Arc de Triumph, Angelina’s, and Electricity

We were catching the train back to Toulon in the early afternoon, so we didn’t have much time for sightseeing today. This morning we raced off to the Arc de Triumph, located in the center of the world’s largest traffic circle, Charles de Galle. The Parisians seem to have a weird fetish for putting important monuments in traffic circles. 12 streets radiate out from the Charles de Galle traffic circle, going to all sections of the city. There is an accident every 18 minutes in the circle, so some auto insurance companies have a clause that this circle isn’t covered. The Arc was commissioned in 1806 by Napoleon to commemorate his victories, but when he started losing battles, the work stopped. It was eventually finished in 1836.

We got off the subway and went over to the intersection. Yep, it is an arch, much the same as the ones we saw in Rome. And it’s tall.

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We wandered from street to street on the outside of the circle looking for the tunnel that goes under the street into the circle. We eventually found it on Champs-Elysees. Like the other arcs we have seen, it is Continue reading

The Louvre Museum and Dinner with Louis

Continued from yesterday”¦The next stop was a quick tour of the Apollo Gallery next door to the Italian Gallery. This is ridiculously opulent room, with carved and gilded walls and ceilings. On the walls are portraits of various important people and on the ceilings are more statues. There is so much gilding that the walls and ceiling look to be solid gold from a distance.

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This room was full of fancy things. The centerpiece are Continue reading

Segway Tour and the Eiffel Tower

Continued from yesterday”¦ The main entrance to the Jarden Tuileries, the gardens on the northeast side of the Louvre, is off the Place de la Concorde. Riding Segways is not allowed in the garden, so we left the Place du Concorde and rode along the outside of the south side of the garden until we got to the Place du Carrousel, which is a little area between the Jarden Tuileries and the Louvre. From the Carrousel, we had a nice view of the garden. The garden was created in the mid-1600’s, and it is typical French, symmetrical, neatly laid out and immaculately groomed. It is pretty, with fountains, lush grass, lots of trees, flowers and statues. Our guide told us that the Nazis had cut down all the trees during WWII, so all the trees had to be replanted after the war. That is why they are not very big. In this photo, you can see the obelisk at the opposite end. The French are very precise with symmetry, so they made sure the obelisk lined up perfectly with the garden walkway.

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Back when the Louvre was the Royal Palace, the Carrousel was where the royalty practiced their horse riding skills and etiquette. The entrance to the Louvre is flanked by to the Arc de Triumph du Carrousel, a Roman style arch fairly similar to the Arc de Constantino in Rome. It is topped by a statue of someone standing on a chariot. Here is the Carrousel, the arch and some of the Louvre buildings.

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The Louvre was originally built in the 13th century as Continue reading

The Segway Tour of Paris

Our hotel could only take us for one night, so we checked out early in the morning and asked them to hold our bags. After breakfast, we’d head to the tourism office to see if they would help us find a room. But first thing first. We needed a real American breakfast.

We walked over to the Breakfast in America diner. We are happy to report that breakfast was truly everything we hoped it would be. We had Continue reading

Welcome to Paris, France

Yesterday morning we said our goodbyes to Jaime. He had just come for a quick weekend visit and needed to get going fairly early to catch his flight back to England. Then we moved to a permanent spot in the marina. We were absolutely delighted to find it was a floating finger dock, although it is a shared berth. It’s funny how our perspective of what is exciting has changed so much. Finger docks make tying up so darn easy. As they seem to always do in the Med, they had us back in.

We were dismayed to find that the shore power wasn’t working. Eric messed with it for a while, but he couldn’t figure out what was wrong. Darn, no power means that our time away from Kosmos was going to be limited to three or four days, max. We signed up for wifi internet and found ourselves glued to the internet all day. We haven’t had internet since Rome, and so much has been happening in the world that we had a lot to catch up on.

We didn’t actually venture out until dinner time, where we settled on a pizza place along the waterfront. We’d seen a lot of people in there the night before, so we figured it was probably good. We got a phenomenally good salad served with warm marinated duck, foie gras, hard boiled eggs, lettuce and tomatoes. The duck was melt in your mouth tender. For those that don’t know, foie gras is goose liver, usually served cold. The texture is creamy, more like a cheese spread than a meat. It has a light flavor, and doesn’t even remotely taste like any other types of livers we have tried in our lives. It is also very good.

This morning we packed up and walked over to the bus station. The skies were gray and it was cool out. Gray skies means the solar panels won’t be making much electricity, but cool out means fridge/freezer won’t suck as much juice, so that probably evens out power consumption. We made a wrong turn somewhere along the way and took the long, scenic route to the bus stop. The town is nice. The old part looks a lot like St. Tropez, with narrow cobblestone lanes and quaint, traditional old buildings painted cheerful colors. The old town is small, much smaller than St. Tropez. The rest of town that we walked through is more modern, with many of the buildings looking very 60’s era. We saw a lot of apartment buildings and a few houses. It looks to be a mostly residential area with not a lot of commercial activity. The houses vary widely in architectural style, adding to the character. There is a lot of greenery around, with many flowering plants in bloom. It is pretty.

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When we did finally make it to the bus stop, we had missed the bus by Continue reading