Europe 2008 Part 44

Sunday in Paris

We set out on Sunday morning to find the parents of our friend Joelle Xavier. We knew the street they lived in but had forgotten the rest of the address. So we went to the neighbourhood by metro, and found the street. It was not a particularly long street, but it had a variety of buildings.

 

We knocked on a random door, and talked to a man who was there. He helpfully went to his flat, looked in the phone book, and came back with the details. We found the number in this building:

 

 

It was a secure building; one needed a number for the security system. However, a gentleman came along with his dog, and we enquired from him, and he said: "The Xaviers live next door to me, come up with them and I will show you their door." Which he did.

 

Pierre and Anita Xavier were very welcoming and brought out morning tea. As we were leaving, they invited us to go to dinner with them at their favourite 'Italian' restaurant around the corner.

 

Then we walked along the streets nearby to the park beside the Eiffel Tower, and sat on a bench to eat our lunch.

 

Then we walked past the tower down to the riverside, and bought tickets for a river cruise to see something of the central part of Paris.

 

This enabled us to see several of the bridges over the Seine, some of the working boats, and one or two luxury ones, on the way. We went as far as Notre Dame and back. The commentary on this trip was less interesting than the one we had heard on a similar cruise on the Thames in London. 

 

 

After the cruise we strolled along the path beside the Seine and across a bridge to the Place de la Concorde. Eventually we reached the Louvre:

 

Unfortunately, by the time we reached the gallery, there was only one hour left before closing time on a Sunday, so we reluctantly left that idea behind for the day and caught the metro home.