Bonjour! Carnet, s'il vous plait?

I'm on a train to Nice, a 5 1/2 hour direct train ride from Gare de Lyon station in Paris, and a great time to catching up on blogging. The average age in our car is at least 70, so it's nice and quiet as everyone naps. Our Sports Reporter is busily working on his reports next to me.

Our day yesterday started early in Brussels as we had to leave ourselves plenty of time to drive to the station and return our rental car. While this may not sound too hard, we had no idea where the parking garage we had driven the car out of was, and we would now be dealing with Monday morning traffic...at least the early bit. Luckily, thanks to the data minutes we had on our SIM card in our unlocked iPhone, we were able to navigate ourselves to the station and found the entrance to the parking garage in one short lap of Brussels-Midi station. Phew!

One thing we have learned as we have traveled more and more is that with a few minutes of studying, you can be a pretty unobtrusive tourist and get though busy transit points pretty well. Before leaving home, I had found the website for the Paris Metro, and just like you can do on the DC metro website, I had figured out how to get from the train station to our hotel, our hotel to Notre Dame, and from our hotel to the train station we left of this morning. I printed those puppies out and pulled them out in Paris.

With those directions in hand, and Rick Steeve's info about metro tickets and passes, I was able to walk up to a ticket window and say, in horrible French but in French nonetheless, "Bonjour! Carnet, s'il vous plait?" to which I received 10 train tickets (a carnet apparently). We then followed the signs to our metro line and got on it going in the right direction. Woot woot! It's the little things.

We got to our hotel, a lovely little establishment near the Eiffel Tower recommended by our friends and fellow travelers (see our trip to Berlin) Becca and Jeff, dropped off our luggage and headed out to spend our day walking all over (touristy) Paris.

First stop, Notre Dame.


Point Zero sits outside Notre Dame and marks the center of Paris. It is the point from which all distances to and from Paris are measured.





Many of the bridges have 'locks of love' on them. Todd, Sports Reporter and Engineering Columnist, wondered how long it would be before the bridge crumbled under the weight of the locks. We'll get back to you on that.


OK, time out for a funny story. We're chilling along the Seine near one of the sets of stairs down to where the boats dock, and overhear some tourists (Americans, sigh) as they come up the stairs. One, looking at her iPhone says, "We're 7 minutes away from Notre Dame. Just go down this way and turn right." What's funny you say? If she had looked up, she would have seen Notre Dame even closer and on the LEFT. Sometimes you just gotta look up from your phone.


(Just used a new app, Aviary, to write on that photo, and it was so easy - awesome sauce!)

Break for a beautifully presented coffee and some lunch


Now, as you know, I am a dork and like visiting things from movies and books in real life. During a staycation in DC a few years ago, Todd and I had National Treasure day where we went to the National Archives, the National Archives gift shop, and the Library of Congress. When I went to Rome with my mom and Elena, we went to all the churches where bishops were killed in the book Angels & Demons. I loved every minute of it.

Hence, there was no doubt that once in Paris, we would be looking for the medallions that mark the Rose Line from the The Da Vinci Code movie. I did some pre-trip research and found a website that listed all of them. I printed the list of ones near the Louvre, and Todd and I were off medallion hunting. Luckily, since they are in a line, after you find a couple, it's a smidge easier to know where to look for the next one. Here are the six we found.

152 Boulevard Saint-Germain


3 Rue de Siene (where one used to be)


On Quai de Conti


Near Pavilion Daru, Napoleon Court, The Louvre


Todd eating one on Napoleon Court, The Louvre


Final one we found on Napoleon Court, The Louvre


At the end of our medallion hunting, we started our walk to the Arc de Triomphe through the Tuileries Garden and up the Champs-Élysées.

Our our way up the Champs-Élysées, Todd found a Formula 1 car sitting in the window of the Renault store. How fitting.


Many steps later (those blocks are like Vegas blocks), we reached the Arc and forked over the money to walk the bazillions steps to the top. It was worth it. The breeze up there was fantastic, the views were great, and why the hell not? We're in Paris.

They've got a camera mounted under the top of the Arc and at the (almost) top, they have a monitor where you can see the camera feed. Pretty cool actually.


Views from the top








After metroing back to our hotel for a quick rest, rinse, and change of clothes, it was off to the Eiffel Tower. I had purchased tickets a couple months ago for 7:30pm to we would hit sunset around the time of our tour. That ended up turning out quite well as you'll see in a moment. And thank goodness for the advance purchase, because you could easily spend hours in the ticket line.


If the elevators up don't give you a heart attack, this is one of the many vast views from the top.


Engagements happen.





You can buy champagne (perhaps to celebrate engagements).


You can see if you are as tall as the tower.


You can see how the tower compares to other tall things like the Skytower in Auckland.





And then maybe, if you're in the right place at the right time and just have luck on your side, you might see the Eiffel Tower lit by a stunning yet subtle sunset.











Au revoir, Paris!