Paris Day 2 (11/15)

Day 2 Paris, Wednesday. Another beautiful day but a little chilly. We set off this morning and walked towards the Seine and then to the Louvre. The Louvre is made up of a string of monuments. At one end is the Jardin des Tuilleries. Then the huge Palais-Royal Musée du Louvre. Then at the other end is the Cour Carrée, a huge square surrounded by a single building. We entered through this square which was large enough for military parades. Through an archway on the other side you could see the very modern glass pyramid which is the entrance to the underground Louvre entry. This huge area is where one buys tickets for the various exhibits. It is also the entryway to the various stores and shops. You could actually spend a fair amount of time prowling this area without ever going into the Museum itself. We had decided not to visit the museum partly because it is so huge that unless you have a plan and want to view specific exhibits, you would be quickly overwhelmed. So instead we checked out the shops and a display of some of the old ruins that were discovered when they were building this underground area.

Then, off to walk through the Tuilleries gardens. This being late fall, there were lots of beautiful trees with leaves changing colors and falling but no flowers. This garden is famous for it’s manicured gardens. We walked through for a while but then had to move on. We were due to have lunch with Pascal and Nancy’s son Sebastian. He works for a company that manages some electronic aspects of the French stock exchange, I think. So we walked through a very posh neighborhood of Paris streets for several blocks passing Chanel headquarters, the back side of the Ritz, to his office. I was amazed at the traffic. On one street, it was at a standstill. The was some construction and several vehicles were double parked and a truck couldn’t get by. Traffic was obviously backed up for several blocks because of the one way streets. Truly amazing. Eventually, enough vehicles moved so the truck could squeeze by. And I mean squeeze. I don’t think there was more than 1/2 inch clearance. I was sure glad we were walking.

So we met Sebastian who was blurry eyed from starring at the computer all morning. We went looking for a place to eat. The first place didn’t have a non-smoking section. The second was full. The third was a Portuguese restaurant that was practically empty and had a separate non-smoking section. Well it was empty until shortly after we arrived. Pretty soon it too was full. It was 1 o’clock and all the business types were having lunch. We had a great lunch and really enjoyed visiting with “Bastu” whom we hadn’t seen for many years. His English was impeccable due to the fact he went to grade school in Santa Cruz. It sure made it easy for all of us to have a good time together.

After lunch, we walked Bastu back to his office and then started wandering around. Tai and Nancy went into the Paris Ritz Hotel just to use their bathroom. This is probably the most upscale hotel in Paris. All around this area of Paris are very upscale shops, haute couture. Great for window shopping but way out of our price range. We walked over to the Paris Opera House and went inside for a quick look. None of us were so interested that we wanted to pay the price to actually do a tour. Then across the street along Boulevard Haussman to a couple of really high end department stores. They all their windows dressed up for Christmas with lots of lights and automated puppets. Very elaborate. We went up to the top of Galeries Lafayette to their café for some refreshments and a view of the city and to wait for the Lafayette’s evening Christmas lights to go on. It apparently is quite a spectacle. The sun was setting and the colors of the sunset were awesome. Tai, Nancy and Pascal were getting tired of walking but I wanted to see more so I decided to walk back to the Marais. They went shopping in the Lafayette. Tai got some really nice red leather gloves. Then they went back to the shops inside the Louvre and Tai bought a red, beaded, French scarf. They then took the Metro back. My walk was interesting. After going a couple of blocks in the wrong direction I eventually got on track. It was fun walking through Paris at night. Some shops were still open and I saw a couple of streets where there seemed to be many sidewalk stalls. I made it back to the Marais before everybody else. A great day in Paris but tiring. Since we had such a large lunch, our dinner was very light.