No Parles vous Francais-Our Trip to France Part 1

It Was a Dark and Stormy Night

We left a bright and cheery train station in London and arrived two hours later after a trip under the English Channel to a dark and stormy Paris.  As we got off the train to try and figure our way to the hotel we were met with French signs we couldn't read and a welcoming party of shady looking men and women prowling around the station waiting to pick our pockets. I felt like I was in Oliver Twist; French Style.  We stopped to get some euros from an atm before using the bathrooms because in France, as in England you often have to pay to use them. But our bills were too big for the attendant to break and they wouldn't let us in. Rock kept assuring me that most people in France speak English, but these ladies apparently didn't get the memo.  How do you say, "I really have to pee!!" in French?  We tried our credit card and after several malfunctions it finally let us in. Yes, you read correctly.  I said "pay for bathrooms, attendant and credit card" all in a sentence about using a bathroom. 

After successfully navigating the bathrooms, a feat unto itself, our next hurdle was to get a taxi to the hotel.  Well, really it was to get past the mangy pick pockets lurking at every exit of the station. Standing out in the pouring rain in the middle of Paris at night Rock did his best to communicate with a non-English speaking driver.  Because we were using Uber, a taxi type service where you call for a ride and someone comes to where you are, the process was a little tricky.  But we eventually found the driver and he drove us careening through the dark side streets of Paris to our hotel. Just as in New York, it is always better to close my eyes while in a taxi.  

Though our first impression of France was a little on the scary side, the rest of our trip has not been, thankfully.  It's been a wonderful and unique experience!  Even though floods and strikes have kept us on our toes, we have loved seeing Paris.  It is bigger than life.  We've actually seen more of it then we would have had our plans all worked out perfectly.  So, onto Paris, then.

Awe Inspiring

The next day we failed to set our alarm and for some crazy reason slept until 1:00 in the afternoon! Half of one precious day gone!  We got up and out as quickly as we could.  First stop: Notre Dame.

This building is SO immense.  You cannot possibly get an idea of its immensity from these pictures. But that is the way everything is in France.  BIG!  HUGE! On a scale you've never seen! In height it is really not that much taller than Westminster Abbey, which totally surprised me, but it is so much more imposing for some reason.  

Here is a video of the front up close.  It's so big you can't get it in a picture.

Here is the central doorway.  The detail is astounding.

We walked around the side and saw this beautiful door.  

While around the side, the bells started ringing, so I took this video so you could hear the amazing sound.  It just reverberates through your whole body.

There was a sign on the inside of the cathedral that said no pictures, but apparently nobody noticed the sign except me.  I did steal this one picture of the stained glass window, though.

Outside of stained glass window

Back Side of Cathedral

Next to the Seine side

Gargoyles!!

Wandering through Paris

After seeing Notre Dame we wandered for a while, heading towards the Champs-Elysees.  We found lots of good stuff on our way.

Quaint buildings and Cafe's like this

Yummy food along the streets like this:

These are Chocolate Meringues.  Not my favorite treat in Paris, but fun to try.

Lunch at a cafe.

Be careful. When you order "Toasted Ham and Cheese"in France, it's a bit inside out.

We made our way along the river watching it flood some more.

We eventually came to the Louvre.  It took an hour to walk around and past the outside.  It is so huge! I never imagined it would be the size of a small city.  My pictures will not do it justice, but since these are all I will get of the Louvre, they'll have to do.

Here's a video of the outside.  I learned (after I took this video) that it was originally the King's palace in Paris before Louis XIV moved to Versaille.  Makes more sense.  I was incredulous that they would make this building just for art.  And while we are on the subject of art, can I just say, why does ALL French art have to involve naked women?"  Sheesh!

Rock posted this one on facebook to everyone's confusion.

 
Here is the trick your eyes are playing.  The front of the Pyramid is covered (temporarily, it's not usually like this) with this cool black and white picture of what is being covered up by the pyramid so it looks like the pyramid is not there almost.  Crazy, hah?

Wandering through the Tuileries Gardens at the Louvre.

Like I said....

My best attempt to capture a panoramic of the whole front side of the Louvre.

Look what snuck up on us!

Our Triumph of the Arc de Triumphe

As it got dark we walked down the Champs Elysees to see the Arc de Triumphe.  We stopped at a street vendor's cart and bought what has become our very favorite treat here in Paris, Crepes!  They make crepes and fill them with yummy stuff like Nutella (my favorite) and then fold it up in a triangle, stick it in a bag and hand it to you. They are hot and yummy and warm you up on these cold wet days here in Paris.  We eat about 3 a day!!!  People often have either a baquette or a crepe in their hands as they walk around Paris. 

We finished the day at this amazing arch.  It too is so much bigger in real life than my pictures show.  It was a loooong walk from Notre Dame to the Arc, but it was well worth it.

We climbed to the top! It was a lot of stairs after a long day of walking.

 Triumph!  

Perfect way to end our first day in Paris.  

Stay tuned for part 2

The Other Side of the Pond-Our Trip to England Part 4

Black Caps and Parliament Chaps

On our last day in England we toured Parliament which meets in the Westminster Palace where Big Ben is.  This building:

This is the Westminster Hall, one of only two rooms they allowed us to take pictures in.  A LOT of history happened in this room.  It is also the oldest part of the palace.

For example...

Thomas More was the main character in "The Man for All Seasons" 

William Wallace of Braveheart fame was also convicted in this hall.

The beginnings of British government happened here.  Many early kings were crowned here and ruled here. 

This room was the first place parliament ever met.

I didn't take these, but here is what the modern day parliament rooms look like.

The Court of Lords

The Queen always comes in and sits in that gold throne to give a fancy speech at the start of a new session of parliament.

