Paris in the spring seems cliche...but it's not

Originally published  23 March 2012

Notre  Dame

​We awoke to beautiful weather in Paris. It was around 70 today, it's Saturday, and everyone in Pairs is out and about! So what did we do on our Saturday morning?????? Laundry! Breakfast from the pastry shop while we ran the wash....a short walk...and we picked up our laundry and took it back to our little hotel. We were out of clothes and really needed to do a wash.

Our hotel in Paris!

Our small but quite serviceable room

After our exciting morning of doing the wash, we went to Notre Dame. It is celebrating 850 years as a church. It's just so mind boggling for someone from a country like ours to see that. We are a young country in the US. Our history dates back at most 400 years. Prior to that, my relatives (American Indians) were writing stuff on cave walls. Granted, we didn't have all those issues of building massive amazing buildings with slave labor and all.....but I digress. Notre Dame was a truly amazing building. I will let the pictured do the talking on our visit. It was impressive.

Church interior, Notre Dame

Intricate stained glass windows

​We left Notre Dame and went across one of the bridges in Paris that is covered in "love padlocks". Couples write their names on them and lock them to the bridge. We did take pics and it was cool. After that, we grabbed some lunch at a Japanese place. Paris is an expensive city to eat in. We have found that the way to conserve on your food budget is to not eat french food! We've had Japanese, Lebanese, Jewish, Italian, etc. while here. The ethnic food tends to be less expensive than french cuisine. We'll eat french when we're in Normandy!

Works of art in Notre Dame

The Deportation Memorial, for the victims of the Nazis

​After that.....we went to the sewer museum! It was open today, and Laurie joined me. While skeptical.....she did learn something.  Haha! But it was all in fun. Laurie is a good sport.

Padlock bridge over the Seine

In the sewers of Paris

​The sewer museum has to do with the history of the sewers in Paris (who would have thought?). It was one of the first cities with an actual working sewer system. This museum, which is in an actual WORKING sewer tunnel documents all of this and how they keep it running. Being and engineer, I had classes in this during college, and lets just say it's not my first sewer visit. But I thought it would be great fun to tell everyone we were in the sewers of Paris! My only issue is that the gift shop was closed and I was unable to buy sewer souvenirs! Laurie has reminded me several times that she wants no more crap (haha) from me when I am dragged to an art museum.

Sewer fun for everyone!

Pay as you go self cleaning toilet

​We met a woman from Boston in the sewer, and she was headed to the Pompidou Center. Laurie had planned for this as our next stop. We took the bus at the insistence of our new sewer friend. We haven't been on a bus while in Paris. We've been taking the subway when we needed to travel. A word of warning......DON'T TAKE THE BUS IN PARIS!!! It took forever to go about a mile. Public transport here is heavily utilized. Everything is crowded all the time. But no one is clogging the train tracks. So the train is MUCH quickier.

Pompidou Center

Laurie shopping the book sellers along the Seine

​I left Laurie at the Pompidou and I went wandering. I took the subway to the Latin quarter and wandered around. I came back and met Laurie at the Pompidou, we took the metro back to "our neighborhood", the 11th arrondismont, and had a nice dinner at a sidewalk cafe. Then back to the hotel to pack our freshly laundered clothes and get ready for a move to our last stop on this adventure, Normandy.

The subway is the fast way around Paris......NOT the bus

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