Spring in Paris

It has been a few days since we last blogged, we have just so busy, busy, busy, or is it that I am just slack, slack,slack?

Well le spring has sprung in Paris, and for the Easter weekend the weather turned wonderful, with lovely warm sunny days. Temperatures in the 20’s and nights well above zero at least, 6 or 7 deg.

The queues to the museums became decidedly longer over the weekend and on Easter Monday a number of museums were closed. One of the biggest weekends of the year for tourists and the places were closed, go figure! “Nobodie tells zee French what to do, eh!”

Easter Sunday we decided to avoid the queues and visited Cimetiere Pere-Lachaise, to visit the resting places of people like, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Oscar Wilde, Sara Bernhardt, Charlie Chaplin, Chopin, Marcel Marceaux, and whole lot of people we didn’t know. On our return wandering, we stopped for some delicious Vietnamese, full of vegetables that we have been missing since being here. Funny how it made us feel like we were home.

On Monday we hit the pavement again and wandered along the Seine from Notre Dame to the Eiffel Tower, then over to the Arc de Triumph and back home again via the Champs, Tuileries Gardens and Le Louvre. In two days we had walked nearly 30 kilometres, we were stuffed.

The queues to access the Tower were enormous, so we thought better than to stand around for an hour or two, and went and found lunch at a local restaurant with a view instead.

Tuesday we visited the Musee de L’Armee and Napoleon’s Tomb, with an interlude to watch le Gandarmerie close off Esplanade Des Invalids to allow the President of Tanzania to be driven across town. That caused traffic chaos across the city, but hey, he got to wherever he was going safely.

How the horses could carry the weight of metal and rider back then and be agile is amazing.

The tomb of Napoleon III, last King of France. In anti-chambers, are Napoleons brothers and other significant military figures including Marshal Fochs who was supreme commander of the armies during WW1.

Napoleon’s horse was relegated to a side corridor in the Musee de L’Armee. As you can see he is starting to split apart, which is no laughing matter.

Next on the list was a visit to Musee De L’Orangerie in the Tuileries Gardens. What a wonderful place to visit. Monet’s masterpieces cover the walls, as do Reniors, Picasso and others.

And what better way to finish off the day is with another wander through the Tuileries Garden.

On our last day in Paris, in the afternoon, we headed to Musee d ‘Orsay, but this time around we were a little disappointed as the Art Nouveau section was closed. We had done some packing and washing in the morning, and then in the evening we caught up with our neighbours from across the street at home for dinner.

David, Janelle, Emily and Matt are on a short visit, taking in London, Paris, Venice and Rome. Emily will return to University in England where she has been for the last six months. Great to hear Aussie voices.

We finished off our visit to Paris for 2015 with a stroll along the Seine at night, truly a magical time and place.