Our last day in Paris was quite an adventure, but I'll get to that in a bit. We arrived back at the hotel around 11:00 p.m., but we had a departure time of 10:00 a.m. which was heavenly news since we had been leaving so early. Janice and I had a glass of wine in the bar and the bartender brought us some bread and cheese to have with our drinks. It was lovely. I have been having so much trouble uploading photos and translating my blog from French back to English, that I was happy to have some extra time to write and get caught up with uploading my photos. But alas, my tablet was slower than dial up at uploading photos to my blog or Facebook. At some point after Janice fell asleep, I decided to give up, but then couldn't sleep as I was annoyed with my unfinished upload. So I got up again and waited for my photos to upload. I finally fell asleep around 3:30 a.m. with the comfort that I was only a day behind instead of two.
We both overslept, so it was a rush to get ready and packed back up, but we were on the bus at 10:00 and headed one last time to central Paris. Our first stop was Notre Dame Cathedral. David told us that after the French Revolution the people were not only against the monarchy, they blamed the church for its collusion with the king. As a result, the country was very anti-religion for a long time and the church buildings were abused and not maintained. Victor Hugo was concerned about Notre Dame and wrote The Hunchback of Notre Dame to motivate the people to care about the cathedral again and it worked.
Notre Dame is an amazing piece of architecture. It was started in 1177 and different sections were added until it was finished in 1870. That's a really long time, but when you see the intricate work both inside and outside, and the amazing height, it is quite awe-inspiring to imagine men with just hand tools steadily working on this magnificent building. The building has curved arches that provide strength for the height and the placement of windows. There are gorgeous reliefs and statues and it made me wish I had a guide or book to explain all of the symbolism of each detail. I did learn that the gargoyles at the top were there to scare away demons. The inside of the cathedral was filled with large columns, marble mosaics, painted ceilings, and many more statues. Every few steps, there would be an alcove with candles for people to light a candle and pray (for a donation of 2 Euro).
It was time for lunch, so we walked toward the Louvre to eat nearby since that was our next activity after lunch. We ate at a little crepe bistro, and tried gallettes that are savory crepes. We each ordered a different one so that we could try several. Mine was filled with mozzarella cheese, tomato, basil, and proscuitto. Jennifer had one that was filled with potato chunks, a very mild sour cream, bacon, and onion. Aubri's had goat cheese, apples, and honey, and Janice's had salmon and other stuff. I didn't pay attention to hers since I don't like fish and wouldn't be trying hers. They were all quite tasty even the salmon (according to Janice and Aubri). We also each had apple cider with our meal which turned out to be pretty strong. No apple juice here.
The time had come to meet up to go to the Louvre. We were told we would need to buy some food for dinner and breakfast on the train and a little market was pointed out. We were also shown where we would be meeting up at 5:15 to ride the bus to train station. We had an 8:00 train to catch. We were sent off into the massive Louvre. It is the world's largest museum and was actually a palace and the home of the kings until Louis XIII built Versailles. We had about two hours until we were going to meet Jennifer at the market, so we got busy finding Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo the two most famous pieces in the museum. Aubri wanted to see the Medieval and Egyptian exhibits, so we worked our way to these exhibits. The Louvre is four large buildings with three stories each that form the sides of a square. It was tricky finding your way around even with a map! At some point, I got separated from Aubri & Janice, but didn't worry too much since I tended to read placards (when they were written in English) making me a bit slower than the average person, and I figured we planned to meet at the market at 4:30, so I'd hook up with them then.
Around 4:00, I started to look for an exit. This was a challenge. I kept following the signs, but then would hit a dead end. I was having a hard time understanding where arrows were pointing. After asking an employee I finally made it to the main entrance area, but couldn't figure out which exit I was supposed to take out of the museum. I finally picked one, and ended up in a place different from where I expected. It took a while for me to get oriented and find the right landmarks, but eventually I made it to the market, but Janice and Aubri weren't there. Jennifer showed up, and still no Sprague duo. I started to get worried. I walked back to the meeting place to get on the bus, and told Jennifer I was concerned they may have had the same problems I did. We kept checking the different places, we had been, but they were no where to be seen. David told us how to get to the train station by Metro and he and the rest of the group left us to wait for and/or look for our missing mother and daughter.
After about 1.5 hours of one of us looking while the other stayed at the meeting site, we found them. What a relief! Poor Janice and Aubri had gotten turned around and had spent an hour looking for the market and the meet up place, but never found it. They spoke to a police officer and called Jennifer's phone from a pay phone since Janice didn't have international calling on her phone and then waited in the courtyard of the Louvre. About the time that Jennifer was getting the message, I had taken another walk through the courtyard and we found each other. Hooray! We met back up with Jennifer and decided a taxi was the way to get to the train station, not the Metro. We got to the train station around 7:00 p.m. and met up with the rest of the group. Whew!
We are now on the night train and are settling in. There are six bunks in our compartment and we are sharing ours with an Italian man and woman who seem quite nice. I plan to sleep tonight especially since the train does not have any internet, so I can't attempt any more uploads for a while. We arrive in Milan at 6:00 in the morning. It is 10:30, and I'm going to get almost seven hours of sleep tonight. Wahoo!
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