Sorry this got long but I felt like wrapping up the blog before I jump back to reality on Monday.
Days 3,4&5 Paris Pass & Museum pass days
Wednesday:
Feet so tired from the over 24,000 steps in Disneyland (we have been breaking 20k most days), that we decided to do seated tours...all covered by our pass. Big bus with the open top and audio guide as well as the mini train around Montmartre and the Siene river cruise!
The Big Bus was an ok way to see the city and get an overview with a little history although it was quite hot and sunny.
We did the 7:30 Bateaux Cruise along the Siene which was lovely and although not sunset it was close enough to have nice light and be slightly cooler. We even saw people dancing in the alcoves along the river! I think it was West Coast in one and Salsa and Tango in a couple others.
I'd never been to the Montmartre district of Paris so the cutesie "train" around was fun and we got to see the Sacre Coeur much closer than the usual distant landmark. It is an area renowned for the risqué shows and shops... Essentially the 'red light district' of Paris.
While there we decided to book a show at the famous Moulin Rouge. So, we made plans to return at 11 that night. Although we tried to take it more easy with less walking tours, I'm not so sure we succeeded. With all that riding around sightseeing we still made 20k steps.
We were quite surprised to find when we arrived for the show that there were 2000 seats for each show... The clue was that the line went around the block. I've stood in some long lines but this was perhaps the longest! I was impressed with how quickly they got everyone seated.
The show itself had lots of over the top, skimpy (many topless) costumes with more shiny & feathery bits than you can imagine. Since they've been doing this since the 1800's I'm going to say 'Vegas Style' is the wrong term... They should all be called 'Moulin Rouge Cabaret' style!
Two great two person acrobatic vignettes and one extremely humorous comedy bit broke up the singing, dancing and top-less prancing nicely.
Thursday:
After our late night we got a slow start but managed to get to the Opera house for the 11:30 English tour. Rita, our entertaining tour guide, gave us quite a bit of the history. She really put across the importance of the venue as a place to 'see and be seen'. Men would attend 3 nights a week: Monday with their wives adorned with expensive outfits and jewelry, Wednesday with their daughters to attract suitors, and Friday with their mistresses.
And yes, this was the Opera house depicted and made famous again by 'Phantom of the Opera' ... So there's even a box assigned to him.
We followed up the Opera tour by going to the History of Chocolate Museum and enjoyed the delicious samples and retro adverts! There was even a special chocolate drinking cup with a mustache guard on display.
As if that wasn't enough touristing, we headed over to the Musee d'Orsay for our fill of the classics. This is one of my favorite museums in the whole world. I enjoy the Van Gough, Gougin, Matisse and Seurat. But even more for me, at that museum there's a section with gorgeous inlaid furniture. Some pieces are by Gaudí. There's also a few Rodin sculptures and a small but delightful display of Lalique jewelry pieces that I never tire of.
Friday.. Last day:
We 'only' managed to get to the Louvre and Orangerie museums ;)
We went early to the Louvre and left before complete overload set in. If you have been (or been to the Vatican museum) then you know what I'm talking about. It is not just the art and sculptures and exhibits... The building was a palace so it is amazing as well. The ceilings, walls, floors and windows are art of their own. Walking all of it would be more than 10 miles. Although we didn't scratch the surface of that distance, we still did over 8miles total (only 17000steps but I may have left my phone in the room when we went to dinner)
L'Orangerie Museum is a refreshingly small and manageable size... Mostly because it's devoted purpose and exclusive upstairs 2 large oval rooms house Monet's Nymphéas (aka water lilies) Not everyone is aware of their enormity as its hard to depict that in books. There's also a series of exhibition rooms on the lower level but it is so small by comparison to the other museums that overload is less likely. It does have a nice selection of Renoir, Gaugain and a few others.
Cumulative days on the feet and imminent rain meant that dancing was out of the question so we returned to the hotel for some much needed off the feet time. This made the search for one last awesome street food dinner more pleasant, despite the rain. It was a cooling nice drizzle which ended up a pretty significant rain by the time we got our dessert :D Nutella crepes! We even had to duck into an empty shop doorway to finish them before they got soggy.
Tomorrow we have our last warm amazing French croissants for breakfast and then head to the airport. (little bit of a bummer as the last morning croissants were kind of burnt but we'd had many amazing warm ones.. So that's good)
Overall it was a fantastic trip and a delightful visit with Joelle and decadent crazy touristing time with my awesome traveling companions... Thanks Kim and Kat for such a blast! I was probably a little whiny because of my blisters and the crazy heat and both were so patient with me and let me sit while waiting in lines at times.
Thanks for reading/'traveling' along,
Ciao, Auf Wiedersehen, Au Revoir until October when we hit Northern Italy for a week with barges, bicycles and a weekend in Rome!
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