We had a leisurely breakfast, and a latish start, because
we slept late as we had been traipsing the Paris boulevards until quite late
(midnight) last night.
We headed off to the Picasso Museum. Four years ago we
wanted to visit and it was closed until 2010 or 11, so we thought it must have
ready for us. Oh, No it was not. The building was surrounded by scaffolding and
huge trucks, and a sign telling us it would not be open until 2014. Has anyone
ever been to the Musee Picasso in Le Marais? Maybe it doesn’t really exist and
is just listed as a lurk for tourists. However, there may be some consolation
as we saw a Banksy like stencil on the outside walls of the museum.
So we wandered, disconsolately towards Place des Vosges,
and you just can’t stay gloomy for too long in the most beautiful part of
Paris. Gorgeous little shops, a jumble of high fashion, cheap stuff, tailors,
Art Galleries galore, and the most perfect
little park in the world. It is quiet and calm and has a real sense of a village.
We revisited Christian Louis Parfumerie and stocked up on
sweet smelling supplies and had lunch at Café Victor Hugo, strolled through the
cloisters and the park of Place Des Vosges. A fairly pleasant way to overcome
our disappointment about Picasso.
We found the Promenade Plantee, which is an elevated park
made from a former railway viaduct, not far from the Bastille. It is a lovely
shady park, about 4metres wide, 4 metres above the city roadways and we walked almost
2kms of its 4.4km length ending in another park, Jardin de Reuilly. This was
the garden of a palace of some kings from long ago, and is now a beautiful
green oasis, where Parisians sunbake, and picnic and relax.
We noticed that several people were filling large bottles
with water from a fountain, and as my bottle was almost empty I refilled it
too. It was only later when I hd a drink that I realised the water was a bit
fizzy – so a natural sparkling mineral water spring in the heart of Paris, free
for all to use.
We headed back to the hotel for a bit of a rest before
meeting karol and Michael for a drink. Dick and I headed off for our “Skip the
Line” tour of the Eiffel tower. The last time we were in Paris, the queues to
go up the tower were hours long and in the sun, so I booked a tour to miss all
of that.
Our tour guide was an English girl who had studied and
worked in Paris for years. What she didn’t know about the tower, and Paris
probably didn’t happen. We got the lift to
the second level and she took us around each side pointing out all the landmarks
and told us very entertaining stories about each important place. That took
about 90 minutes and then we were free to go up higher, in the elevators.
AMAZING!!!!!!!!!
The views were stunning, and became more so as the sun
set, the full moon lit up the sky and the Paris streets and buildings started twinkling.
We went up as far as we could. The elevator takes you to a closed in section at
the top and you are able to take a short set of stairs to a more open level a
bit higher up. When we got there, the camera conked out – overworked, I think. So
I used the phone, rested the camera, jiggled the battery a bit and it started
up.
At 10:00pm we were at the highest point and the tower’s
twinkling lights came on and we could hear the cheers and oohs and aahs from the
crowd below, but we couldn’t see much!
We had to queue up to descend, and came down to the second
level, looked around and then walked down to the first level. I had been
walking around Paris for most of the day, and my legs were like jelly but it
was a unique experience to be in the belly of the beast walking up and down through
its steel skeleton that took 2years 2months and 5 days to build by 250 men and
8,000 tons of cast iron, prefabricated into 18,000 pieces which are held together
with 2.5million rivets. Until finally we decided to drag ourselves away and got
the lift down to the ground. We then waited until 11:00pm to see the light show
from the ground.
It was, is and will always be spectacular. We know every time
we see it we will be amazed.
Paris is fabulous!!!!!!!
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