France 2023 - Day 7 / Paris

Steps today : 24 807 / 16.35 km

Yeah! It's move to Paris Day! Yipeee!!

First class travel again, such a great investment in comfort for not even 20$ more!

The train was full, but we were almost the first ones in, so I was able to get good picture of the extra comfy seats.

It was less than 2 hours from Strasbourg with the fast train and we arrived around 10AM. From the train station we had to take the metro to the hotel and I planned to by a pack of tickets from the kiosks to last us a few days. I wish I had taken a picture of the crowds who had exactly the same intentions! OMG, the lines for tickets looked hours long.

Thankfully, I had 2 metro tickets left over from my last trip to Paris, so we were able to skip that mosh pit and get into the metro without delay. I stocked up on tickets at our arrival station instead.

We made it to the hotel by about 10:30 but the room was not ready. We left our suitcases in the luggage room, but we had a debate about my mom's back pack. Leave it or bring it? She decided to transfer as many things into her suitcase as she could to lighten the load and bring it.

Step one: lunch! I was ready to dig into all my favourite French foods today and this first meal was a camembert & butter sandwich. Perfect!

My mom and I visited Paris together back in October 2016 (this was my 10th visit to Paris!!) so she had some sights she was eager to relive and one of those was a walk through the Luxembourg Gardens which knocked her off her feet last time. Sadly, this time, the Gardens did not deliver. Renovations going on, fountain closed, no flowers in the pots / vases...  It was still nice, but just not the same.

After about 45 minutes, my mom's back was starting to get sore from the back pack, and I did not miss my chance to tease her incessantly about it because of the big debate we had about it at the hotel! LOL. We decided since we were so close by, we'd go back and dump it and then from there take the metro over to the Eiffel Tower.

The last time my mom was in Paris, she said she never really was able to visualize the map of the city in her head - her goal on this trip was to work on that. For those of you who know Paris, we took the metro to the "La Motte - Picquet Grenelle" station, then walked along Avenue de la Motte - Picquet towards the bottom of the Champ de Mars on the left. When walking down the street you can't see the tower behind the buildings, but as soon as you approach Ave du Suffren - BANG! there it is.

My mother literally jumped! Like the tower came out and said BOO!  She had absolutely no idea where we were in the city and did not realize we were walking towards the tower. We had a good laugh about it many times over the next few days - and it really helped her develop her mental map!

As we walked closer towards it, we talked about how unfortunate it was that you can no longer just walk underneath and through it anymore. There is a plexiglass perimeter around it now and it hadn't been installed yet the last time she was there in 2016, although they had started with the bag-searches.

When I visited in 2017, I was able to show up and get tickets to climb the stairs with no waiting, but when I went back in 2018 the perimeter was in place and the line ups at the entrances were insanity. I was really disappointed.

We got as close as we could to take pictures, and on a whim I said to my mom: Let's go have a look and see what the line-up is like.

What incredible luck!! There were only a handful of people in the "no reservations" line, so we got in! It all took less than 10 minutes! I finally after all these years got my "under the tower" shot.

Next we checked to see what the line-up for the stairs looked like, and it too was relatively short so we lined up for tickets. More security, another bag-search, and roughly 10 minutes later we were on our way up.

My mom was thrilled, and says this was a vacation and life time highlight - she was proud to be able to say she did this "at her age".

Thankfully it was not a super-warm day because we were melting by the time we got to the second floor! Took about a half hour, picture stop on the first floor included.

After this, we needed some refreshments so we headed over to one of the many cafés nearby.  I loved it! Perfect seats in the terrace, perfect weather for sitting outside, perfect drinks... I settled in and had 2!  Kir Pêches of course.

It was around 4PM when we were done, so we headed back to the hotel to check in and unpack. The hotel was quite nice, it has an excellent location going for it, and that was a VERY big plus, but as is always the case with retrofitted old buildings, they have their drawbacks. This one had no AC (not needed in April anyway), postage stamp size elevator (if we had not been travelling carry-on only we would not have fit with the suitcases) but worst of all for me - no plugs near the bed.

After unpacking, we headed out for a walk and eventually supper. It was foie gras and cheese for me!

We (I! LOL) had room for a night cap on the way home - sadly smoking is still big in France and is allowed on the outside terraces. Sitting inside to avoid it is totally pointless at times so it wasn't THAT pleasant, but I was just happy to be out and in PARIS!