Josh and Rachel Take a Trip

Today is our last day in Paris, France. We wanted it to be engaging, relaxing and celebratory.

We got up and found a nearby cafe and ordered omelettes because we were starving. Josh threw on an order of croissants at the end, but we didn’t know that our breakfasts came with a basket of bread. It wasn’t a problem, however: Josh wrapped the excess chunks of baguette in a napkin and stuffed them in his pockets.

From there we were on a mission for a couple things to remember the city by. I haven’t been able to settle on anything in particular that I want as a souvenir… In retrospect, I wish I’d bought one of those little Eiffel Towers they sell outside the monument, even if it was the “tourist” thing to do. I picked up a small, well-made Petite Prince, since the book has been my bite-by-bite french lesson while here. I’d love to have some french clothing to wear, but I didn’t have the heart to drag Josh through boutique after boutique, especially when I wanted to get to the Arc de Triomphe at some point in the day.

We found a couple things and headed home, only to turn right back around and head to the Arc by Metro. Like Paris’s other monuments, it’s size is beyond comprehension. You emerge out of the metro and view it from across the street — it is located in the center of the city’s largest swirling traffic vortex of doom, pronounced “Roundabout”. There are no crosswalks, so you must reach it by a tunnel running under the traffic. When you see sunlight again, you’re right below the giant.

Napoleon built it as a tribute to France’s fallen soldiers. Apparently, it is imitation of the Romans’ arcs, but about 10x bigger (Do you think that Napoleon was compensating for something? Hmm…) Each of the wide sides of the Arc have two reliefs. My favorite is this one, showing a ferocious France (the woman) rallying her tired, hungry, and naked troops to continue the fight for freedom.

In the center, there is a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. They have replaced the flowers and relit the flame every evening at 6:30pm since WWI.

The base of the memorial is free. The ticket you buy is really for the view. Euros aside, you have to work for the vantage point, too — it’s a loooong spiral staircase up one side and then a looooong spiral staircase descent down the other. Once on top, however, you get a grand view of the city’s fancy-schmancy boulevard — the Champs-Elysee — and the other giant boulevards that form the etoile, or star, of the Arc. Speaking of boulevards, the Place de l’Etoile is the only roundabout in France that gives the right of way (priorite de droite) to the incoming traffic and NOT those already within the circle. So you get some scenes like this:

Yikes. The view of the city, on the other hand, is much more serene.

We left the Arc and took a stroll down the Champs-Elysee, the most famous street in Paris. There were cafes and coffee, food and fashion.  We had fun translating the GAP advertisements in the windows, wandering the Virgin store — three levels, and the widest graphic novel collection we’ve ever seen — there was an enormous store-front for Louis Vuitton and a wonderful parfumerie. Our favorite, however, was the sales floor for Peurgeot where you see this:

But you also saw this:

Exhausted and a little bummed out at our waning time, we returned to the Marais district to find food and get ready to leave the next day. We sat down at the cafe we see every morning, hoping to eat and watch the city go by. Our plan was thwarted after we ordered a giant carafe of wine and… aha, cafes only serve drinks after 7 pm. If you want to eat, you must go to a restaurant. We drank the wine like champs (if we must, we must), then gave our food search another, if slightly more wobbly, try. We found a wonderful little place and had chicken and wine and sausage and lamb and desserts and espressos. We’ll miss Paris…