Bonsoir, to everyone,
It is amazing. What? Today is Thursday. On Sunday, I told you about the cold. Yesterday and today have been gloriously warm. I love it.
We are trying to do all the walks in Ricks Steves’ Paris guide. On Monday, we did most of the Left Bank walk, but frankly, it became a bit boring. We walked to see some of the homes of famous people, but found, when we got to these places, there would be a small plaque above the doorway, stating who had lived there. However, getting to these places gave us a lovely walk through some of the previously artistic neighborhoods, and we enjoyed looking into the shop windows, seeing the parks and enjoying the sunshine.
We crossed the Pont des Arts, where the bridge is so full of padlocks that the pedestrian sides of the bridge have been covered with boards, as there is no more room for padlocks. This picture was taken of the back of one of the fences around the side of the bridge. The point of the padlocks is that a couple will place a padlock on the bridge, then throw the key into the Seine River, so that there love will never be unlocked. I love the idea, but have seen this done so many times, it is not very exciting anymore, to me.
While we are crossing the bridge, I looked straight ahead to see the Institut de France.
This is the building where 40 linguists meet periodically, to either admit some words into the French language (for instance, “email”) or keep the French word as it is now. Keeping the French language pure is very important. Do you think they read my blog about the language having too many vowels?
We stopped for lunch at a cafe where artists had dined for over 100 years. That was fun, and we had a very nice, inexpensive lunch, that was delicious.
Yesterday we walked across the Alexander III bridge, and eventually made it to the Arc de Triomphe. There were many tourists out, as well as hundreds of policemen. I do not know why there were so many policeman, but we enjoyed our walk feeling quite protected.
Now we were at the The Arc de Triomphe. We could see people on the top of the Arc, but we elected not to climb up there. We had done that a few years ago, so did not feel the need to do that again.
Today we went to the Marais district, starting with the Bastille. We walked through the lovely Louis XIII park. The park was filled with people enjoying the sunshine. One thing I noted, was that the trees, which were bare ten days ago, are now leafing out and creating shady areas, where one can relax. Unfortunately, the pictures I took on my phone did not download to the iPad, so I can’t send those now.
Finally, we returned home, tired, but ready to go out again tomorrow.
So I will say, Au revoir, and see you again soon.
Dolly
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