Winding Down

November 1, 2016

Winding Down

We leave tomorrow morning to fly back home, so I want to get one last blog post up tonight.

Sunday, we filled up again on art, starting by going to the Louvre. That place is gigantic, extremely elaborate and would take days to tour it thoroughly. We did the “find the pictures and sculptures we want to see” version, so it took us less than a day. Obviously, the Mona Lisa was the picture to see (if you could get past the crowd), and  the Venus de Milo statue, were at the top of the list.

After the Louvre, we headed over to the Rodin Museum, which is a much more manageable size and is in a beautiful setting of a former mansion where he lived at one time and surrounded by gardens, which were filled by some of his many statues, the most famous of which is The Thinker. It was much more relaxing than the Louvre.

Next, we visited Napoleon’s grave and the Cathedral of Saint-Louis Des Invalides, which are right next to each other. They are both very majestic and Napoleon’s tomb is massive. I guess it fits his personality. Large! Anyway, it was interesting.

By this time, we were ready to stop touring for the day and headed back to our Airbnb. Later, we started walking the neighborhood and discovered a little Asian restaurant, where you go in and buy the food by weight. We were hungry for noodles, so we had chicken soup with noodles and another noodle dish. The food was very good and inexpensive. You might wonder why we would be eating Asian in Paris, because French meals are expensive and we aren’t big of fans of French cooking . . . a lot of rich sauces. It comes down to a matter of taste and our pocketbook.

Monday, we started off by visiting the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysees. We climbed to the top and viewed the city on a beautiful and clear fall day. After getting back down to street-level, we walked down the Champs-Elysees, where many of the wealthy people of the world spend time and money. We sat and people-watched and saw people of all shapes and sizes, colors and levels of beauty and fashion. It was interesting and humbling to remember that Jesus died for all of them.

We continued our walk past the Grand Palace and the Petit Palace and then took the Metro to the Pantheon where we saw the graves of Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Rousseau, the Curries, and Alexander Dumas, as well as, the Foucault pendulum, which demonstrates the rotation of the earth. While walking, we stopped and got a €2 chocolate cone at McDonalds. I should mention that when McDonalds wanted to open a store on the Champs Elysees, it was viewed with horror. Now, it is the busiest McD’s in the world. In their stores here, everyone orders via touchscreen and pays per credit card via the screen or goes to a special line for cash. You then go up to the counter to pick up your order. Every McDonalds that we have seen, has been very busy. Maybe it’s the fries. People over here love their “frites”. . . with mayo and ketchup or various other sauces. Go figure. Other than buying a drink one other time, we have stayed out of any American restaurants.

We ended the day, with a visit to the Jardin du Luxembourg. The setting was beautiful, right in the middle of the city and people were out by the thousands, sitting in chairs, picnicking, talking and enjoying each other’s company. In a large city like Paris, people take advantage of any window they have to be outside and experience nature on a beautiful day. It helps when the next day is a holiday.

Today, is All Saints Day, which is a national holiday in France. We started off the day by visiting the largest cemetery in Paris. It’s huge! We walked through parts of it looking for the graves of Chopin (pictured), Jim Morrison, Oscar Wilde and Maria Callas. All the people were out, placing flowers at many of the graves. They even have a section called Jardin du Souvenir (Garden of Remembrance), where people were throwing flowers onto the grass in remembrance of those gone before. The graves are large concrete structures of varying sizes and placed very close together. It was started in 1804. We were glad that we got to see that side of French culture.

After the cemetery, we went to the Basilique du Sacre-Coeur which is a church on top of one of the highest points in Paris. It provides a great view of the city, but was a bit hazy today, even though it was a lovely day. The place was flooded with people relaxing and enjoying their day off. We took the funicular to the top and walked down and continued down the street to the Moulin Rouge, which is in a not so nice part of the city. After a photo, we picked up a few things for breakfast and headed back to our neighborhood to pack and get ready to fly out tomorrow morning. It has been a wonderful adventure and we are so grateful that we have been able to spend the time together doing something that we love. See you stateside and thanks for following along.