Weekend in Paris

Weekend in Paris

Finally, the house is in order, at least functional. The kitchen is stocked with cookware and dinner ware. The fridge is stocked. The bedrooms are furnished. We are no longer living out of suitcases with appliance boxes substituting for tables. And we have a car. We still need living room furniture, but that's next month. For now we can relax and enjoy a weekend off. Where else to go, but Paris. No searching for the necessities, just having fun, with no other mission.

I took this snapshot from my GPS on the Intercites train to Paris showing 100 mph.

We drove to the train station, 15 minutes, and took the train to Paris, 2 hours. Buying a train ticket is easy, just tell the man in the booth where you want to go. Two one way tickets are the same cost as one round trip ticket, so I prefer to buy only the one way ticket. Then I have the option of when we return. If we sleep in we can take a late train, if we want to stay an extra day, it's no big deal. If you are traveling after hours and the booth is closed, you can use the kiosk, which has an English option to purchase tickets. Its quick and easy. The train runs from 5:00 in the morning until 10:00 at night, with departure times approximately every four hours, depending on the day of the week.
Dramamine is a good idea. Alice gets motion sick occasionally and the train to Paris is not the smoothest. It sways side to side and bumps around. Its not as comfy as the TGV. There are public restrooms on the train, but like public restrooms anywhere, they are not always the neatest nor smell the freshest.

Hotel de Ville with ice skating rink in front.

Of course the first thing to see in Paris in December are the lights and the window displays. The Hotel de Ville, (the City Hall) had ice skating out front and brilliant strobes decorated the roof. A large tree of lights and a snowman celebrated the season near the main entrance.

Tree of lights and snowman in front of Hotel de Ville.

A lot of people were climbing onto the railing or putting their kids up on the railing for pictures. We passed.

The Eiffel Tower is always a must see. We wandered about the Trocadero among crowds of sight seers, waiting for the lights to sparkle up and down the tower. On the hour they turn on the twinkling strobes for a wonderful show.

Galleries Layfayette had its windows decorated for the season. Along one street, the windows were decorated with a Louis Vuitton theme of animals and marionettes.The crowds were atrocious. The sidewalks were packed with people and strollers. It was difficult to get close enough to take pictures without knocking over a few children and old ladies. I led the way since Alice feels sorry for the old ladies.

The bear and all the marionettes were animated.

Drum music played as the marionettes struck their drums.

Even the dog bobbed his head in time to the music.

The Pom-Poms shook as the marionettes danced.

The other side of the store featured storybook themes. Curiously, it was not as crowded as the marionette side.

Cinderella

Rapunzel

Snow White

A full day of walking around Paris, climbing up and down the stairs of the Metro, will give you two things: sore feet and a big appetite. At one in the morning it is hard to find a restaurant in the off season, even in Paris. So of course we headed for the Hippopotamus. Where you can count on continuous service and large portions for hungry tourists.