....................A Sunny Sunday in Paris

Today was nice out in the 60's but since it was a day for being outside I thought I would wear a pea-coat just to be safe.....I could have gotten away with a sweater.

Last night I studied the metro system and a map of the city and a map from "Frommer's, Paris day by day" book.  That really helped me figure out the metro system and it is a feeling of total freedom now that I have this down pat.  Today I was able to get us to places so much easier.  We also bought our own tickets at the station on a machine and that really liberated us from the French...somewhat........

 We started out by heading right for the Arc de Triomphe.  This was one of Gary's must do's.  So we did.  He didn't want to go up 284 steps as that would have been the end of our day....so instead we strolled down the south side of the Elyse es all the way to the Obelisk.  I walked into the beautiful Louis Vuitton store just as it opened at noon.  There was a line to get in and the amount of employees just standing there to watch for thieves was amazing.

 Then we turned at the Obelisk and headed  into the very, very chic,chic part of town.  I wanted  to see Chanel's flagship store.  We wandered here and there with my map and finally found it.  It was back behind the Ritz Hotel and the street was very tiny but there it was, 31 rue Cambon!!  Gary was so understanding about this and after just a couple of pictures we were off trying to find the Madeleine Building (a HUGE beautiful pillared building that I have no idea what it is but want to find out....that is where our metro station was.  We stopped in a great little cafe and people watched as we ate lunch then jumped on our metro to take us to the Sac re` Coeur (Sacred Heart), it's a big white Basilica that sits on a hilltop so that all of Paris is there to see.

 Getting out of the metro we missed the elevator and thought how hard can this be.....OMG about 6 flights of stairs to the top and outside.  Poor Gary's knees, we were huffing and puffing like you can't believe.  Once on top there were a few side streets to figure out until we could see that all roads to the place we want to be at are up another 100 or so steps.....at this point there were some words to be said and ignored and then up the steps.  We arrived at our destination the Place du Tertre.  This is the old square where artists are there by the hundreds drawing caricatures of people. One guy came up to Gary and said "Mr Hemingway, you need your painting drawn", we said no and walked away as he was saying "you come all the way up for what, it will only take 5 minutes", maybe we should have.  There were so many original paintings of the area but most were framed on canvas and we didn't care to carry it all the way.  I got my posters that I came after and some postcards and then we just spent time browsing through all the very cool streets.  This was a must see and glad we did!

Got a bit lost trying to get back down but we made it with the help of an English speaking person, then we are on our train and back to the hotel early to do laundry....only to find out that on Sunday everything is closed and there is no one open to give us change for the laundry mat and the grocery store is closed as well.  Dinner will have to be left over from breakfast...cereal, bananas, yogurt, and wine.....did I mention the wine here is so cheap and SO good....the bottle I got at the store was 3 Euro...this is what maybe $5.00 and it's good. Now I know that THIS IS WHY THE FRENCH ARE NOT FAT, THEY DRINK DINNER!!!!!!

Oh ...................this is not good news all the kids were sick before we left Germany and tonight as I sit here on the computer I am noticing a sore throat coming on and it is getting worse the nose is staring to run and the body aches are coming...wow in just a short amount of time this hit.  Not good at all.