Two Weeks in Paris
Day by Day

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We bought non-stop tickets from Dulles to Paris on Continental that, by the time the day arrived, were tickets on United. That was OK because we had had a good experience with United once when we had to make a change of flights and airlines at Rome's Fiumicino airport.

We paid extra for seats with extra leg room in steerage but the seats turned out to be in front of an exit row (it's so long since I traveled regularly that I make mistakes that at one time I would not have made) so the seatbacks were limited in how much they would recline. I doubt that really had much to do with our having had a sleepless night.



Day 1, Thursday April 26, 2012

The airplane arrived in Paris on time and we whisked through Immigration with only three people in line ahead of us. There was no Customs inspection at all, not so much as a guy waving us through. After getting some euros at an airport ATM we took a taxi to our rented apartment at 6 Rue de Foin, in the Marais district of Paris. This air view shows the apartment as a blue dot:
Air view of Place des Vosges
The green area is the Place des Vosges, a residential development dating from the reign of Louis XIII. Here are two photos of our apartment, inside and out, and one of Place des Vosges:

Inside of our apartment.Carole in front of our apartment.Place des Vosges
Our apartment was built in the middle 1700s as part of the carriage house and stables of a mansion and the building is listed by the French Monuments Historiques. The entrance to our apartment was from a courtyard -- originally a stableyard -- that can be seen in the larger version of the aerial photo above.

We took our main meal of the day at an excellent neighborhood restaurant called Le Petit Marché. We returned there several times. Breakfasts came from one of the three boulangeries that were within a couple of blocks.



Day 2, Friday April 27, 2012

Still jet-lagged, we slept until 11 o'clock and didn't do a whole lot this day. Since the Carnavalet Museum of the history of Paris was only a couple of blocks away we started out our touristing by going there.
Statue of Louis XIVA model of the BastilleA room in the Carnavalet Museum.
After a late lunch we followed the advice in the Rick Steves guide book and rode the #69 bus to the end of the line and back. This bus line goes past many of the top tourist sites and provides a good orientation to where things are. We caught the bus on Rue Saint-Antoine and rode it past the Hôtel de Ville, the Louvre, the Musée d'Orsay, and the Invalides to the end of the line at the Champ de Mars, where I took a picture of Carole in front of a large, steel structure. On the return trip we got off at the Place de la Bastille.
Thr LouvreCarole in front of the Eiffel TowerThe monument in Place de la Bastille.


Day 3, Saturday April 28, 2012

Yet another chilly, overcast day. We walked down to the St Paul Metro stop, learned how to buy tickets and ride the Metro, and went to the Arc de Triomphe. From there we walked down the Champs Elysées to Place de la Concorde and then the length of the Tuileries Garden. As we approached the end of the garden it started to rain so, there being a Metro stop right there, we rode back to St Paul. It rained the rest of the day so we stayed in, resting and reading.
  The Unknown SoldierThe McDonalds on the Champs ElyseesPetit PalaisThe TuilieriesMetro train at Tuileries station

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