Look Out France! Here I Come! Part 4--Strasbourg and Paris

April 14, 2012 Strasbourg and Paris, France

We had a few hours in Strasbourg before our train for Paris would be leaving. Rob had to run back to his house to pick up a bottle of wine that he had picked up at a winery that Linda was bringing home with him, so Linda and I were on our own for a couple of hours, and were going to meet Rob at the train station.

We walked back over to the cathedral. We hadn’t really looked at the cathedral from one of the sides, so I wanted to take a look at that side. We wound up walking all the way around it.

When we were back in front of the church, I could hear music coming from the church, so I stepped inside to listen to the pipe organ for a few minutes while Linda browsed in a nearby gift shop.

We stopped at bakery near the cathedral to get some breakfast. I got a delicious soft pretzel with ham and melted cheese on the bottom. It was so good that I wished I had picked up a few of them.

We then headed to the tram station to go to the train station to catch our train to Paris. We were hoping that Rob would have arrived at the train station by then, but we didn’t see him. We waited a short time for him near the exit from the tram, but he still didn’t arrive.

We didn’t have a lot of time before our train would be leaving, so we headed over to the area where there were some shops and cafes so we could get some lunch to eat on the train. We both wound up getting ham and cheese sandwiches.

I also bought a Twix bar to eat on the train. Twix bars are the same as we get in America, but it tasted a lot different in France. I didn’t really like it.

They were soon boarding our train, so we started to head towards the platform. Linda spotted Rob coming up from the tram station, so he made it just in time to give Linda the bottle of wine. Rob walked us to the platform. We gave him big hugs and boarded the train. The train left right on time, and we were soon speeding across the French country side on our way to Paris.

When our train arrived in Paris, we walked out and got in a cab to head to the Hotel D’Orsay. We lucked out and had an excellent cab driver. His English was very good, and he was great about pointing the sites along the way. He told us that it was his dream to visit the United States, and he had many questions for us as well.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by Gregory at the front desk. I really liked Gregory a lot--he was at the desk each night of our stay. He was always willing to offer suggestions or directions, and asked about our day when we arrived back at the hotel each night.

Check in was quick, and we were soon on our way to room 15, a superior room on the first floor of the hotel. Once again, I was surprised by the size of our room. Whoever said that hotel rooms in Europe are tiny obviously never travelled with me! There were two twin beds pushed together against one wall, and a small desk with two chairs against the other wall. There was about 15 feet of space between the foot of the bed and the wall the desk was against. There were two pairs of large windows overlooking the quiet street below.

The room was very clean, and the furnishings made the room feel very homey.  The beds were very comfortable. The room was a bit on the warm side, and even when we adjusted the thermostat, the temperature in the room never went down. The bathroom was huge and like the Hotel Gutenberg, featured a very deep tub.

After settling into the room, we were ready to explore Paris. We were originally hoping to visit the Eifel Tower this afternoon, but they were having trouble with the elevators, and we couldn’t get advanced tickets. So, we decided to head over to Montmartre area of Paris to go to see Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rouge. I had picked up a map of Paris at the airport, and it looked like they were both right at the Abbesses subway station. We soon found out that the maps in Paris are a bit deceiving, as they don’t put all of the streets on there, but I’ll get to that in a bit. We have to get there first.

So, off we headed to the Solferino subway station, which was just a few minutes walk from the Hotel D’Orsay. The subway in Paris was fantastic. There was very clear signage at the station so you could clearly tell which direction each train was going. There were signs on the platforms that told you how many minutes until the next train would arrive. The subway was well utilized, and clean. Despite all the lines, it was very easy to navigate. 

Soon, we were at the Abbesses station.  We started to walk up the stairs and everyone stopped. We couldn’t understand why everyone stopped, but then saw they were just waiting for the elevator. We decided to walk up the steps rather than wait in the long elevator line.

We started to ascend the wide spiral staircase that wrapped around the elevator. And we walked up, and up, and them up some more with no end in sight. We now knew why everyone stopped for the elevator. Each time I would reach a platform, I would think we would be coming to the street level, and I would see more stairs above. I reached the point where I would just laugh each time I would turn the corner to see more stairs. I found out later that the platform is about 118 feet in the ground (or about 10 or 11 stories underground), and there are about 200 steps from the platform to the street level.

