We got to Paris without incident. The Winnipeg Airport is just big enough for our purposes. The Toronto airport is immense but nice too. We boarded our flight at 7:30 pm. When the aisle seat next to us remained unfilled, we said whoopee. Room to spread out our stuff. The Air Canada seats have more legroom.
Landed in Paris at 9:00 am. Two am at home. Customs in Paris was quick. There was a long walk through the terminal to the train station for the trip to Paris and an even longer wait to buy tickets for the train at one of the machines. This was my first use of our Visa card in France and my fears of rejection were for nothing. I bought return tickets as long as I was there.
At the Paris station we had to change to the Mètro to get to the stop near our hotel. Then it was a 15 minute walk to Hotel des Trois Gares. When I booked this place from home I read it as “Trois Gars” which means three guys. Cool. But it’s ‘Gares’ or train stations. Travel is always an education.
It was only noon but our room was ready. There was a little safe in the room so we left our passports and US money in it and walked over to a cellular store. It wanted to buy a SIM card for my phone so I could get on the internet when I was away from WiFi.
We found the store and the woman there asked for my passport. Dang! Another lesson learned. Fortunately I had downloaded the Google map of Paris so we could use that to navigate around the city.
One thing I wanted to see was the Promenade Plantée. This is an old railway viaduct that has been turned into a beautifully manicured promenade, elevated above the streets. So I had the map on my phone, but it was problematic. It could only show driving routes, not walking and Paris has many one-way streets so I had to think outside the website. But my thinker was compromised. I can’t sleep on planes. So I hadn’t slept in over 24 hours so it was a miracle we had made it this far with no major screwups.
There’s lots of graffiti in the city. I saw a crew scrubbing walls. There are lots of smokers. Good for them there are lots of outdoor cafés. There are numerous ethnic sandwich shops and we stopped at one for a panini.
It was good we had fortified ourselves because finding the promenade was a challenge. I had put in the address for the promenade and we arrived at that address but could not spot any promenade. I have found in my travels that one sign at crucial junctures such as this could save people lots of time. That sign is never there.
Here came a big group of Japanese tourists following their flag-bearing leader. They looked happy like they had been promenading. We went where they had come from. We found a park but no promenade. We made a loop to where we had started and went the opposite way, right up onto the promenade.
We had a pleasant walk along the viaduct and through the narrow gardens. Sweaty joggers whipped past us. A sign said the joggeurs we’re merely tolerated. The walkway was for les promeneurs. Our next stop was Notre Dame Cathedral about a mile away. I wanted to make a detour to get my passport but I had us walk in the wrong direction for 15 minutes. Teresa said no more detours.
Notre Dame was almost destroyed by fire last April. The two great towers were not damaged, but the area in front of the church where hundreds of visitors used to gather is now closed off, and a gigantic scaffolding rises above the church’s nave. We took our photos along with the other pilgrims, then crosed the Seine to the left bank and a café for a glass of wine.
This is Paris at its best. Sitting in a sidewalk café, nursing a drink, with a view of Notre Dame and the tourists on their rented electric scooters.
We crossed the river again to the Marais. In the 1800s Emperor Napoleon III tore down much of Paris and built the grand boulevards. He ran out of money before he got to the Marsis so there’s a funky old town to stroll around. We found an outdoor café and had soup and bread. Very good.
Even though we were as tired as could be, it’s had to fight jet lag. We roused ourselves about 9:30 and hiked up to the train station. It was raining. The station was s mob scene. I had already printed our tickets so that was a blessing.
We were taking the TGV, or train of great speed. Four hundred and fifty miles in 3.5 hours. Zippy.
Things slowed a bit in Marseille. We could have walked 15 minutes to our hotel, but part of it would have been through a gritty area so we took the subway. We descended into the earth and got into the ticket line.
A woman at the end of line was yelling something to a guy near the front of the line. He was yelling back. Then another guy jumped out of nowhere and head butted the first guy. Then people in line tried to break them up and the action swirled like a French flick. The ticket seller said, “Welcome to Marseille.”
Marseille has a reputation for being gritty. Without grit, you have Disneyland. I did check out the travel sites and learned that Marseille is much safer than Chicago for what that’s worth.
The Old Port area was certainly beautiful and full of tourists, mostly European from their accents. We checked in to Hotel Hermes, bought some wine and went to a the rooftop patio to enjoy the view.
We walked up into the Old Town looking for a restaurant. The city keeps rent low here so it’s a real neighborhood and not spoiled by gentrification. The tiny restaurants with three or four tables on the sidewalks all specialized in fish. Teresa is not a fan so we walked down to the restaurant lined waterfront and found a nice place to eat.
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