Day Eight – Paris

Friday March 9

Travel day.  All goes well…at first.  We clear baggage check and security without incident.  At the gate I decided to stand until we board in 45 minutes since I’ll be sitting for two hours.  When I finally sat down an hour and a half later, the plane began to board.  The delay meant that Karen and Dave would miss their flight to Chicago, and Jean and Don had a very small window for making their flight to Detroit. 

     After landing in a light rain – the first rain we’d seen since our drive to Ronda - Alayna and I proceeded to the baggage area where we spotted Nicole and Logan and Aysa, waiting on the other side of the glass partition.  Alayna and I decided that while I gathered the luggage she'd try to find out what happened with Karen, Dave, Jean, and Don.  When another traveler exited the baggage area Nicole came through the automatic doors, and went with Alayna to find the Stagg party.  Clearing French customs?  Just as easy as entering Spain.  Nonexistent!  

     The Michigan Staggs did miss their flight, so we were down to Plan B - delayed party go sit at the Radisson Hotel for the next twenty hours, or Plan C - ride with us into Paris for dinner. 

     Our group of five instantly became nine.  Nicole looked like a mother duck with a flock of eight ducklings under her wing.   Her friend Aysa, whose flight from NYC came in a couple hours before ours, was also part of the group. 

     And what a job Nicole did!  Ushering us onto an RER train to Paris, herding us onto the Metro - getting us all on, then off the subway cars in the five or so seconds that doors remained open - and to district 17 and the Heliopolis Hotel, so we could check in, drop bags, and take a break!

     The hotel lobby was more spacious than our room, so we nibbled some delicious cheese and fresh baguette while Nicole cogitated how to negotiate her posse around the city.  By now it was 5pm and we were getting hungry, so it was back to the Metro, handily less than a block away.  We loaded up on carnets of tickets - 10 for 11 Euro, and hopped aboard. 

     After a train change and a ten minute ride, our train emerged into dusky Paris, crossing the Seine only blocks from the Eiffel Tower.  It was instant submersion into a new culture.   

     We walked a few blocks uphill to a little restaurant.  After wonderful dinner of some very tasty custom made crepes’, we walked along the Seine to Notre Dame.   

     The drizzle had stopped and the wet surfaces reflected the evening glow of the City of Lights. 

     After a stroll around the perimeter of the magnificent, and huge, cathedral we boarded the Metro again, heading a few miles to the north side of the city for a visit to Sacre Le Coeur.  

     I was starting to wonder if all this hectic bouncing around the city was getting to be a little too much for Jean and Don.  After all, they are in their mid-seventies.  Seasoned travelers that they are, they wisely declined to trail us up an endless flight of stairs for a closer look at the beautiful structure at the top.       

     They did miss out on a spectacular overlook of the city with the Eiffel Tower in the distance, but avoided a leg numbing climb of a few hundred steps. 

     Said to be 'built from guilt', Sacre Le Coeur opened about forty years after construction started, just after WWI. This Byzantine-like Basilica is associated with third century martyr, St Denis.  A missionary from Italy, he became the first Bishop of Paris and was said to have walked to the site, head in hand, after it was lopped off by local Pagans for the minor infraction of failing to renounce his faith.   In reality his body was dumped into the Seine where it was later retrieved and buried by converts.

     Before St Denis' demise, his Rasputin-like stamina fended off earlier attempts to kill him via throwing him to apparently not-so-wild beasts, and burning at the stake.  The second attempt must have been made with wet wood, due to the ever present Michigan-like weather, ("If you don't like the weather, wait a minute.")  Rain and drizzle are frequently forecast in Paris, and we were well prepared with ponchos, umbrellas, and rain coats loaded in my backpack.   But it wasn't raining, yet...

     After a 'laid back' week in Spain, hustling all over Paris was an indication of the week ahead.  

     By ten pm we felt a chill in the evening  air, and on cue from Nicole, it was time to make our way back to Hotel Heliopolis so our travelers could collect their carryon bags and make their way to the Radisson before the trains stopped running.  The subway runs until about 12:30 am, and Nicole tutored the Staggs on the layout of the Metro lines, and escorted them to their connection with the RER train to the Airport and the Radisson shuttle.  We said hurried goodbyes as 'The Last Metro' slid into Le Champeret stop. 

          The rest of the story is that by two am, Karen, Dave, Jean, and Don checked into their hotel and enjoyed a French buffet the next morning before departing, on time, for the States. 

     It was now midnight and shortly after they all departed, Logan, Alayna, and I collapsed into our beds at Hotel Heliopolis, about eighteen hours after rising to go to the airport in Malaga.  It didn't feel like 6 pm anymore.

Day One Travel To Iberia

Day Two Marbella

Day Three Mijas

Day Four Granada

Day Five Gibraltar

Day Six Ronda

Day Seven Marbella

Day Nine Pere Lachaise

Day Ten Louvre mall; in Notre Dame

Day Eleven Ste Chappelle; Le Tour Eiffle

Day Twelve Versailles; Musee D'Orsay

Day Thirteen Louvre Musee

Day Fourteen Musee's D'Orsay, Rodin, Paris Modern Art

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