June 20, 1996 to June 23, 1996
In Paris
So, at the end of the tour we enjoyed a three night stay in central Paris, staying on the left bank not far from Notre Dame. We've talked about this visit a lot over the years. We had been here three years earlier on our first tour of Paris, so we were already a bit oriented and had seen some of the important sights: the Louvre, the Orsay, the Eiffel Tower; so this time we struck out in new directions. In particular, we walked over/up to Montmartre to see Sacre-Coeur, the Moulin Rouge, and the views over the city.
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More than anything else we saw in the city though, we remember it for the summer solstice celebration, which completely engulfed the left bank. We've never experienced anything like this, before or since. For block after block there were live music performances on literally every block - the sound from one group would just be fading out as the next one came into range. And the crowds were enormous, inescapable, overwhelming. Walking was difficult, driving was impossible. Cars were abandoned in place as drivers gave up being able to move at all and just parked them in the middle of the road and walked off.
For dinner on Solstice evening, just as festivities were getting underway, we ate outdoors at a left-bank café across the street from the Seine. At the table next two us was an elderly man dining alone - or so we thought, until we noticed two white rabbit ears poking above the table from the seat next to him. When he finished his meal he picked his friend up by the ears, stuffed him inside of his overcoat, and walked off into the crowd.
On the next day, we were caught up in another unforgettable extravaganza - the gay pride parade. Huge, gaudy, risqué, shocking really.
And, finally, we remember well the return to the airport. We had an early flight, so we left our hotel in the pre-dawn and biked down to the nearest metro station, the Les Halles stop. I don't know even now if bikes were actually permitted on the metro at that time - we might have just gotten lucky when we boarded in the suburbs when we arrived in Paris. Outbound, it was a much different story - the turnstiles didn't permit passage of bicycles, and that early in the morning no one was around to help. I remember the feeling of panic about whether we would be able to make our flight or not; and I remember the difficulty of maneuvering our bikes on the long, narrow flights of escalators; and I remember that we found some attendant to bail us out and let us through. I don't though remember whether it was really legal or not, or if we just got lucky and found someone who felt pity on us and our situation.
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Pity about the missing journals but that's life.
5 years ago
5 years ago