We spent a few days in Paris. Paris is known as the "City of Lights". But is has to be dark to confirm that, what is difficult when the days are long. We had to wait past 11PM to see the
Eifel Tower
iluminated overlooking the Seine River. Quite nice.
BTW. The Seine River looks like a dead river. We could not see life in it. Unlike the Danube and the Rhine (not to mention the canals in Holland) we could see no water birds, not even meagre ducks. We saw though dead rats. Farewell,
Ratatouille.
We took the fast train connecting Rotterdam and Paris. It is called
Thalys. Theoretically, the travel takes less than 3 hours in very
confortable wagons. The reality was different. We got a wagon in which the air conditioning was broken and the train was
very slow, so slow that local trains were overtaking it. Apparently, there was a
mal-function in that particular train. What the odds? To be fair, our return trip was alright.
Probably the most important thing we did while in Paris was to spend a day at the
Asterix Park, located in the outskirts of Paris. The characters of
Asterix,
Obelix (see picture) are very famous in France and also in other countries. Not so much in Canada, except among the
Francophone and French Immersion students. We are big fans of
Asterix and his adventures are filled with fun. Overall, it is a thematic park with a flavour, with parts for Gaul, Rome, Greece, the Vikings. Besides, they have the fastest wooden roller coaster in the world, called Zeus. As Thales says, if you do not go to
Asterix Park you did not go to Paris!
Another place that we visited was the
Capel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, located in rue
du Bac, in Paris. This is a special place since my great-aunt was a nun of the Daughters of Charity and very dear to us.
We stayed in a hotel very close to the Louvre. Tonic Hotel is its name. When we arrived they offered us candy instead of tonic water.
This proximity lead us to visit the Louvre first. Indeed quite an amazing museum. The problem for us is that after visiting so many museums everywhere (Smithsonian, Vatican, New York, Vienna, Athens) the Louvre looked like just another one. Of course there are fantastic things to be seen there and we enjoyed every single minute.
Among the most important
pices of art we visited is the section dedicated to
Pierre Puget (see statue below) who is likely a early relative of Denise and Thales.
What I enjoyed most in the Louvre was the statue of Aphrodite (Venus) of
Milos. This incomplete statue was found in the Island of
Milos, in Greece, and it is believed it portrays the Greek goddess of love and beauty. Some say, it is the perfect woman since it has no hands. Those who say that are mistaken. Women can do fantastic things with their hands!
One of our favourite places was the Church of
Notre Dame and its two towers.
Notre Dame is a very old church, which started to be built circa 1160 being completed nearly 2 hundred years later. It was vandalized during the French Revolution. The novel by Victor Hugo, The
Huntchback of
Notre Dame, helped to create awareness to the state of the Church. From then on it went through a process of renovation. We were told it is today the most visited site in Paris!
We really enjoyed going up the narrow stairs to see close hand the gargoyles, those nice but
generaly misunderstood stone creatures.
Our visit ended with a nice lunch at the
Flamel Restaurant. It is located in the house where Nicolas
Flamel lived. Nicolas
Flamel is a historical person who live in Paris in the 13
th century along with his wife
Perenelle. As history tells, they disappeared for some time retuning better off,
becaming benefactors to churches and charity. Several churches in Paris have statues and references to him. People started to say that he had found the formula to change metal to gold. After his death, some people looking for the book that had this formula opened his coffin to find it empty. This fact created the
mith that
Flamel have never died.
The whole atmosphere in the restaurant was nice and the service was excellent, specially the bread that followed the dishes: they were enough to avoid a later visit to McDonald's.