Once on the ground, I was fully expecting to see both Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rogue right from the station because that’s what it looked like on the map, but I was mistaken. I couldn’t see them anywhere. We weren’t exactly sure where we should go, but I spotted a sign for Sacre Coeur, so we headed in that direction. Surely, we were only a few minutes away because it was so close to the station on the map, but I was mistaken.  We walked a bit, and walked a bit more, following the signs.

It had been a while since we saw a sign, and we saw a lot of people walking up a hill, so we decided to follow them. Linda spotted a building at the top of two long sets of stairs that she assumed was Sacre Coeur. There were a lot of people climbing and descending the stairs. I was a bit apprehensive about climbing the steps at first because we had just did a major stair climb at Abbesses station. I was afraid that if might not be the right place, but we figured it had to be Sacre Coeur because there were so many people.  So up we climbed, about 100 more steps to the top of Montmartre hill.

And we were rewarded with a stunning view of Paris. Although it was a bit overcast, it was still gorgeous. I bet the view would be absolutely breath taking in the evening.

We were also found out that we could have taken a funicular up the hill to the base of Sacre Coeur, which would have saved us a lot of steps. They also had a little trolley that people were riding up and down the hill. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t research something you are going to see in advance.  We hadn’t intended on visiting Sacre Coeur, so it really was a bonus attraction.

Sacre Coeur was massive. Though the outside of the building was not as ornate as some of the other churches we saw, it was still beautiful. It had a few statues and domes, and was really striking because of its size. Once again, I was awed by the thought of this building being built hundreds of years ago without the equipment that we have today.

Even more stunning than the outside of the church was the inside of the basilica. Unfortunately, they did not allow pictures inside the basilica. It was absolutely gorgeous inside, with amazing stained glass windows, artwork, and statues. We sat for a few minutes and just soaked it all in. It was by far the most beautiful of any of the churches we visited on our trip.

We then headed back down the hill. We decided to walk instead of taking the funicular. Walking down steps is much easier than walking up steps.  But we agreed that we would take the elevator down at Abbesses station to head back to our hotel later.

We were on our way to find Moulin Rouge using the crappy airport map. Sacre Coeur was about a 10 minute walk from the station. The Moulin Rouge was on the opposite side from Sacre Coeur, so we walked back to the station an headed in the opposite direction, hoping we were going the right way.

We walked a bit, and stopped to look at the map again to see if we could find any of the streets on it. We were about to give up when I spotted a tour group walking down the hill. I figured that the tour group must be heading somewhere worth seeing, so we started walking down the hill. We walked past a Moulin Rouge official gift shop, so we knew we were in the vicinity of the Moulin Rouge.

Sure enough, when we got to the bottom of the hill, we saw lots of people standing across the street taking pictures. So we crossed the street, and saw Moulin Rouge ourselves. I absolutely love the movie, so it was really cool to see the building in person. Of course, I had to be the tourist and have my picture taken in front of it.

We decided to head back towards our hotel. We wound up deciding to walk a different way to Abbesses station to see if there was anything else interesting around. I wound up spotting the Pigalle subway station, which was on the same line as Abbesses and Solferino. It saved us from having to walk back up the hill to Abbesses. 

We took a short break at our hotel, and decided to walk to the Eifel Tower. Though we probably could have a shorter walk by walking through the downtown streets, we opted to take the more scenic route along the Seine. It was a longer walk than I expected, and it took us a long time to get there, but it was worth the walk because we were finally able to get a close up view at one of the world’s most famous landmarks.

The tower wasn’t as tall as I expected it to be, and it was actually kind of ugly, but it was still a famous monument that I dreamed about visiting for years. I was surprised that the tower was brown--I always pictured it as being silver. We checked the line to see if there was any chance we could get tickets, but the line stretched really long, and neither of us felt like waiting in it, so we skipped it.

We then headed right down to the bank of the Seine to start the walk back towards our hotel. We found a little stand that sold gelato, so we got some to eat while we walked. We wound up crossing the river to the other side of the Seine and walked back towards out hotel at street level. We were able to get some nice pictures with the Eifel Tower. It was a really pleasant walk.

We wound up going to the Café Solferino, which was right around the corner from our hotel, for dinner. We both got the steak au poivre, which was served with pomme frites and salad. Neither of us was impressed by the steak au poivre here. My steak was very tough, and it just didn’t have great flavor too it.

We headed back to the hotel to get some sleep. It had been a long busy day, and our feet were aching from walking over 10 miles, but it was a great start to our stay in Paris.