Paris, like what we’ve seen everywhere in France is beautiful. The people who live in the city live in large buildings, usually 4 stories, in small apartments. But the buildings are beautiful; most have black iron railings and beautiful doors. There are a few examples in the pictures, because we couldn’t resist.
Everywhere you look is beauty, not only in the Arc de Triomphe and Notré Dame, also pictured and beautiful.
Saturday we arrived early and had breakfast at a small bar, all wood, with a mom, dad and son working the counter. Very charming and the chocolat chaud (hot chocolate) was great for the 300 steps we climbed to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. It was well worth the climb. The weather cleared after we came down which was good, but our pictures from the top aren’t as pretty as they would have been with blue sky.
We took a walking tour of Champs-Eylsée. We felt very posh, lunching at an outdoor café, buying a watch (Chuck bought Jan a Swatch at a store on the Champs-Elysée.) We also went to a couple of museums, although we’re saving the Louvre, Orsay and Versailles until the next trip. A couple asked us to take their picture in front of Rodin’s “Kiss”, so we decided to play along too.
We stopped near the very heavily-guarded American Embassy to ask the military police for a police patch. My son, Jon, collects them and we have had fun asking different police for patches. We approach a group of police, so hopefully one speaks English. And after we’ve explained what we wanted, most of the time one of the officers just rips (Velcro) off his/her patch and hands it over. We also hear some of their stories. The police across from the Synagogue in Rouen were there guarding the synagogue during every service. The military police guarding the American Embassy are there for one month tours. They come as a unit from various parts of the country. While they were looking for an extra patch (they couldn’t go patchless) and explaining their rotations, one of the officers added that they were “the best”. Each interaction has been very fun.
Back to Paris. We came up from a subway to hear a relatively heated discussion. We looked around and found the 4 men in the picture, with their hands clasped behind their backs talking about who-knows-what! We had read that the French are very reserved with strangers but equally passionate with friends and love a good debate.
The next picture is City Hall. Below the clock are the words Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Brotherhood)) from the French Revolution. This building, besides being huge, is really beautiful. We keep saying that, as stated earlier, there is a lot of beauty in France. This has become an epic so we’ll save some for the next installment and the next trip.
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