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\u2019t 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 \u201cALL IN ONE: Nothing is included, everything is free. A glass of Champagne, the minibar, tea time buffet\u2026\u201d The Champagne was most welcome.<\/p>\n
Because of the shemozzle with our tickets to Brugge back on July 1st<\/sup>, 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.<\/p>\n 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, St\u00e9phane Grappelli, Balzac, etc., etc. The place is huge\u2014105 acres\u2014and 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 \u201cNe vous reposez pas \u2026\u201d I wasn\u2019t sitting on any of the gravestones and I didn\u2019t want to sit on the stone bench she kept suggesting.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Tonight\u2019s event was a Metro to Rue Saint Denis\u2014the 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.<\/p>\n It\u2019s just 11:00 p.m. and already we\u2019re back in our hotel for the last night on the road. Holland, Belgium, Denmark, Germany and France were all fantastic.\u00a0 Time to go home, but we’re already talking about the next trip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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\u2019t like the room or the neighborhood, so we moved a bit closer to the Sorbonne and the Latin Quarter. Our …<\/p>\n