Europe Day 1 – August 20th

29 Celsius and Sunny

This is the first of twenty posts documenting Margaret-Ann and John’s 2011 trip to Europe.

Just over seven hours after taking off from Toronto, Margaret-Ann and John touched down at Paris’ Charles de Gaulle airport at 12:05 p.m. After retrieving their luggage, they met Barbara and Rudi (John’s cousin) in front of Terminal 3 and together took a taxi to their centrally located hotel, Les Jardins du Marais – a very trendy, 4 star, boutique hotel at 74 Rue Amelot.

Margaret-Ann and John dropped off their luggage and freshened up at the hotel, then joined Barbara and Rudi for a “short walk” around Paris. Over the next several hours, the group saw many wonderful sights.

• Walked to the Place de la Bastille, site of the former prison, and saw the Colonne de Juillet in the centre of the square – a tribute to those who died in the street battles of July 1830 that led to the overthrow of the monarchy. On one side of the square was the glass-faced Bastille Opera.
• Took the metro to Place de la Concorde, one of Europe’s most magnificent and historic squares, where they saw the two large fountains, the 3,200 year old Luxor Obelisk and some very ornate street lamps.
• Walked east from Place de la Concorde and joined thousands of others strolling through the Jardins des Tuileries. Continued east to the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel and beyond to the pyramid entrance to the Musée du Louvre.
• Walked back through the Jardins des Tuileries to Place de la Concorde, then west along the Champs-Élysées. Dropped in to the Petit Palais on Avenue Winston Churchill to see if Barbara could buy a replacement door mat (no longer available), then continued west on the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe in Place Charles de Gaulle (a very large traffic circle with 12 roads radiating out from it). Here they saw several brave, and foolhardy, souls risk their lives by running across the Place to the Arc. Absolutely crazy, since there is a tunnel underneath the Place linking the Arc and the Champs-Élysées.
• Ended up walking along Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, one of the world’s most fashionable streets, past many high-end stores including Christian Louboutin, where the likes of Oprah Winfrey buy their shoes. In fact, a young lady wearing the trademarked red-soled spiked heels, passed the group and stumbled her way up the street to Christian Louboutin’s, where she was ushered in to the previously locked store.
• Continued along Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré past the Élysée Palace, home of the President of France, Nicolas Sarkosy.
• Walked to la Madeleine, the church dedicated to Mary Magdalene and one of the best known buildings in Paris, and the Palais Garnier, the old opera house now used primarily for ballet.
• Visited Harry’s New York Bar at 5 Rue Daunou, where F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway were once patrons.
• Dined at the Hippopotamus Café and took the metro back to the hotel, again walking by Place de la Bastille.

And so ended day one of Margaret-Ann and John’s 2011 European trip. Keep checking the blog for more postings of this trip.

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