French Battlefields and the Voyage of the Vikings: Wednesday, September 5

We slept well last night...the first time back in A/C. The room is typically Paris small and is in a 16^th century building, but is very well designed, quiet and comfortable. We opt out of the hotel breakfast and go to the little pastry shop right across the street...and that term is used loosely. The streets on the Isle Saint Louis are more like alleys.

Fortified, we head to the closest Metro. The first stop is SHOPPING at Galleries Lafayette, a huge shopping complex. Carolyn wants some French table linens and the sweet lady at the hotel front desk said that would be our best bet...look in the fine linen department.

After a little problem getting our tickets...the machine won’t take our US credit card...no pin...same problem we have had at the gas stations. We get our tickets and are off on the subway.

We get off at the Opera stop and come up in front of the beautiful Paris Opera House.

The shopping is right behind the Opera House. The store covers three blocks and is actually three separate stores...we may be here all day...Carolyn’s eyes are glazing over! There is a whole store just for the home and that doesn’t include furniture! After about an hour she has found what she wanted for gifts and we head back to the subway.

The things on the list as possible activities, besides shopping, for today were a stop at the Louvre, a boat ride, visit the Conciergerie and Saint Chapelle or going over to the art market at Sacre Coeur. Since our shopping took us near the Louvre, Sacre Coeur is out and we head back to the Louvre on the subway. We have never even made it into to the main plaza in front of the museum. It is really interesting, but the line snakes around and around so we pass on a visit.

It is lunch time so we decide to walk along the left bank of the Seine toward the Pont Neuf bridge

and the river boats. Soon we see a neat, little corner café and in true Parisian style we sit outside and have a very good toasted ham and cheese open face sandwich and a salad.

We continue our walk along the river bank and Carolyn finds something for Ben’s new niece...hope Amanda likes it.

We arrive at the dock just in time to walk onto the 2PM boat. Last time we were in Paris we did this ride at night to see the lights. The daytime ride is just as nice in a different way.

After the ride we decide to walk back to the hotel...it is just on the next island. It is a LONG walk, but we do walk right past Saint Chapelle and there is a huge line...so that is a next time thing also. We also get a different view of Notre Dame.

We are having a really good time in Paris and staying on the island is nice. We think we would like to come back for a week in the late fall or early spring and just pick one thing to do each day and enjoy some of the little cafes!

Back at the hotel we work on the blog and Dick does some things on the computer. Carolyn checks out a couple of the cute shops we saw last night.