Notre Dame de Paris, magnificent as ever
Basilica of Sacre Couer, viewable from our hotel room
Statue of Louis Quatorze where we met our guide to the Palace of Versailles
We finally arrive at Paris Gare de Lyon (from Milan) at 9:30 pm. Someone had come around with a trolley and served us coffee on the train. Oddly there are hundreds of people here, and a long queue for taxis. A man offers to take us to our hotel for €70 thus bypassing the taxi queue. It’s a risk of course but sure enough he takes us to our hotel and brings the luggage in too.
There is a receptionist but there are two Asian women at Reception having a long and complicated discussion about bedding and bookings! This goes on for several minutes, and there’s a gentleman waiting behind us as well. This hotel has a really pleasant aroma in the public areas.
Finally we are asked for our passports, although I have already given mine online, and our booking is found. I pay for it with my new credit card, and hey it works. I even remember my PIN. There is also a €300 hold on that credit card.
Our room is a lovely big one, with a view of Montmartre and a tiny balcony! We have been fortunate with balconies, in Florence, on our cruise, in Athens, and again here. Added to this the hotels in Rome and Athens had roof top breakfast rooms. It’s also really quiet, and we appreciate this, and we don’t miss the regular emergency sirens and the train noises that one normally hears in Paris.
We can have breakfast here at a cost of €25 per person! But the big room and bed are lovely and the bathroom arrangements just fine. You can curtain off the toilet, hand basin and shower area. The bed is very comfortable with lots of pillows . There is a welcome luggage rack. The restaurant here has closed but JD thinks we can go to one nearby that is open till 2 am.
So we go out, and to be honest it’s pretty grimy around here, but we find a restaurant that looks all right. It turns out to be Italian and we are served by a very nice young man from Nepal. We share pasta with vegetables with some very nice bread and two glasses of wine – prosecco and Chardonnay and some sparkling water. Really, we are so relieved to be here.
Back at our hotel I sleep well, in spite of the coffee on the train and the wine.
We decide to breakfast here, but the buffet is a little different from our past experiences! Of course it’s laid out differently, but they will cook you an omelette or fried, poached or hard-boiled eggs if you wish, as well as the nice scrambled eggs, bacon and tiny sausages.
You can make toast here, although it’s French bread, and they even have peanut butter as well as a lovely array of jams.
We go up and I shower and wash my hair and wait for JD to do his ablutions. Then we set out for the Gare du Nord, but JD gets an urgent text requiring him to return to the hotel to set up a payment. So we return, briefly.
USB ports are not around as much as in our last trip; furthermore, they don’t always work. So it’s nice when they do, as here in Paris.
We walk to Gare du Nord and queue up to buy tickets for the two station ride to St Michel, the station at l’Ile de la Cité. We get there and have 1 hour until our free ticketed entry to Notre Dame at 1:15 pm. So we look unsuccessfully for the restaurant where we had lunch in November 2024. I must commend the French authorities here: we could get free tickets to enter the cathedral at a set time, thus avoiding the usual queues.
We eat at another one (Ombre de Notre Dame) but honestly the food isn’t great. We should have chosen to eat further away from the cathedral.
My quiche Lorraine was disappointing although the generous salad that came with it was all right. Sparkling water and white wine completed the meal. And there is a toilet – down tricky flights of stairs.
Then we went in to see Notre Dame Cathedral. There weren’t actually that many people queuing up to go inside; it’s still magnificent on the outside. But inside – it’s different. Where’s the famous Rose window? And the chapels obviously need repairing. Still, we’re glad we saw it. We are not quite as “wowed” as we were last time we saw inside it – in 2010, I think? I don’t think we went there in 2016. JD agrees, but we did see the back of the cathedral then, always distinctive and recognisable.
Then we plan to walk to the Musée d’Orsay. We have tickets booked for 2:30 pm for the Renoir at L’Amour exhibition, and it’s a half hour walk. It’s not raining and it’s quite warm. But in spite of all our previous excursions both our feet get really tired and sore. We are admitted to the museum, initially to the Renoir in Love exhibition, which shows some of the drawings he made in preparation for his famous paintings. Then we go to the main museum, which is wonderful. But we are very tired. There’s a queue for the cafe so JD has a rest while I peruse the gift shops (he hates queues; my view is that if there is a queue, it’s probably worthwhile!). I was hoping to get something for my daughter in law, but I don’t see anything I really want to buy.
