Where We Get Up Ridiculously Early to Go On The Freebie Viking Excursion – Paris Panoramic City Tour
And See A Lot Of Garbage
Literally
Day 1 (or maybe it’s Day 1.5, hard to tell) finally came to an end after we met up with my sisters-in-law, Susie and Janet. They flew in from Florida and were most likely the last of the Viking pre-extension group. It sounded like by the time they arrived at the hotel, Arnaud, our Viking host, was gone for the day, so they missed out on the Arnaud Welcome: a 10 minute lecture delivered at warp 29 with all the instructions we need for our stay in Paris.
It was great to reconnect with them over dinner, though we could tell that all of us were fading really, really fast. And then we all realized that we would need to get up really early Friday morning to be ready to board the bus for our Panoramic City Tour of Paris. Viking offers one freebie excursion per port – of course, Paris is an extension and not a “port”, but a city tour is included.
Andy and I were up at 6:30 – notice I said “up” and not “awake”. I definitely was not awake. I know I had breakfast, but it’s a little fuzzy as to what I actually ate.
Before we boarded the bus, Susie and Janet got to meet Arnaud, who absolutely had to launch into is 10 minute lecture. I think he’s incapable of NOT fulfilling every dot and ditto of his obligations to every guest.
Nonetheless, at 9:00 a.m. we were on the bus with our tour guide of the day, Karina. Everyone had heard about the ongoing protests against the government’s (specifically President Macron’s) push to raise the retirement age from 62 to 64. And the garbage collector’s protest strike, which had been already going on for 2 weeks. Karina made zero mention of the violent protests from the night before, but she did mention the garbage that was (and still is) piling up on the street corners. She told us that this is not what Paris usually looks like and sorta jokingly asked us to “not look at the garbage”.
I didn’t take too many photos today – we’ve seen many of these places many times. However, it was important to get selfies at the usual spots.
But I also felt the need to document the other things that cannot be unseen. Like the garbage.
And also, the quiet presence of police armed with Very Large Guns
But contrary to what the news reports would lead you to believe, in fact, the entire city of Paris is not on fire, and at least for today, there were no violent demonstrations during the day while we were driving around in our bus. Karina did point out that despite the protests, Paris is an extremely safe city (except for the pick pockets).
When Parisians want to protest, they go to the Place de la Concorde – a plaza that has seen the defeat of the Nazis and also thousands and thousands of people killed by the guillotine. Whatever crazy activity had happened the night before, it was hard to find evidence of it this morning. All the trash and other mess had been cleaned up, and it was all business as usual.
But we did spot one bit of damage to the pavement, that, though it wasn’t all that big, managed to make the crazy traffic a little harder to navigate in order to get around this smallish mess.
Even still, Paris is still Paris. The streets that are not clogged with trash are still beautiful.
The tour ended with the Eiffel Tower, just in time for lunch. We wandered around the corner from our hotel. I finally remembered to have French onion soup, another one of my little traditions when in Paris. Susie and Janet had their Viator group tour of the Louvre at 3:00 – 3 hours of being dragged around that ginormous and un-navigable monster museum. Andy went running and I took a nap.
We took a walk up to the Tower. I never get tired of looking at it. It’s just the craziest thing.
At some point, Andy went back to the hotel to get extra hoodies, because it was getting chilly and felt like rain was coming. While he was gone, an Israeli family sat on the bench next to me – I can recognize Hebrew anywhere. I understood tiny snippets of the conversation. Out of the blue, one guy suddenly asks me in English, “Do you know where the nearest toilet is?” Whereupon we launched into this crazy conversation about how come there’s no public toilets in Paris, somebody could make a lot of money renting public toilets….and that his brother was Danny DeVito, and I said, I didn’t realize Danny DeVito was Israeli….and then I think he realized that I had realized he was joking…and on and on, this conversation just got crazier and crazier.
Just as suddenly, he switches back to Hebrew to discuss dinner plans with the family. His wife wants felalfel. He thinks to get felafel they’ll need to find Chabad, or at least the Jewish quarter (not sure why he forgot that it was already super close to Shabbat (the Jewish sabbath starts Friday evening) other than the usual discombobulation when traveling across time zones). Recognizing the words for “Jewish quarter” in Hebrew, I jumped back into the conversation and told him that the Jewish quarter in Paris is quite a schlep (and I used the word “schlep”) from where we were sitting – at least a 20 minute drive.
More crazy conversation ensues regarding the availability of restaurants in the immediate area (that would also take care of the bathroom question), when Andy arrived back with my hoodie and was able to provide directions to the street near our hotel that has a bunch of restaurants. My advice – pick any one at random. They’re all good.
And then off they went. I’m not sure they ever picked up on the fact that I was Jewish. That whole interaction was a HOOT!
For dinner, we wanted to go to our favorite restaurant – La Couple in Montparnasse. Even more important than the excellent food is my favorite dessert – profiteroles! Pronounced “pro-FEE-tehr-rolls”, they are pastries stuffed with ice cream and served smothered in chocolate sauce. I have yet to find profiteroles in the US that match anything I’ve had in France. Andy and I make sure to go to La Couple if we’re ever in Paris, even if for the day.
It was now time to make our way to the restaurant, where we met Susie and Janet, completely exhausted from hoofing around the Louvre for 3 hours. They saw the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo – check and check! They saw other things as well, but the important items are now taken care of.
I had “Beef Fondant Grandma’s Way” or something to that effect – basically pot roast with whipped potatoes. The pot roast was amazingly tender, yummmm….
But the best part of all:
Stuffed to the gills and once again feeling the fade-at-the-end-of-the-day, we ubered back to the hotel.
Where we watched one elevator with psychological issues open and close its doors repeatedly for several minutes. Apparently, this has been happening since we arrived here – the middle elevator is just not well, and so far the hotel staff’s suggestion is: use the elevator around the corner. Ok, but this doesn’t solve the problem.
As I write this up, we all receive an email from Viking: because of the continuing strikes all over the country, our ship won’t be in Lyon on Sunday to meet us. Therefore, when we arrive in Lyon on Sunday (this is assuming the trains will be running on Sunday), we will be staying at a hotel. Since the first two nights in Lyon we would be using the ship as a hotel anyway (Lyon is considered an “overnight” port), this doesn’t change all that much. Except that means we’ll need to pack up again when the ship does arrive.
Being “stuck” in Lyon is infinitely better than being stuck at sea.
Tomorrow: Andy and I will go see Monet’s “Water Lillies” + our official Eiffel Tower visit. Susie and Janet have their Versailles excursion with Viking. And for dinner we will meet up for a Seine dinner cruise.
Maryland Meshugas 