Smelly - OUI, Rude -NON - Day 29

You've heard the saying "best laid plans"?  Well our grandiose ideas about how we would spend our day sort of got screwed up a little but we completely redeemed ourselves throughout this long, hot day.

We started out our day with a peek out our balcony and we spy this cute little kitty on the balcony across the Rue from us with it's little paws hanging over the edge.....6 floors up!  Yikes.  It was so sweet though as it sat and watched the people and traffic.  We tried to speak to it but it either couldn't hear us or didn't understand our language!

 Anyway we went down the street to grab a coffee and a bite to eat and low and behold another market in the same place as yesterday only this was an antique and vintage clothing market.  Loved it!

Tired pooch!

 We had coffees and omelettes and crepes in this cute little cafe and watched this Italian man with his espresso and shot glass of water write in his journal.  It's a charming cafe and we may go there tomorrow.

 We decided to set off for Versailles today instead of climbing Notre Dame.  It'll take about 45 minutes to get there and by now it's already almost 11.  It was a bad idea to go to Versailles on a Sunday.....a very bad idea.

The train station.  When the doors open....GET ON PRONTO.  It's pretty scary.

Gordon figures out our route.

Statue of Louie XIV

 We arrive at Versailles along with about 50 million other people to see about 20,000 people dressed in green jerseys who have just finished a race from Paris to Versailles.  We all converge on the train station at the same time.  Racers want to get on to the train and people to Versailles off.  Not much give and take going on.  And the smells - OMG. The racers were rancid!

Versailles in the distance

Looking back toward the Louie Statue and the incoming herds.

See that crowd of people?  That's the line!  It's massive and it's about 80 degrees out and there's no escape from the sun.

These are our Versailles pictures

 We elect NOT to stay and wait in line to go into Versailles.  It's really unfortunate but honestly, if you had seen the line, you wouldn't wait either.  So we elect to get back on the train and go back into Paris.  When we got back to the train  station there was a train waiting to return and we decided to hurry and get on.  It was STUFFED FULL of racers.  We went to the last train and hopped on and then the train filled up with tons more racers.  I cannot tell you how hot and how bad the train smelled.  It was un-Godly!  Whiffy would be putting it mildly!  We held our breath for 45 minutes and got off at the Invalides in Paris and decided to walk the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. And so we did....past bridges and statues. It was lovely.

Grand Palais

Teehee

teeheehee

and gardens

And up into the Arc de Triomphe, 284 steps!

Mont Martre in the distance

 

The Champs Elysees

 Roof top gardens

Way in the distance you can see Notre Dame

The Arc de Triomphe is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

Libation stop

Onward

Some unknown monument.  too tired to go figure  it out.

 

The stalls along the Seine

On to dinner.

Weird pharmacy man with all the available apparatus you could possible want advertised on his body!

We walk up the hill to the Pantheon.  A really imposing structure, it just too big to photograph.

And a beautiful church

Sky action

More sky action

And we stumble upon the Gardens of Luxembourg.  Spectacular, but we arrive just at closing.

Bamboo

Pan

Fabulous sculptures

Expansive gardens.....we'll need to come back tomorrow.

Incredible water features.

Lovely evening and still really warm....24 degrees C.

Funky wedding dress!

Oh, and look what we found!  Let's take a look.

Yum

Yum yum

Oh my yum!

Oh dear!

Yes please!

We kinda got lost with our rambling but once we found a metro station and looked on the map we figured out where to go to get back to the Hotel St. Jacques and into our room for our little sniggle!  Gordon had a strawberry cream tart and I had a raspberry tart.  Just the perfect ending to a perfect day.....well, except for the hiccup at the beginning.

Tomorrow our plan is to go to Mont Martre but it looks like a trick getting there.  At least 2 metro changes and it's darn confusing when you don't speak the language but we're getting pretty good at figuring things out.  And the Parisians.....we haven't met a rude one in the bunch.  We have, however, met a few with aroma problems!