Day One Hundred Fifty Three - June 7

Day Two in Paris

While Insignia was on a sea day, Janice, Joan, Richard (sorry but the shorter version of his name comes our inappropriately) and I were exploring Paris for the second day.

An important fact - try to book any transportation prior to arriving at your destination. Our problem was that we had not booked a return train to the Port of La Rochelle for the following day and any credit card was not being recognized or accepted. We even tried Joan's credit card but to no avail.

The last option was to go directly to the train station, Gare Montparnasse to buy tickets in person. What a shambles the line for tickets was - at least two hours long but my wonderful wife somehow nudged her way to the front to book the tickets and guess what - our credit cards worked. What we're finding is that our Canadian banks like to reject any purchases that appear to be a little suspect which is a good thing but when your purchase is legitimate you become frustrated. This is the reason we travel with many credit cards, and we would recommend that anyone travelling out of country bring more than one.

It is now near midday and a daytime visit to Notre Dame was on the list. Lots of security can be around the church probably because Notre Dame is very close to a police station. Some estimates say it will be fifteen to twenty years to rebuild the roof, spire, and parts of the stone vaulting that fell through to the main sanctuary. We feel fortunate that we visited it the last time we were in Paris in 2016.

Government officials are aiming for 2024 for the church to be reopened for a return to worship before the full restoration is completed.

Janice had preordered tickets for the Louvre for our last day so off we went with directions in hand to search out the ticket office. The tickets also provided tickets to another river cruise which we gladly accepted.

However, we needed to take Joan and Richard to our favourite restaurant on the Champs Elysees, the Café George V before the river cruise. We have eaten at this restaurant three other times when in Paris. It is also a good place to people watch if you get the right location.

You cannot go to the Champs Elysees without seeing the Arc de Triomphe and do a little window shopping. Check these off the list.

All done its back on the Metro (we are getting better) to take us to the Eiffel Tower and the river boat cruise pick up point. The Eiffel Tower now has a plexiglass fencing around it with a few openings. You can still get tickets to go up the tower and I also saw people walking down. It sure looks different in the daytime.

We climbed aboard our river cruise which took us past many of the sights from our night cruise the previous evening. It was just nice to relax on the boat cruise and see the people and the sights again.

A quick dinner at Le Bistro de la Tour before we returned to our hotel with thoughts of the Louvre the next day.

Bonne Nuit