Where We Manage To Get Ourselves To Paris Without Mishap
After all the craziness with our last Excellent Adventure, it was great that we:
1. showed up at the airport on time,
2. boarded the plane just a few minutes late,
3. had an uneventful and (as is tradition) sleepless flight,
4. grabbed our bags off the carousel very quickly,
5. found the Viking rep and was escorted to the shuttle,
6. arrived at the hotel after a quick 90 minute traffic jam that looked amazingly similar to DC/New York/LA traffic jams, {Note – we had an entertaining conversation with the shuttle driver (who spoke almost no English). We managed to figure out that the garbage worker demonstrations were a part of the cause of the extra traffic – and the other day it took her 2 hours to get from CDG airport to Paris.}
7. discovered at check in that we had a room available immediately, (that, of course, as is tradition, has a view of another building and its parking lot, as opposed to the Eiffel Tower, located 2 blocks away),
That allowed us to immediately enjoy the beautiful Spring day in Paris by going to lunch at the first place we could find. Though, of course, we had to take a selfie. You can see that I have a new hat, or alternatively, I’m now a unicorn.
One of the best things about Paris is: it’s really hard to find bad food. Here I am in my happy place:
We finished off our marvelous meal with unbelievably good chocolate/Nutella crepes.
We are off to the races!
After lunch, we figured out how to buy tickets to visit the Pantheon. The last time we visited in 2014, the main hall was covered in plastic and painting tarps for its renovation. We took a cab from out front the hotel; we engaged in a great conversation with the cabbie about how the demonstrations have been randomly closing roads (learned a new phrase: tout de jours (every day)) for many days and he might have to drop us off 1 Km away. But! Voila! He figured it out and dropped us off right in front. Magnifique!
The Pantheon is a monument/mausoleum honoring important French citizens, modeled after the Pantheon in Rome. The main hall has paintings and soaring domes.
The lower level contains the crypts of renowned French citizens. Of course, because this building was built in the 18th century, visiting the crypt involves many, many steps.
Some of the crypts include: Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis Braille, Alexandre Dumas, and Pierre and Marie Curie.
{Fun facts (as far as I know): Alexandre Dumas is the only person of color and Marie Curie is the only woman entombed in the Pantheon. Also, Marie Curie’s casket is either lined with or made of lead, because her body is still radioactive. Yikes!}
The whole visit took about 90 minutes. And it was absolutely FREEZING in there. I bet that will feel nice in August.
As is tradition, there’s always a bathroom story sooner or later. The bathrooms were located UP a very long, spiral staircase. I hate spiral staircases – the steps are narrow, these steps are very old and worn, and there’s a lot of them. I had a few people behind me patiently waiting for me to finish my tortoise-like climb. The good news – there was another flight of spiral stairs that took us back up to the main level, eliminating an extra flight of unnecessary steps.
On our way out, we saw this….interesting….painting of the martyrdom of Saint Denis. No idea what’s going on here. Obviously, this was our cue to return to the hotel.
I’m going to wrap this up fairly quickly – I’m fading rapidly and it’s time for this day to finally come to an end (I think it’s still Thursday). I’m sure I left out details.
Tomorrow: The included Viking excursion: grand tour of Paris, most likely visiting places we’ve seen a few times. But it’s free, so why not.
Maryland Meshugas 