Paris, je t'aime! Part 2: Lunch in the Marais and a Stroll Up the Champs

In Part 1 of this series of blogs, we'd just arrived in Paris and made our way to Les Tournelles, our home for the next four nights in the Marais neighborhood.

As I mentioned, we finally got started on our first day of sightseeing, so it was high time for lunch.  I'd done some research (ha! "some") before we left, and I steered us toward La Ciderie du Marais, a spot right around the corner from our hotel with great crepes and cider.

The camera obviously decided the door

was more important than Chris here,

hence the blurring.  C'est la vie!

We each grabbed a galette (technically, crepes are only the sweet ones - savory options made with buckwheat are called galettes instead) and split a medium pitcher of cider - everything was great, and we enjoyed our first French meal while watching the world go by, including some local firemen who were very involved in ensuring their hoses were properly rolled up and stored (not an euphemism).

A street on our stroll to lunch - 

that's the Saint-Paul Saint-Louis school in the background.

It was a handy landmark

as we found our way back home each evening.

See?  That's an actual hose running down the street.

Test your French time (also, your eyesight)!

I had the "La forestiere" - Chris' isn't on there,

as it was a special of the day.

After lunch, it was time to start walking off all of the amazing food and drink we'd be enjoying over the next week.  We headed toward the Seine and the Hotel de Ville metro stop, pausing en route to see one of the only remaining sections of the old city wall.  Before nation-states developed in Europe, each major city was its own entity, so walls enclosed most of them to protect the folks there from outside invaders. Once the string of Louis' took over, France was a cohesive unit, so the city wall was mostly torn down, but you can still find small sections of it - the section we saw was built between 1190 and 1213, and it bordered a neighborhood basketball court.

This isn't it - this is another of the

approximate 8000 shots I took

while wandering the streets of Paris.

It's a photogenic place.

There's the wall!

Since folks were using the court, we felt weird

stomping all around it - hence the shot through the bars.

The wall is there on the left,

and just above/to the left of the backboard of the hoop,

you can see an old guard tower.

After marveling at a wall section that's 600 years older than the founding of our country, we wandered to the Seine proper and strolled along the quay to the metro stop.  Of course, we stopped to take a million pictures on the way.

These are the boxes the book/map/picture

sellers open and use when it's high tourist season.

A few were open when we passed,

but it was definitely their quiet season (hence our presence).

OH MY GOD IT'S NOTRE DAME!

Don't worry, you'll see like a million more pictures

of it in later blogs.

In case you didn't know this about me,

I tend to have mini freak-outs when I see something in person

(or someone) that I've read about forever.

Paris is full of these places, as you might imagine,

so there was a lot of, we'll say, architectural fangurling going on.

Our metro ride took us to the Jardin des Tuileries, in the center of Paris' tourist area, which would be the start of our afternoon stroll.  Like many gardens in Paris, it's freaking massive and totally gorgeous, which makes sense, as it was created to be the royal garden of the nearby palace (this one was created by Catherine de Medici - yes, of those Medici's - in 1564).  The name Tuileries comes from a word referencing "tiles," as this area originally featured many artisans of the tile-making trade.

As we walked into the garden, the first thing we noticed was a bunch of police officers on rollerblades, so we obviously knew we were in the right spot.

Also, a crow with a donut.

Not too shabby!

Ah, pigeons.

Doesn't matter where you go,

there's always a pigeon perched on the head

of a priceless statue.

Kids sailing boats in the fountain

Most of Paris' famous monuments (the Eiffel Tower is a notable exception) are aligned in one big axis, which runs right along the Champs-Elysees.  In this shot from the Garden, you can see the obelisk in the Place de la Concorde, the Arc de Triomphe, and the arch at La Defense, which was further than we got on this trip.

I'd like to take this moment to remind

everyone that we went to Paris during

"shoulder" season - this is only about half

of the crowd you'd see during the summer.

That might be the Louvre -

I know that's a silly thing to say,

but there a ton of old, amazing, gigantic buildings

in this part of Paris,

so it could very well be something totally different.

Another mini freak-out moment.

Spying the Iron Lady for the first time

really made me realize we were in Paris.

The gate around the Garden.

Our stroll through the Garden took us next to the Place de la Concorde, which - fun fact - was where the angry mobs set up the guillotine and lopped off the heads of a bunch of folks during the revolution of 1789, including Louis XVI, the king at the time, and his queen, the famous Marie-Antoinette.  Good times!

A cool lamppost, the obelisk, and the Tower again.

I took to comparing the Tower to the Hollywood sign - 

you don't see it for awhile, and then you turn a corner,

and BAM, there it is.

After heading through the Place (which is now pretty much a fancy traffic island), we started up the Champs itself, with the Arc as our final destination for this leg.  It was cool to stroll up the Champs (super neat to see where they finish the Tour each year), but as I'd read from multiple sources, it was crowded and hot, with tourists taking pictures holding Starbucks' coffees and McDonald's burgers (yes, really).  It's not on the "repeat experiences" list.

Busy, busy, busy

The fall colors were just starting to appear

This is what most of the stroll looked like -

crowded city streets, construction,

and people on scooters - those things

have fully infiltrated the city.

By this point, it was about 3pm, and we were toasty, jet-lagged, running on fumes from lack of sleep, and crankiness was starting to set in hard.  We ducked into a nearby cafe, the George V, and grabbed a table in a quiet area in the back, where we enjoyed a few pilsners, some camembert cheese, and a green salad.

Said pils

Our sanity restored, we waded back into the fray to see the whole reason we started this trek, the Arc.  The Arc was commissioned by Napoleon in 1806 but not finished until 1836, and it honors the sacrifices made by members of the French military in conflicts through time and all over the world.  It's cool to see from a distance, but it's truly incredible up close - the detail is insane.  

A shot of the Arc from across the street - 

you access it through an underground tunnel,

as its ringed by a busy, 12-lane boulevard.

You can go up to the top of the Arc

and look out over the traffic, but we skipped it,

as the line was crazy long.

Under the Arc

Names of French generals - 

those underlined were killed in battle

Departure of the Volunteers of 1792 sculpture,

more commonly known as La Marseillaise

Truly, the scale of this thing is staggering

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Look who I spy!

Looking back down the Champs toward the Garden,

and at another tourist

Moving to the barriers above,

this is what the traffic looks like from ground level.

Madness.

After being awed by the Arc, it was time for us to get off the beaten tourist path a wee bit - in the next blog, we take in amazing rooftop views from a shopping mall (yes, really) and finally check into our hotel.  Also, we meet Mona!

Later!

Amy