Paris

My sister Susan and I started our trip to Europe in Paris, and it did not start out well.  While taking the metro to our hotel in the Rue Cler neighborhood, a pick pocket stole the 300 Euros I had withdrawn at the airport for spending money, which really bummed me out for a while.  However, once we got to our hotel, and went for a walk through the streets of Paris, it was hard to stay mad.  I did check Google to see it if the guillotine was still legal in France, just in case I ran into that pair again and was able to get them arrested, but unfortunately that practice, as well as capitol punishment in general, was outlawed in France in September of 1981.  Pity. That night Susan and I went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, where I learned that Susan has an aversion to crowds, which is a bad thing to have in Paris during tourist season. However, the best sights in Paris are the neighborhoods, which have a lot fewer tourists and a lot more locals just enjoying what Paris has to offer, such as at the cafe in the photograph on the left.

We did visit the Louve and the Musee d'Orsay museums, which like the Eiffel Tower seemed to have thousands of tourists, all pushing past you to see the great artworks and take "selfies" in front of every damn one of them, but afterwards, we always headed back to Rue Cler, a market street with wonderful cafes, where we could walk up and down and choose that night's spot for dinner.  I personally feel that Rue Cler is Paris's nicest neighborhood, with lots of tree lined streets, picturesque cafes, and wonderful little parks, like the one in the photograph on the right.  We began to feel like locals there, especially after dining at the Cafe du Marche a second time, and a waiter coming to our table and telling us we were undercharged 20 euros the last time we were there, and that he would add it to tonight's bill. Sometimes living like a local has it's drawbacks.

One thing my sister remarked on is how many steps there are in Paris.  In the metro you are constantly walking up steps and then down, sometimes for no discernible reason, and there are often long passageways to get from one line to another.  After you get out of the Metro, you still wind up having to walk long distances to get to where you want to go.  Sitting outside in the cafes along Rue Cler, we saw a lot of elderly people walking past, often moving very slowly.  I suspect that they just stay in their own neighborhoods, patronize the local shops for their food each day, visit with neighbors they see on the street, and avoid traveling to distant parts of the city, which sounds like a good idea to me.  And who can complain about that when your neighborhoods look like the one in the photograph on the right (which happens to be the Ile Saint-Louis, Paris' priciest)?  All in all, visiting Paris was Susan and my favorite part of the trip.