France Day 3 - Paris

Thursday

We should have set the alarm. Had a great sleep because we had figured out the evening before how to adjust the A/C. Woke up at 8 am. At breakfast 40 minutes later. Lots of different stations everywhere. Picked something quickly since we have to hurry a bit.

At least the coffee machine is right behind James and I can see when there is no line.

We met our group at 9:30 am in the lobby. Our local guide is Joelle who speaks perfect English and is easy to understand. She will walk us through "Le Marais", one of the districts of Paris. Our hotel is just about on the north edge of it. 

This is what I have copied from a paper map: 

Originally, the neighborhood was a "marais" (a swamp). Hence its name. In the 14th century, Charles V, called the Wise, and his sone Charles VI, called the Beloved, took up residence her (no building left). They are the only kings who ever lived here. 

During the 17th century, the Parisian nobility and bourgeoisie moved int Le Marais. Numberous private mansions were built. By the middle of the following century, the district was gradually abandoned by the elite, who moved closer to the Louvre and Versailles.

The French Revolution finally drove out the wealthy owners and from then on, the district was home to the working class. Huge houses were subdivided into small apartments. Beautiful inside decore was distroyed. .... And that is it in a nutshell.

Joelle was spanky and fast. She warned us about the traffic.

Do you see the three police persons standing at the intersection waiting for green. 

If I understood right, Templars must have been very early on very rich and powerful here. She pointed out this church (which we had seen the first day with homeless tents on its side) and you can see the Maltese Crosses on its door. HERE is a very interesting read!

Here Joelle is showing us and talking about a community garden with raised beds etc.

And then she leads us through the "Marché des Enfants Rouges". It is the oldest covered market in Paris and was established in 1628 as the "petit marché du Marais" in the 3rd arrondissement. The market has been listed as a historic monument since 1982.

The name in English translates as "Market of the Red Children", and refers to the nearby "Hospice des Enfants-Rouges" where orphans were clothed in red, the color of charity. The market offers fresh fruits, vegetables, flowers and bread, as well as restaurants where shoppers can buy cooked meals.

Condé Nast Traveler advertises it to foodies!

Joelle takes us into several gardens (now little parks) of former mansions. The mansions used to be huge and all had those court yards. 

Several of these former mansions are now public like this one which is the Musée Picasso.

Here our guide points out this painting which is of former nobility and was done by a famous street artist. You can see the little yellow mark on the bottom C215 = Christian Guémy. You might want to read the link. Quite interesting. 

This is now the Hôtel Carnavalet.

More street art in Paris. If you walk with open eyes you can find the "Pixel Art". This is what I found about it on the internet:

-The artist has worked to hide his true identity as he has slapped the sides of buildings and monuments with the pixelated-looking pieces of art. When he started in 1998, Invader just did mosaics of characters from the game “Space Invaders” around Paris.

-Invader is a pseudonymous French street artist identified as Franck Slama. He is known for his ceramic tile mosaics modeled on the pixelated art of 1970s–1980s 8-bit video games, many of which depict the titular aliens from the arcade games Space Invaders, Pac-Man and Super Mario Bros.

This is Place des Vosges.

Hôtel de Sully = formerly a privat mansion established 1630 and is listed since 1862 as a monument historique by the French Ministry of Culture.

And this is the place where our official tour ended. We said good-bye to our local guide Joelle and Sophie opened that white bag for each of us to take one of the baked goods (don't remember the name but it was delicious). I was too late for the photo then.

We disbursed and James and I are going (leasurely) back (here through Place des Vosges) because rain is in the forecast.

On the way we pass a realtor's window. I picked one of the offers which was total area 109,72 m2 (1173 square feet) for 1 395 000 Euros. Ha-ha, seemed like a bargain.

Very close to the hotel we suddenly seemed just right for a light lunch. The sky looked still good and Pho was on the menu. The lady didn't speak English but we managed anyway. She was very friendly and the Pho was just like home (said by the one which would never go to a McD in a foreign country). It was a bit chilly outside and that hot broth was heavenly. 

And just when we wanted to go home... Actually, we are in a doorway making our way.

Our room was still being cleaned so we only picked up the cards and went down and played two fast games. We each won one (which is the same as "we each lost one" but positive thinking, ha-ha).

And since I have some time right now......

I meant to start this blog with saying: I changed my mind about Paris and the French people. I had been in Paris at least 3 if not 4 times and they had not given me a totally good impression. This time is different. So far all the French people have been very friendly to us. It has been nothing but fun and we are enjoying wandering around and looking at thinks. Don't know how much I remember of the history we are being told but it is interesting at the moment and may be some will stick.

Oh yes, at yesterday's breakfast we asked the server about the Olympic game time. She said that they did ok but some restaurants had to close because the tourists were different kind of visitors and some restaurants were so empty that it was to costly to be open. The visitors had to spend so much on flights ect. and hotels that food wasn't much of an option. Now, that was interesting!

*  *  *

At 6:20 pm we were supposed to be in the lobby to walk to our dinner place. We only had to walk across to the other side of the place and the rain had stopped. 

We had to wait a little bit in front. 

Then we were situated upstairs in a huge room all of us which means both groups. When we had received the papers at home about this trip we had seen that we were 63 travelers and there was another couple with the same last name. That had never happened before. They were not in our "yellow" group but they happened to be at this mixed dinner. Of course we knew we would have a chance to meet on the ship where meals are always "open" seating, so this was a surprise that we ended up sitting at the same table tonight. Tammy and Todd were very nice. It will be fun to get to know each other.

We had a menu to study.

When we were asked I ordered the Sea bass filet with ratatouille and James ordered the Beef bourguignon. Sorry to say that both were rather bland. But the conversation at the table was fun and lively ... except the acoustic made it rather difficult to understand each other.

This is my "Floating Island". It also would have benefitted with some taste.

And everybody enjoyed James' selection of cheese. No, this is it. He had not started eating it. The bread was leftover from the main meal.

Suddenly there was a commotion. Our leaders were starting to leave ... something about taking the Metro to the Eifel Tower to see the blinking lights. James and I had no idea really but decided to join anyway.

Sophie had metro tickets. 

We were supposed to get out at Trocadéro.

We made it and arrived in time. It had just starting to blink. Lots of people were waiting. It was really fun. We helped each other taking photos. 

As always, my selfie isn't the best.

Then we made it back to a metro station. Sophie gave us more tickets and the train came soon. We didn't all make it into that first train. Seemed like only 4 of us but we waited until the rest also showed up so Sophie knew that we were fine.

What a lovely ending to this day. So unexpected. We are grateful!