A last walk, one more banana/Nutella crepe, a tiny elevator, and cleaning out the fridge

Day 25 France 2012

Mark and Vicki left at 8:00 this morning to go back to Amsterdam and then on to Berlin to meet their daughter and son-in-law and precious Penelope, their one-year-old granddaughter.  We were so sad to see them go, but had such a great time with them while they were here.

Leon and I stayed around the apartment catching up on computer work and the blog until noon, then went out for our last walk around the city.  Although we had seen Notre Dame from afar several times, we decided that since we had been visiting churches this trip that we really needed to go there.  It is an easy RER train ride, so we used the last of our Metro tickets and headed out.  We got some nice photos of the outside and even of the statue of Charlemagne that is in the courtyard, but as we started to go in the church, we noticed that all those people we saw in the courtyard were in a long line to get in the church.  We decided we did not want to stand in line to see the inside again…another of those times we were glad we had already seen it several times already. 

The carvings outside the church were done to teach Bible stories to the uneducated masses.  I think that some of these carvings are just a little bit scary.

Of course, Notre Dame has great gargoyles.

There is a nice park with shaded benches behind the church, so we stopped by a crepe stand, got our last banana/Nutella crepe, and walked behind Notre Dame to a nice bench to enjoy the view and our crepes.  Most tourists don’t know about that little park, so there are very few people there but there are great views of the flying buttresses that you can’t see from the front.

 

The Rick Steves’ book mentioned the Deportation Memorial just across a street from the back of the church and right beside the river, so we headed over there.  It was built in 1962 when de Gaulle was president as a memorial to all of those Frenchmen who were deported to concentration or work camps by the Nazis.  Only 3% of them returned.  You walk down steps into sort of a pit, then through a narrow door to the memorial.  The lights represent all the ones who did not come back.

We walked across the bridge from the island that Notre Dame is on over to the Left Bank and noticed that the metal railing on the bridge was covered with locks.  All of the locks had names on them, most had two names and a date on them.  There were thousands of them on both sides of the bridge.  When we got back to the apartment, Leon looked it up, and it seems that the locks are symbols of love.  People started putting the locks on just a few years ago and the railing on one side is solid and the other side is almost full.  Leon read that the city has declared them an eyesore and a sacrilege for a sacred place, so they plan to take all the locks off. 

Right beside the Seine River are little green souvenir and book seller’s stands.  Since it had been raining, most of them were closed, but we found one that was open, and I bought a few prints.  On nice days, they are all open, and it is fun to walk along and see all the used books, paintings, posters, and souvenirs for sale.

The view of Notre Dame from the side and across the river is spectacular.

We walked by Shakespeare and Company bookstore made famous by Hemingway, James Joyce, and Ezra Pound.  It is still a cluttered space with tons of books, and still allows young writers to bunk there in return for a little work.  You might also remember it from the movie, “Midnight in Paris.”

It started to rain harder, so we decided to duck into the Metro and head back to the apartment.  We just love walking down our street with the great view of the Eiffel Tower at the end.  

We wanted to start packing and cleaning up after being in one place for a week.  We took out the trash and recyclables and washed dishes.  I cleaned up the kitchen and cleaned out the fridge.  Our dinner was everything left in the fridge.  We bought pain chocolat for breakfast tomorrow morning and have some yogurt and milk left, but everything else is gone.  It is really sad to be doing things here for the last time this trip.  I said something to Leon about this being our last supper, and he said it was just our last supper in Paris!

Our apartment building has a tiny elevator.  It works just fine except that it only holds two people, but not two people and two suitcases.  Sometimes Leon and Mark just walked upstairs while Vicki and I rode the elevator.  I couple of times we got three of us on at once, but you really have to be good friends to do that!

We have felt very secure in our apartment.  The door has a drape over it, and we were here a couple of days before we pulled the drape back and saw the elaborate locking system we have.  There are also two locked doors downstairs before you get in the hallway with the elevator.

We have a cab coming to pick us up at 8:00 tomorrow morning, and we will be off for Charles de Gaulle Airport.  We will fly to Cincinnati and spend the night, then come on home on Thursday.  It’s been an incredible trip in our favorite place, France.