Day Twenty - Jul 1, 2014

Paris, FRA

High Point: Gargoyles and Grotesques

Low Point: Our straight lines on the metro are really more like circles

Miles By Foot: 4

Miles By Train: 5

Today's Antiquities: The 'vampire' chimera. We'd been waiting a few years to meet him

Today's Weather: Cloudy, a little rainy, still plenty warm. A little muggy. In the 70's

Tonight's Lodging: Mathilde's Amazing Flat

Touristic Events: Notre Dame, the Latin Quarter, the Isle St-Louis

Travel Tip: There is no way to skip the Notre Dame Towers line, just commit

Daily Didactic

Today was a downtown day. Nicely, all of the big Paris "must dos" were done when we were here a few years ago. The only possible exception was the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral, so we made that the day's only real objective. That and a return visit to our favorite Chinese restaurant outside of China... We caught the metro to the middle of Champ De Elleyses, and walked along the Seine until we got to the park that leads that leads to the Louvre where we moved inland and walked up it's center. After a brief pit stop in the wildly high end mall that is under the Louvre plaza, we moved on to Notre Dame. Against both of our instincts, we queued up for an hour wait. While we generally choose to forgo attractions with this kind of wait (which was why we skipped the towers last trip), the word was that this one was worth it. Turns out it was. A combination of three things we love as a couple; narrow circular steps to the top of something, art, and a panoramic view. Theresa was particularly excited about the "grotesques", especially coming within a few feet of the famous "Vampire". The view of Paris from the top was also worth the wait and price of admission. Pleased with our perseverance, we exited the towers heading to the south (left) bank of the Seine and into the Latin Quarter to find Mirama, a Chinese restaurant which holds a special spot in our culinary memory which specialize in many forms of duck. Chopsticks aside, the afternoon feast was what we remembered and worth the half hour or so of misremembering where it was located. Refueled by duck, we returned to the Ile De la Cite (where Notre Dame) is located and jogged over to the much smaller and adorable little Isle St-Louis for a narrow street walkabout. We had initially tried to stay here, but couldn't find any reasonably priced lodging. We may try again someday. After another successful metro adventure, we climbed our 139 steps and celebrated a long day of hiking with Theresa's first stab at escargot. It was brilliant.