Steps today: 24 039 / a little over 15¾km
Ahhh Paris! What can I say that you don’t already know? It’s just simply fantastic.
The train ride from Strasbourg was great – we paid the HUGE extra premium of 6$ CDN to travel first class and it was terrific. We bought the ticket from home in advance, is that why it was so cheap?
I felt like we were sitting in arm chairs! I tried taking a picture but it didn’t really turn out – you can’t quite tell and I was hurrying, I felt kind of stupid taking pictures of the seats! ha!
We arrived at the hotel around 10:30 but the room wasn’t ready so we left our bags and set off to explore. We got the key at the end of the day; it’s a nice room and its just across the hall from the room where I stayed last October!! Again when booking this hotel I didn’t shop around. I loved it before + the price was good this time = done.
We don’t really have a lot on our “must see” list for Paris this time around, but one of the things we did want to do is have lunch in the little town of Vincennes, and from there walk back to Paris and check out Place de La Nation. When we visited Vincennes the first time in 2014 there was nothing much to see aside from the Castle, but when I went with my mom last year it was so nice and charming that it left me thinking Frank and I had missed out!! That’s how the idea of having lunch there evolved.
We didn’t ended up doing things in quite that order, instead, we walked to Place de La Nation from the hotel….
… had lunch near by….
… then walked toward Vincennes.
On the way we saw the Hypercacher Market, site of the terrorist attacks in January 2015. So sad.
Vincennes turned out to be as non-interesting as it what the first time we were there in 2014 so instead of it being a case of Frank and I missing out, it was my mom and I who had lucked out and happened to be there on the right day at the right time. Needless to say, we didn’t stick around. We took a few pictures of the Castle and then took the metro back to Central Paris.
We did not make it a point to visit “The Biggies” like Notre Dame, Opera House or Eiffel Tower etc today, although of course we did see many of them in passing, but the plan for this day was to go wherever the wind blows. Tomorrow we’ll do all the serious picture taking… still, the cameras were not completely stowed!
Tom Cruise is here filming Mission Impossible 6, would be fun to get a glimpse of that!
I did finally get a great shot of the column in Place Vendôme, something we’ve previously never managed, because the entire area was cordoned off by the police and therefore there were no cars in the way to obstruct the views. We initially thought they were keeping people back because of a celebrity or a foreign dignitary staying at the Ritz so we didn’t make much of it … but it turns out it was due to a suspicious package! Yikes! Now I understand why the officer gave me the stink-eye when I asked if I could take pictures. oops!
We had supper near Place D’alma around 6PM, then headed back to the hotel to unpack and settle in. Of course, I had wine & cheese!
It’s great to be back in Paris, but I REALLY feel like I was just here last week. It’s a funny vibe because I don’t feel like I am on a mission to see and do anything in particular because I JUST did them all so recently! I’m not even carrying a guide with me this time.
We want to hit a step-record tomorrow since we’ll have all day in town with no train excursions, which means now I need my rest!
Good night.
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