Heading out to the French countryside

Now that we have the metro subway system down, we thought we would venture out and try the trains.  So, to Giverny, the home of Monet and setting for his famous water lilies pictures, we set off.  First we had to transfer on the Metro and then try to determine how we get our train tickets.  Luckily we gave ourselves enough time, so experienced no problems.  Once there, we rented some bikes and off we went to see the beautiful French countryside.  It was four miles to Giverny and we enjoyed every minute of our alternate form of transportation.  Giverny was delightful with quaint French cottages, gorgeous gardens, and the massive pond on the Monet property still plentiful with water lilies.  One could really see how Monet was inspired by such a setting.  We spent three hours there and then toured the tiny village of Vernon after returning our bikes.  Paris seemed crazy once we returned.  We do not think this city, much like New York and Las Vegas, ever sleeps!  Tomorrow we are off to London!

Day 4

This morning we took a much more relaxed approach in seeing a different part of Paris. We met up Sandy and Philippe who are friends of a mutual acquaintance of ours.  They invited us to join them at a cafe in Paris for some music and conversation.  So...we took a couple of subway rides this morning and found ourselves in a very cute corner of Paris.  At 11:00, there was quite a gathering of people to hear an accordion player, singer and dancer who, for the past 40 years,  on every Sunday morning, have been entertaining folks.  We had fun getting to know Sandy and Philippe while sampling some fine pastries from the boulangerie and sipping coffee.  After two hours, we took our subway passes and used them to take the bus to the Montmartre area, the area where can-can dancers, Moulin Rouge, struggling artists such as Toulouse-Lautrec, Renoir and others in the early 1900's, all hung out.  There is also a beautiful church there that was built during WWI, titled Sacre Coure.  This area is very steep and gives one a beautiful view of all of Paris.  And, was it crowded, especially because it was a Sunday and other parts of Paris were not fully operational. We took in the museum, had lunch and purchased a few pieces of art.  Eventually we tired of the inclines and headed back to our hotel knowing that we still had to climb the 100 steps back up to our room!  We are definitely getting a good workout here in Paris!

More sites to see

Today is Saturday and we are on our third day of exploring this huge city.  We stated that we were going to slow down a bit so we have some energy at the end of the day.  Great idea until the hotel staff announced that the elevator broke and we are on the fourth floor.  I counted 100 steps that we need to climb  to get to our room each time we return from an outing!  Anyway so off we went today to a different part of the city.  Our first stop was the Rodin Museum.  What a beautiful and interesting place.  The museum highlighted Rodin's work with models that he made for many commissions he received.  Then we went out to the gardens and there were all of his works-The Thinker, the Gates of Hell based off of Dantes trilogy, along with about twenty other sculptures.  All that amongst blooming rose bushes and tree roses.  It was so delightful and fragrant.  From there we headed to see where Napoleon's tomb is.  We think our monuments to our great leaders are grand - they do not even compare!  After that we toured the WWII exhibit in the Army Museum which has info and items from all the wars the French have fought in.  We had a lovely lunch there and then decided to go visit the Jacquemart-Andre Museum,  housed in a lovely mansion once the home of a couple whose sole purpose in life was collecting art from all over the world.  They were rich Parisians and their home and possessions were exquisite.  We walked the streets of Paris to get back to our hotel rather than take the subway and really enjoyed the trees and boulevards of the city.

Tonight after a very good dinner of scallops and ravioli and a salad with apples, oranges, grapefruit (one word that I could not make out in French - the rest I could!) and grilled shrimp, we headed up to the top of the Arc de Troimphe (284 steps up) to see the view from the top.  Awesome, especially as the sun set and the Eiffel Tower lit up.

That's it for today!  Only 18,000+ steps today!

Off to the museums

We bought a museum pass yesterday, so after saying goodbye to Christy and Rob, we took off for the Orsay Museum..  This old train station has been converted into a museum that houses the largest collection of Impressionist art.  It was amazing to see Monet, Renoir, Degas, Cezanne, Matisse, Van Gogh as well as many other famous original masterpieces.  Some of these were also at the Orangerie museum which has Monet's water lilies displayed in the round showing the changing light.  From there we headed to Saint Chapelle.  This chapel was built between 1242 and 1248 for King Louis IX.  There are 15 separate stained glass panels  each 20 feet tall.  They depict 1,131 stories from the Bible.  It was totally awesome and very humbling!  Later we met up with our niece, Tracy, who was also in Paris for a day before she traveled to Belgium and then to do a Woofing gig (work on an organic farm - we did not know what it meant either!) in the backcountry of France.  The three of us headed over to the Eiffel Tower to have dinner and then a river cruise along the Seune to see Paris ablaze in light as night settles in.  Wow, was that a sight to behold!  Of course, we had to see the Eiffel Tower up close and personal along with a zillion other people.  It definitely is an engineering accomplishment!  We had to say a quick goodbye to Tracy as Dave and I realized we jumped on our metro headed the wrong direction (Christy and Rob, I did realize it right away though!  Aren"t you proud of us?)once we got to our hotel, we saw that we had again put on 23,000+ steps!