Day 2 - Paris

One thing I neglected to mention yesterday is a common scam.  I had read about several scams that are pulled on tourists in Paris.  One of these is that a person walking on the street "finds" a gold ring.  They tell you it's your lucky day that they'll sell you the "real gold" ring.  Of course, it's not real gold.  This has happened to us three times in the past two days! (and no, we didn't fall for it)

The Seine (this and next two pictures)

Now, onto the fun!  We began today with breakfast at a nearby cafe.  I had the "American Breakfast" of fried eggs, "bacon" (really ham) toast, jam, juice and coffee.  David had crepes with bananas and whipped cream! Yum!  Then we were off to Notre Dame.  It is a magnificent church with gorgeous stained glass windows.  After touring inside we waited on line to climb up to the top of the towers.  I thought I'd have a heart attack before I got up there but it was worth the effort to see the view!  Then we went underground to the "Crypt" where they have some of the original foundations of the early buildings in the area.

Notre Dame

Gargoyles on top of Notre Dame

Views from the top of Notre Dame (and next two pictures)

Climbing down Notre Dame 

Next we walked to Musee D'Orsay, a beautiful art museum. On the way to Musee D’Orsay, we passed several bridges over the Seine.  One of them was very interesting.  It had thousands of padlocks attached all over it and on each padlock were couple’s names and sometimes hearts!  Very romantic!

There were stunning paintings in the museum, including many that we've seen before in books.  After the museum, we went to lunch at an outdoor cafe.  We have just gotten back to our apartment for a rest and to contact FPP, our boat rental place, to confirm the starting point for tomorrow.  Fortunately, it's where we thought it would be!

 

Inside Musee D'Orsay

Some famous paintings you may recognize! 

Onion soup and quiche for lunch!

After a little rest at the apartment, we set out to find the Hertz rental car place cause we're leaving early tomorrow.  Then we went to the train station to buy our tickets back to Paris next week.
Unfortunately, the second class was all filled up at the time we wanted to leave but we got tickets on an earlier train.  Our next stop was the Marais section of Paris.  We did a walking tour courtesy of my Rick Steves book and ended up in the Jewish quarter, where I'm happy to report there are many Jews living.

The entrance to our apartment building 

VERY tiny elevator in the building 

At the train station to buy our ticket for next week 

In the Marais section – the neighborhood where Victor Hugo lived.

Sign on a former Jewish school commemorating the Jews that were sent to Auschwich 

Locals celebrating Sukkot 

Then we decided to head over to the Eiffel Tower.  We will be staying near the tower when we return next week and were going to visit it then but we worried that if the weather was poor then we'd miss it.  However, when we got there today the line was hours long.  We found out that we can get tickets for next week on line which is what we'll do.  We had a wonderful dinner at a street cafe near the tower and then went to see it (from the ground of course) all lit up at night - Spectacular!

This evening, we had a typical French metro experience – in front of me, a couple passionately kissing, to my right a crazy old man loudly talking to no one and everyone else careful not to make eye contact with him, and when the doors opened, you could hear saxophone music coming from the next car!  When we got back to "our" neighborhood, we stopped in a cafe for dessert!