Paris Companion

Today after having had breakfast (the bakery was open again today) at the hotel for the last time, we packed our bags and checked out. We got our car from the underground parking space because others had reserved the spot we were parked. To have another day in Paris we would first have to find another place to park our car. We found it somewhere in the south of Paris, not cheap but affordable.

We took the metro to the station Châtelet from where we walked er the Ile de la Cite to visit the Conciergerie and Ste-Chapelle. Unfortunately the road and complete acces to the building were blocked by what looked like police motors. Later we discovered that they were shooting a crime series of some sort at the location.

So we walked on to Pont Neuf, the oldest bridge across the Seine. Here my girlfriend is taking her picture of that bridge. It was wonderful sharing this Paris adventure with her, so that is why I saved my last blip of this vacation for her.

We visited St.-Sulpice (famous from the Da Vinci Code novel) where we saw the Rose Line. The church had put up an A4 with text denying all things told in the book by Dan Brown and taking distance from any connection to the novel. Really funny to read.

Next we walked to the Jardin du Luxembourg, near the palace where we had our lunch and enjoyed the wonderful gardens and flying birds and playing children.

From there we walked to the Panthéon (huge compared to the original Pantheon in Rome). We visited it and its crypte. In the big dome a pendulum was suspended that swung to gave an indication of time and rotation of the earth. Apparently this experiment had been conducted here centuries ago by some French scientist.

By the time we walked back to the metro we were tired and still had to drive all the way back to the Netherlands. So we did that and got stuck in a traffic jam around Paris for about an hour. Near the Belgian place Gendt we stopped for dinner. After a couple of failed tries we finally found a nice Chinese restaurant where we enjoyed a delicious dinner.

What a great (but short) summer vacation this has been!