A Paris
01 November 2019
by Terry Spencer
We planned a very tight timeline the morning we left the boat. We had arranged ahead to have someone else clean the boat for us. The checkout was a breeze. The people at LeBoat were very efficient throughout the trip. We secured a taxi to get to the train station in Clamecy where we picked up a train to Paris. Everything went as planned and by early afternoon we were checked into the Hotel Melía Vendome in the historical center of Paris. We all four began walking. Given the beautiful sunny weather, the Jardin des Tuileries was packed with people. We walked where, in another century. Kings and their court once paraded in their finest.
Between 1853 and 1870, under the reign of Emperor Napoléon III, Paris underwent a renovation. Medieval neighborhoods were demolished to make way for broad avenues. Thus, one could draw a straight line from the Louvre through the Tuileries and Place de la Concorde, up the Champs Élysées to the Arc de Triomph. We walked toward the Louvre and across the area where the original Tuileries Palace had stood before being burned to the ground in the Commune of Paris in 1870. We passed a large pond where some were racing their remote controlled sailboats. At the second, we could have rented a small toy boat to sail across the pond. We joked about yet another "charter". Approaching the Louvre, we passed the Arc du Carousel before walking down to the banks of he Seine.
Walking east along the Seine, we passed the famous Bouquinistes of Paris, who have traditionally sold old books and prints from their covered boxes along the sidewalk. And then we were crossing the Pont Neuf to Île de la Cité, the place where the original Paris settlement began. Elisa and I quickly walked through the Square de Verte Galant, a small park that is not a square at all, but the sharp pointy downstream tip of the Île. Then we walked past the Conciergerie, the Palais de Justice, Sainte Chappelle, the Marché au Fleurs and past the barricades preventing us from getting near the burned remains of Notre Dame.
Crossing over to the left bank, there was a spot Elisa particularly wanted to visit, Shakespeare and Company. In the 190's, this bookstore was a gathereing place for such writers as Ezra Pound, Ford Madox Ford, Ernest Hemingway and James Joyce. And then we caught up with Dale and Mary at a small left bank café for dinner and a glass of wine. There we finalized our plans to head he next morning for Giverney. Then we walked back to our hotel, enjoying the lights of the city, and particularly when the Eiffel Tower lit up with a sparkling shimmering light show.
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