This morning we had to check out of our hostel and into a neighboring hotel. It was really nice to have a tv and a private room, not that we watch tv and haven't enjoyed meeting the other travelers. Just nice, that's all.
CeAnn was adamant on seeing Notre Dame and despite not wanting to figure out public transportation, how can you argue with that. I wanted to take the bus, tired of the metro in London (we rode it a lot), but the clerk said it was not smart cuz it was a holiday and it would not be consistent. So, to the metro and really, easy enough, it's just that it's always in French!
We arrived to that area in minutes, which took us hours to walk the day before :)
Really magnificent. It's essentially a little island in the Seine River, hard to say little, it's enormous. The church is so beautiful, the glass windows, stunning. We met a woman from Russia who moved with her family from Canada to Great Britain with her husbands work. These international people leave me impressed. She spoke Russian, English, and French. We walked through the line to get to the back and I thought I might ask a few questions if I heard English, and it was hilarious: 1, the line was this huge spiral and, 2, I heard more languages than I know there are!
We walked around a bit, shopped, ate, and then found a huge screen playing the French Open. It was in this empty plaza full of people sitting and cheering, mostly for Li, not sure why they chose her over Sharpova. It was fun to watch though. On the way back the lady at the metro made us use the machine and if I knew the future, I would have thanked her for that. Actually, it's one of the only words I know, so I'm sure I said "merci" at least once to her.
That night we ran up to a church perched at the highest point in the city, Sacre Coeudre and watched as the skyline lit up. It was after 10 before it was dark. Many come, sit, drink, and sing the night away here. The streets leading up to it are very quaint with cobblestone, curves, flowers, restaurants, and shops. It was a nice way to say goodbye to Paris with the Eiffel tower lit up for all of the city to see.
The next morning came early, we wanted to be at the station well before the 7:24 departure since the language barrier always takes some time. We were sitting looking at this incredible board that flips through the schedule automatically when CeAnn was wondering why our time, our train didn't seem to be listed. This very nice lady, who really did not speak English gestured to see our tickets. She realized that we were at the wrong station and she communicated that we would have to use the metro and hurry. Therefore, SO happy to have the previous days experience behind us. We did make it, and really, spent most of that day on and off trains. We went to Avignon, from there we transferred to A different train to take us to Lyon. In Lyon we boarded a train to Nice and arrived after 7 pm. We finished off the evening in Nice, checking into our hotel and walking through the streets.