying Parisians.

Three Days in Paris

We arrived around 10:30 am after a comfortable flight.  It turned out to be easy to get into Paris on the train and the Metro.  We walked to our neighborhood-a great one with a walking street just off of ours. This would come in very handy later the first night.  We were  met at the apartment and given keys and the code to get in.  (Note to self-do not choose an electronic device as the only place to store a code.) We walked around and ate lunch on our walking street.  

Our apartment was lovely...it had its quirks including the fact that internet could only have one user at a time-can you imagine 4 Zavalas and ONE internet connection?  Hence, my lack of blogging-we were all fighting for precious minutes and, of course, mine got used up dealing with work crises.  But the light from the bedroom window is lovely...

Our neighborhood has many shops and plenty of cafes and was perfect. 

 I love that you can walk in the middle of the street and then stop for drinks-it's so lively and so active.

I had to take a picture of this restaurant because Lisa and I always eat there when we are in
DC because it's hot and they have the best gazpacho.  This chain really did start in Paris.

The archway at the end of our neighborhood's walking street.

We then went across the city to where Mariana had her classes.  The students were doing readings of their work and Mariana decided she wanted us there for support.  We met her friends and had some lovely food at the reception after the readings.

All the food was so beautifully prepared.

We were so close to the Eiffel Tower that we walked there and took some photos. It was dusk and the light was beautiful.  (We had left Nana to go out with her friends to celebrate-she met some great people that she will see back at NYU.) It was amazing walking through her school neighborhood and seeing the Eiffel Tower peek out between buildings.

This must be it!! 

Yes, it was!!

The Seine was beautiful and we had to do the photo thing...Luis even had Gillian lie down on the grass to photograph him and she got a rash for her trouble.  Here are the best shots.

Gillian fits right in

The sight was so moving.  

It was a perfect evening.  We walked all around and took tons of photos from every imaginable angle.  And then...

We needed to use a code to get into our apartment gate...the code was in Luis' phone which had died. (Remember I said it wasn't good to leave the code only in an electronic device?) It was midnight and we were gonna sleep on the street.  But as luck would have it, everything in our really cool neighborhood was  open and we went to get wine and asked the bartender if he could charge an iphone for a few minutes to get our entry code out...he said, "Which one?  Iphone 2, 3, 4, 4s??  got a charger for all of them"  so we stayed and had wine, and got our code and got into the apt and slept...that was the only night...Parties and fights the other two nights until 4 am....the real Paris???

Harbor Cruise

What is it about being on the water that gives such a different perspective of what a waterfront city looks like?  We took a harbor cruise because it had easy access for mom.  We had tried to take a river boat -sort of a water taxi-but there really was no landing that had a way for mom to get on the boat.   This particular cruise was a sort of Chinese junk.

It could have been tacky, but it was actually very nice.  The harbor is interesting because almost all the shipping is off shore...there is no real docking area and the ships are all anchored off shore and there are taxis to take crew back and forth to shore...

The cruise was about 2 and a half hours and went past several islands, one of which we stopped at.  

Sentosa Island has apartment blocks and looks sort of like Miami...

A lot of these towers looked unfinished and it seemed that pretty exclusive...the views are all of shipping.  

The views back to the city showed the same skyscrapers we had seen from land but from a different perspective.

We stopped on Kusu Island which also has a tortoise sanctuary....it has a Chinese temple and an old Malay temple.  We walked around while Mom rested on the boat.   I even saw the only sort-of-lighthouse on the whole trip.

The Malay temple was up many steps on a small hill.  There were several alters.

 There was also an offering and incense table.

I love that this little out-of-the-way place obviously has lots of visitors...I really enjoyed the trip and it was nice and cool on the water, which was refreshing after so much heat.

Love these fan palms.

An egret-couldn't get any closer though.

Heading back to Singapore, passing container ships...a very nice cool day...

Lovely clouds on the horizon.  You can see Indonesia in the distance.