July in Paris…

Tuesday, July 27

Today is our last day in the City of Light and our short 3+ day stop has been great. The day opened with a quick au revoir to Hotel Crystal. We didn’t like the room or the neighborhood, so we moved a bit closer to the Sorbonne and the Latin Quarter. Our new home at the Belloy Saint Germain is wonderful. In the room we found a tent card curiously saying “ALL IN ONE: Nothing is included, everything is free. A glass of Champagne, the minibar, tea time buffet…” The Champagne was most welcome.

Because of the shemozzle with our tickets to Brugge back on July 1st, we had a spare day on our Eurail pass. We thought about taking the train someplace outside of town for a day, but in the end decided to get a one day Metro pass and bum around town. I suppose we can use our pass to take the TGV to the airport.

Anyway, our Paris wonderings today took us to Cimetiere du Pere Lachaise, a cemetery with a noteworthiness of Forest Lawn. Most notably, I suppose, is that this is the resting place of Jim Morrison. More significantly, perhaps, it also holds the remains of Fredrick Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Stéphane Grappelli, Balzac, etc., etc. The place is huge—105 acres—and it was a beautiful day for wondering and an area that was a bit less occupied by tourists than most of the rest of Paris. I did manage to get yelled at twice while we were here. Once by a man for my showing little interest in going to the grave of Maria Callas and the other by a woman who repeatedly told me “Ne vous reposez pas …” I wasn’t sitting on any of the gravestones and I didn’t want to sit on the stone bench she kept suggesting.

After a few hours with dead people we headed to the Centre Pompidou. The museum was closed for some special maintenance and the spouting lips were dry. Oh, well, back to the hotel for a bit of refreshment and then back to the streets.

Tonight’s event was a Metro to Rue Saint Denis—the prime red-light district in Paris and also home to Port of Saint Denis Arches. While not quite as grand as the Arch de Triumph, still quite impressive.

It’s just 11:00 p.m. and already we’re back in our hotel for the last night on the road. Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and France were all fantastic.  Time to go home, but we’re already talking about the next trip.