We go to the cafe and buy coffee, fruit and a Danish pastry for me, and a blueberry muffin for JD! So original, but it’s a nice break.
Then we go in search of Room 5, with the main Impressionist painters, but wouldn’t you know it’s up on level 5! It’s really hard to get to, and not at all obvious. There are escalators, and there are masses of people there. So we don’t spend a lot of time there, but I can now see why folks are so enthused about it. I now realise why people really like this Gallery!
In a very French way it’s not easy to find our way out. Seeing a W.C. sign I decide I need a comfort stop, but of course the restroom is up several flights of stairs, and there’s a queue. JD meets me; we try to use a lift to descend, but it’s for official use only. Eventually we make our way out, and then have the task of getting back to our hotel. Google is really frustrating. A lady security guard advised us to go to the nearest Metro and take line 12! She was quite intense about this but across the road from the museum we found steps down to a Metro station that was under the museum; somehow we got back to St Michel, and then with difficulty (again!) took the B line back to Gare du Nord.
And then we found our way out (not easy!) and back to our hotel.
Tomorrow: the Palace of Versailles! Then all our entry tickets, to the Uffizi Gallery, the Duomo in Florence, St Peter’s Basilica and the Borghese Museum in Rome, and the Acropolis and Acropolis Museum in Athens, and Notre Dame Cathedral here in Paris, will have been used up.
It’s now Thursday, our last day in Paris. Yesterday evening we were so tired that we didn’t go out for dinner (it’s really hard to eat well in Paris, especially in this area). Instead we ate what we had with us: a soft chocolate chip biscuit from Musée d’Orsay, some potato crisps and biscuits and drinks from our long train trip. We resolved to eat breakfast here in the morning. I actually slept really well, and woke up with that slightly drunk feeling of having overslept.
EVA Airlines want me to check in for our flight. So I gather all the relevant information, I think, and then they want the flight reference. So I find that too, but no joy, although I tried various combinations of our names. Perhaps I can check in with Air NZ later. I need to know how early we should be at the CDG Airport.
We go down to breakfast and order omelettes. They are very good indeed. There’s nothing quite like a French omelette. We have fruit and cereal and I have toast too: I just love having peanut butter again, and raspberry jam.
Today, the Palace of Versailles. I feel extraordinarily tired now, as though I’ve used up all my energy. Both of us are finding that we have sore feet., and Paris is a tricky city to walk in.
We left much earlier than necessary, fearing that it would be complicated to get there. But actually it’s easy as, despite escalators not working. We go to the ticket office at Gare du Nord and buy return tickets to Versailles. Then it’s the Blue subway South to St Michel (Notre Dame) and then a regional train to Versailles. We have been here before! So we are very early, but go to the same café as last time. They’re not very busy, it’s a fine day, and we’re here!
JD thought he was ordering orange juice but instead it’s orange, lemon, cinnamon and honey flavoured tea. It is delicious.
JD has received his online entry card to Taiwan; I have not. And we can’t check in to our flight to Taipei online.
We joined our tour guide as requested by the statue of King Louis Quatorze (14) on horseback in the large cobble-stoned courtyard in front of the Palace of Versailles. It is a fine statue. There don’t seem to be as many people as there were in November 2024, but once we get inside it’s crazily busy and difficult to keep track of our guide. There are only 10 in our group. But you can’t really take photos. He wants us to look at the high ceilings often, but that tends to give me vertigo. Still it’s good to just look at things. We tour the king’s apartment, and the Hall of Mirrors, and eventually the tour ends. We can go into the gardens if we wish. I need to use a rest room, and I find one but it doesn’t say whether it’s for male or female.
Then while trying to find our way out we are in the long hall of battle paintings, that so impressed JD back in 1974. These include Napoleon’s wins but also earlier battles. They are large paintings and very graphic. Seeing this again was one of our main reasons for coming! Then we make our way out and back to the station. There’s a train there, very full, and we get on it. Sure enough, it takes us back to St Michel/Nôtre Dame station, and then we catch a Metro train back to Gare du Nord.
We feel that we have mastered this section of the Underground!
That night we are to eat at Hotel Bloom. We arrange to eat earlier, and order a car for the morning to take us to the airport .
So Paris is a bit dirty and grey, but hey, it’s Paris. We’ve been here before, and we know what it’s like! At least it’s not stinking hot.
Nga mihi nui!
Classic Barbarian 