Farewell from Paris

So long awaited; so quickly over! C'est la vie. We get up at the crack of dawn tomorrow and make our way to CDG airport for the long flight home.
Our last morning started with breakfast at our local cafe.

Followed by a leisurely stroll along the Promenade Plantee.

This is an abandoned train line refurbished into a beautiful 5 km walkway above the streets of the city. It runs from the Bastille to the Parc Vincennes and on a Sunday morning is full of joggers and artists.

The viaduct underneath the walkway is now artist's workshops and galleries. So many creative people.

Ngila chose the Tokyo Museum on this, her last day. We got a bit confused when we arrived and went to the wrong side.

We couldn't see the exhibit she wanted to go to and assumed it had ended. She chose another called, "An Artistic Friendship. The works of Derain, Balthus, and Giacometti". We hadn't heard of any of these guys and came away big fans. Again, unfortunately, no photos were allowed. When we came out of the show, we realized that the Museum had two separate wings and that Ngila's original choice was in the other one. But, she was well satisfied with what we had seen and we carried on to lunch.
We had to bid farewell to Dorian at this point. We took the metro to the La Villette, a large collection of concert halls, a music museum, a big science centre, an Imax theatre, playgrounds

- all sorts of things. Ngila had a fine time at the Cite des Enfants which was part of the science museum.

Then it was home for our final ice cream rose. We had the flavours nailed by this point - mango, raspberry, and lime basil.

Hope you've enjoyed our trip with us. Ngila asked today for a 16th birthday trip!

Exit through the Gift Shop

Jackie Bear, Ngila's faithful companion, is enjoying Paris with us.

He was given to Ngila by her Uncle Dorian when she was just weeks old. And Uncle Dorian flew in from Glasgow to spend our last 2 days with Ngila and Jackie (and us). What a great surprise!

As Dorian didn't arrive until late Friday and an excited Ngila wouldn't go to sleep until he'd arrived, yesterday was a laid back, wandering day.

We walked to Notre Dame along the river where activities highlighting Paris' bid for the 2024 Olympics were taking place.

The church was holding an induction service and not open to the public.

Instead we saw Saint Chapelle with it's incredible medieval stain glass. The ordinary folk had to worship down stairs in a still lovely but rather dungeon like area.

Only the nobility got to see the glass upstairs.

The nearby Conciergerie was included in our ticket.

It's where prisoners were held before their trials during the Revolution. Almost always, they were then carted to the Place du Concorde to be "humanly" guillotined.

The most famous prisoners being Marie Antoinette and Louis XV1. The gift shops in the various museums have been a huge hit.

The Balloon Did Not Go Up

After the longest day of the year, and our longest Metro ride of the visit, we decided to take it easy.

Ngila had been keen to go to the tropical aquarium and then the nocturnal program at the zoo that we visited a few days back. So, after lunch she and Grandad left Grandma at home nursing her knees which were protesting the day before.

The aquarium turned out to be quite small but beautifully maintained.

There were a series of tanks around the walls with brightly coloured fish and interesting sea creatures. There was also a display of crocodiles including an albino. 

In another room were some huge murals and interesting seats that folded into the floor.

We went home to have supper with grandma and at that point we ran out of steam and just watched a movie until bed time.

Today we began with a more optimistic plan that began with a hot air balloon ride. Over night the temperature had dropped to a pleasant low 20's. And the wind had picked up. So, no balloon ride.

But hey this merry troupe just carried on in the hope of lunch at some point. We wandered the west end of Paris riding the Metro and walking.

We ended up by the Bois de Boulogne where we dined well before going to the Musee de Marmottan. Set in a beautiful town house, this small museum holds the world's largest collection of Monets. Bonus on this visit was a temporary show of the works of Pissaro, Sheelagh's favourite Impressionist. 

From there we strolled through part of the Bois before catching a Metro back home. Delyth, re your email, Sheelagh is stretched out on the couch right now with ice packs on both knees.

Great news! Dorian is coming for a quick visit tonight. He is even giving up a visit to the new Tim Hortons in Glasgow to come and see his niece and aged parents. 

It most definitely was the longest day of the year!

Our plan was to take the metro to Place Concorde,

walk through the Jardin des Tutleries, and tour the textiles exhibit at the Decorative Arts Museum. Ngila wanted to see the fashions from different ages. Well, we made it Concorde and the gardens. There we were sidetracked by the ice cream cart. Ngila hung out with Julius while she ate her gelato.

Then we learnt that the textile wing was undergoing renovations. Plan B was to just hang out - with Joan on the Rue de Rivoli

and Victor, at his flat in the beautiful Place des Vosges.

He must have done alright with "Les Mis" because it's not cheap having a home in this loveliest square in the city.

We came home to rest up for our attack on two of the biggies, the Louvre and the Eiffel tower. The former is open until 9:45 on Wednesdays and the lines were supposed to be shorter. That info was correct. The line was non existent.

We staggered out after 2 and a half hours having seen all that we could manage.

We got to the Tour at 10:15 pm  so we could see the sunset and the lights come on

and that's when the wheels truly fell off. Again, our info was correct. The line ups were short. But there was a line up for security;
a line up for tickets; a line up for the second security point; a line up for the elevator to the 2nd level; a line up for the elevator to the top;

a line up to get back down to the second level;

a line up to get to the bottom;

a line up to try for a taxi. At 12:15am, we decided to head home on the metro. Ngila planned out our route. We carefully asked a metro employee if the metro was still running and were assured that all of the metro ran all night. We got off line 6 to change to our line 8 only to discover line 8 closed at midnight. Back onto line 6 to ride to line 5 to change for Bastille. Line 5 also shuts at midnight. Back on line 6 to change to line 1 for Bastille. Hurrah! Line1 does runs all night.  Our epic journey ended at 1:45am. Don't tell her parents.
We've had a couple of strange, little things happen with gov't run operations - like the post office that only had 3 overseas stamps. To buy any more was "not possible".

Beat that croissant harder, Ngila

Ngila and I (Sheelagh) took a baking class yesterday morning.

We learned how to make the dough for croissants. The same dough is used for pain au chocolate (Ngila's favourite), Pain aux raisin (my favourite), and berry tarts.

I also learned that I will never be making these again. The only thing I could do properly was beat the dough with the rolling pin.

We had a lot of fun and were very proud of our efforts.

In the afternoon, we went to the oldest and tallest medieval keep in Europe.

It's enclosed within the walls of the Chateau Vincennes,which is in the Bois du Vincennes, on the eastern edge of the city.
Ngila remembers fondly doing a project in grade 4 about medieval times.
There had been a hunting lodge here since the 1100's but in 1337 work began on the keep

and it became the royal residence until Louis X1V moved everyone out to Versailles. It is the first example of construction using rebar and was very modern with inside latrines.

After the move to Versailles, it became a prison. During the Revolution, the crowd from our neck of the woods, having pulled down the Bastille prison, decided to tackle this one as well. They did their best but fortunately were stopped before they destroyed the keep and the beautiful Saint Chapelle.

This royal chapel is undergoing major restoration. Half of the medieval windows are back in place.

We'll have to come back in a year or so to see the finished produced.