Sunday, May 14, 2017

May 14, 2017. Eiffel Tower views!

LOCATION:  Paris, France

WEATHER:  Beautiful!  Mostly sunny. Highs low 70s

 

Our housesitting assignment complete (with no dead chickens!), our homeowner kindly drove us about 30 miles to catch the high-speed train to Paris.  We drove through our town of Poullouen as well as other Brittany villages.

They always seem quiet to me....I had assumed they seemed deserted as people were off to work.  But, today Diane, the homeowner, told us that most of these villages are empty.  People are leaving them to move to cities.  Poullouen's population has dropped from 4000 to about 1800 in the last 200 years.  Sad.  

 

The train ride was about 4 hours, stopping only a few times.

We arrived in the Montparnasse train station at about 1:30 and found our way to our hotel.  We are on the 6th floor and have this surprisingly excellent view of the Eiffel Tower from our window!

Since we have been to Paris before, we don't feel a need to rush around to visit all the famous places.  Instead, we took a leisurely walk about a mile to the Eiffel Tower.

It was a beautiful day, so there were a lot of Parisians out in the parks.  There are tourists here, but not nearly as crowded as Rome.  We walked along the Seine River, watching all the boats go by.  Then, we made our way back to the Montparnasse area, stopping at one of the thousands of sidewalk cafes lining the streets.

We found another sidewalk cafe near our hotel for dinner.  George had grilled fish with fried risotto balls.  I had a cheese platter - the leftover cheese will make a great breakfast tomorrow!

The days here are very long.  In Brittany, it didn't get dark until about 10:30.  Here, about 10:00.  This is a photo of the Eiffel Tower taken from our hotel window right as we went to bed.  Goodnight, Paris!

 

1 comment:

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