I got the camera out just in time to catch the boat!
So I got the time off of work (11/24 was a Tuesday) and took the train up Monday morning. It's just over 5 hours on the TGV and you end up right in the middle of Paris.
A view out the window of the TGV between Antibes and Cannes.
I found a great deal on a hotel in the Latin Quarter, the 4th arrondisement, which is an area I really like. The hotel was in a pedestrian area and there were lots of cheap restaurants and shops. The 4th is the district that contains the Sorbonne, so there are tons of students around and the area has a really relaxed, funky vibe.
After I dropped my bags in my room, which smelled quite smokey (more on that below), I went out for a stroll. I happened to see a flyer posted on a wall for a piano concert that night at a church that was less than a 5-minute walk from my hotel. So I decided to go to that after dinner. I took myself out for a nice meal at a restaurant just across from my hotel where I felt like the mystery woman having dinner alone. It was really interesting to hear the conversations going on around me (the tables at restaurants in France are normally very close together, so it's almost impossible not to eavesdrop).
After the concert, I went back to my room and had a quick chat with Kev on the phone. I had to close the window to try and sleep because the room was just on the street and it was a bit noisy. However, once the window was closed, the smoke smell in the room became overwhelming. I guess the person in the room before me was an extremely heavy smoker, because it was overpowering. And they must not have cleaned the room properly or something. So at 12:30, I put a sweater over my pajamas and threw on my cargo pants and went down to ask if I could change rooms! So they gave me a room just across the hall which ended up being twice the size of my original room, minus the smoke smell. It was really nice. (And the best part is that when I left, they didn't charge me any extra!!)
My new and improved room!
Tuesday, I went out around 10am and just walked around for hours. That's the best part about Paris...there is so much going on all the time and so much to see that you can walk for hours and not realize it. I poked my head into a couple of shops, had a great falafel lunch and even went back for a quick nap.
The tomb of St. Genevieve, patron saint of Paris.
Saint-Etienne du Mont, the church where the tomb is located.
After I picked up my concert ticket at Notre Dame.
The concert at Notre Dame was amazing. There were about 20 singers in all, but they only all sang together for the very last piece in the performance. During the show, it was sometimes 1 or 2 singers, sometimes 6. And the cathedral is always amazing.
At the end of the concert.
I was up early the next morning for my train at 10. After the cloudy skies the last 2 days, the sky was clear, so I decided to walk back to the train station rather than take the metro. (This was the first of the many times I've been in Paris where I *didn't* take the metro.) It only took about 1/2 an hour and the sunrise was incredible.
Wow!!!
A fantastic quick trip in all.
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