House of Commons

The English have some pretty fun traditions that they still follow.  When a long ago king tried to arrest some members of parliament, they slammed the door in his face.  So now they go through the same motions of that event.  An envoy from the king walks down the halls and up to the doors of parliament and they slam the door in his face!  He has to use a fancy stick to knock on the door before they will let him in.  We found out that they are just about to vote on whether to leave the EU in a few weeks.  Big stuff happening in England!

After our Parliament tour we went over to Buckingham Place to watch the changing of the guard. 

Buckingham Palace when it's not crowded with tons of people.

Buckingham Palace is the official home of Queen Elizabeth of England, though she only lives there part of the year.  A Queen and her palace need guards and so every day at 11:30 the old guard switches over to the new guard.  It's all very official and steeped in tradition.  The guards wear big fluffy black hats and bright red coats and march in time to music. Here is a video of the new guard marching into the gates.  There were too many people for us to get close, but this is pretty fun to watch.

Here are some other pictures of the grounds around the Palace.

Harry and Holmes

On our way out of London we stopped by Baker St. 221B to see where Sherlock Holmes "lived".

Tiles on the wall of the subway under Baker Street.

We left London the way every good Hogwarts student does; at Kings Cross Station on Platform 9 3/4.

I so wanted to pose for a picture at this spot so bad.  But, the line was too long and we would have missed our real train if I had.  

And thus we bid England farewell.  Now that I have France to compare it too, I can see now that the two are very different.  The English are more reserved, more proper.  Things are orderly, official, traditional.  I felt very comfortable there.  Like I was visiting my cousins far away.  Everything was in English even if it was called something a little different.  "Way Out" instead of Exit or Loo instead of bathroom.  Not too different from the way we do things in America.  France, as you will soon see, is very different and quite a bit more intimidating.

Before we move on to our trip to France, though, I have to share some of the beautiful and distinctly English buildings we saw throughout London.  They range from imposing ones to quite quaint ones. I took these at random whenever I saw something that said, "English!"  

.

Now off to France!

Chambord Under Water

Here is an updated photo of that beautiful Chateaux de Chambord I showed you in the last post.  This was taken yesterday and put on a French news site.

Definitely won't be going there.  

We also just got word that they are closing the Louvre until the day after we leave.  We were planning to go today.  I'm going straight to the Eiffel Tower before they tell me I can't go there either.

:-(

Paris is Flooding!

We interrupt our regularly scheduled programming for this important news announcement:

We picked the WRONG week to come to Paris.  

Last week, thirty people were struck by lightning.  This week there has been a metro strike that has closed down a third of the subways going into the city.  And now Paris is flooding!  The river Seine floods occasionally, but this year, THIS week, the one week out of 52 this year that we could have come to Paris, it is flooding worse than in 60 years.  It is now closing subways and trains. Our dinner boat ride down the Seine was canceled and it closed the Louvre today. Now it has closed the roads we were going to use to go see all the Chateaux', including THIS most famous Chateaux de Chambord.

Take a good look cause this is all you're gonna see.  It's all I'M gonna see. Sigh.

Water is not yet over the roadways of Paris so we are not floating away just yet, but we are having to re-route and re-plan our trip.  Rock and I are getting to be pros at this, however.  We had to re-route and re-plan our honeymoon when a hurricane and volcano consorted against us on our trip to Puerto Rico.

Here are some of the pictures we've gotten of the flooding in Paris.

This is the Pont Mirabeau Bridge in Paris.  It usually looks like this:



Today it looked like this:

Below is a video of another bridge in Paris near the Hotel de Ville, the seat of Paris city government. It shows the sidewalks beside the Seine flooded pretty well and gives you a good look at the city too. Please excuse my horrible mispronunciation of the River Seine.  We hadn't heard it pronounced right at this point.  It is pronounced Sen.  

On our train ride home from Versailles today, the water was almost up to the train tracks and right outside the window.

They stopped our train several times and then went very slowly the last 5 minutes of the ride because there was water on the tracks.  Ironically enough, the Eiffel tower is in the background.

This view of the walkway next to our train shows the water leaking through the wall onto the pavement.  The river is just on the other side of that wall and above our heads.

This is a video of actual leaking.

This view shows the river on the left, way higher than normal and our train down below on the right.  They closed this subway/train right after we got off.

When we got down to the underground part of the subway right near here to get back to our hotel, you could hear the water leaking from the roof!  It sounded like it was raining in the subway!!!

Crazy times, folks!  They say the water level was supposed to peak today, so things shouldn't get too much worse.  I'm crossing my fingers the Louvre is not closed tomorrow too!  Ironically enough, it hasn't really rained much since we got here.  And we've been able to see and do plenty.  Still having a fabulous time!!!  

We now return you to your regularly scheduled programming. 

The Other Side of the Pond-Part 3

After the Eye of London we wandered over to Trafalgar Square.  This square and its monuments were in honor of Lord Nelson who died at the Battle of Trafalgar (pronounced Trufulga in England.)  :-) Love the English accent.  We saw this add for getting Londoners to visit Las Vegas on a bus yesterday.

..so true, so true.

Good luck trying to explain that to your nephews, Al.
;-)

Back to Trafalgar Square...

 Cool Lions

Cool English Scene

This is the entry to the Mall that leads to Buckingham Palace

The Mall

The Ugly Duckling Meets the Queen

The green around Buckingham Palace that you saw in my last post is St. James Park, pronounced "Snt" James :-) . This was my favorite park I think.  Someday maybe I'll get to go back and explore it better.

Another very different kind of duck

When who should come along but the Ugly Duckling and his parents.

Buckingham Palace

The last place we stopped on Tuesday was Picadilly Circus which is kind of like the London version of Times Square.

Stay tuned for our last day in England; Parliament, Buckingham palace, and Platform 9 3/4!