feldmanlarry

My original plan for this trip was to spend a month in Paris and nowhere else. As time went on, I started adding places I really wanted to see. First was Rome to see the Coliseum since it was part of the new list of the seven man-made wonders (http://hawkstryker.hubpages.com/hub/The-Current-7-Man-Made-Wonders-of-The-World). I have been to all seven but I had seen the Coliseum when I was a teenager and didn’t really remember anything about it. Once I was in Rome, it made sense to go to Venice and Florence. Then I decided to fly on Icelandic Airlines and they had free stopovers in Iceland which I couldn’t pass up. There was also no extra charge to land in Amsterdam and return from Paris. Then I had 3 days that were totally free so I decided to go to Dubrovnik. My month is Paris turned into 11 days in Paris and 3 days in the French countryside. I’m not complaining at all.

If I had spent a month in Paris, hopefully I would have gotten all the big sites out of my system and become more integrated into a district of Paris. With 11 days, I had to see some of the really important sites like the Eiffel Tower and it was hard to get rooted in a district but I do feel as though Le Marais is my home area.

Today I was determined to go to a “small” attraction, not one of the iconic Paris locations. I found exactly what I was looking for. I messed up by going to one place then realizing I needed to go somewhere else but the tickets were sold out there so I had to go to another location near my apartment (Place de la Bastille).

In any case, I got on the Canalrama boat ride through canals and locks. These canals join the Seine but I started just north of the Seine and went up several miles north. Here are two views from a bridge before the boat left.

Here’s a boat just like the one I took.

I jumped on to the first row on the top which had a great view. Here we are just getting ready to go into a 2 km (over 1 mile) tunnel and also a view from inside the tunnel. These canals, locks, and tunnels were built under Napoleon in the early 1800’s.

There were many beautiful bridges that we passed under.

Here’s one of the many locks. The first picture is when we just arrived and then in the next picture you can see the water gushing in.

We passed by the Hôtel du Nord, which was made famous by a classic 1938 movie about suicides, prostitutes, complicated love triangles and so on. Here’s part of a review. “Hôtel du Nord is generally regarded as essential viewing for fans of classic film, an undeniable piece of pre-WWII art from French cinema’s master-director Marcel Carné”. I just bought a Korean made version of it that’s in French with English subtitles. People on the boat told me that even though my French was really good that I would need subtitles. The regional accents and slang make it very hard for even them to understand well.

Most of the time I spent talking to these two women who were delightful. I also talked some to the people next to me. I got the impression that the people on this tour were French tourists, with very few international tourists like me. This was a local tourist attraction, which is what I was looking for. The people next to me came from the center of France and were visiting their daughters who moved to Paris. These two lovely women were from a suburb of Paris and had a dinner / cruise package. I didn’t get their names but I did give them a link to my blog. I hope they see this and send me a message.

I was very surprised that where I got off was in the same large park as where I saw Paul Simon and Sting three weeks ago. I liked the park because it struck me as very working class, not like the fancy areas like Place des Vosges in Le Marias that is very upper crust. A flea market was going on with stuff that I would like to get rid of if I owned.

The owner of the apartments I stayed at showed me this excellent iPhone app by the metro company. Here are its directions to my next location. I had a 3 minute walk to the metro station and I could click on it to find how to get to the station. Then there were 8 stops on line 5, then a 2 minute walk to line 9. 11 stops on line 9 and a 6 minute walk finished the trip. Pretty much everywhere I went involved taking two metro lines. The lines curve and intersect each other frequently. 10 tickets cost 14.40 euros or about $15.60. $1.56 for a ride on two metro lines was a really good deal. I used probably 25 tickets, which in addition to a lot of walking meant I was able to see a lot in 11 days.

My next trip was on the Bateau Mouches, the famous boats that go up and down the Seine. It was a cloudy day but with no rain unlike when I went on boats in the Seine earlier in the trip. I believe this is the Pont Neuf, where I put the locket of Margaret and me.

Here’s the Museé d’Orsay, a converted train station, that has one of the largest collection of impressionist paintings.

Here are some lockets that people have put on a bridge with their names and the names of their lovers.

When I saw the point of the Ile de la Cité, I felt regret that I wouldn’t be able to sit at this spot (Spoiler alert: I went there the next day). This reminded me of the beautiful Point in Pittsburgh.

We passed by the entrance to the Canal St. Martin, which is what my previous boat trip was on (but further north).

It’s hard not to show a picture of the Eiffel Tower.

There had recently been demonstrations around the world including in Paris about the hundredth anniversary of the genocide in Armenia.

I think this is a memorial to the location where Princess Diana died.

I made a dinner reservation for a place mentioned in Patricia Wells’ Food Lover’s Guide to Paris (thanks to Francisco for showing it to me). My thought was to get a place near where the boat left me off. The only time they had was 10 PM, which I took. This gave me time to go back to the apartment and several more metro rides. I hadn’t eaten since the morning so dinner sounded really good.

The restaurant was a Basque bistro called Pottoka, which held maybe 30 people. They put me at the bar, which worked well for me since I could talk to the bartender. Here’s part of the review. “Clean, direct, earthy fare from France’s Basque country .. The long, narrow dining room is uncluttered, with warm wooden tables, serious wine glasses, crisp linen napkins, comfortable chairs. And the varied, seasonal fare is not only beautiful but prepared with professional care and attention.”

I ordered the A La Carte menu, which was 35 euros ($38) and included an appetizer, main course, and a desert. The appetizer is French was “Tartare de saumon royal, coulis piquillos et mousse au balsamique blanc”, which Google translated to “King salmon tartare, piquillo sauce and white balsamic foam”. You can see the raw salmon mixed in the red, slightly spicy piquillo sauce with the white foam on the top.

The main course was Conflit veal, button mushrooms, artichokes, and spring onions in a blanquette sauce. These are not meals I cook at home. The portion size was not large but the sauces were very complicated. I was in heaven, especially with the artichokes.

The desert was the Basque cake and vanilla ice cream.

They had a problem with my bill so they gave me some of this basque liquor while they were straightening it out. I had a couple of basque beers with dinner. Even though I was drinking beer, they still asked if I wanted wine and seemed surprised that I didn’t. While I love French culture, I’m just not into wine.

The trip back to the apartment after midnight was fun with several drinks in my head. Here’s a view of the courtyard inside the apartment building.

Much of today was spent on boats and metros with a lot of walking. This was my last full day in Paris and it’s clear that I have not had my fill. When do I go back?