#GalwayPub

Sunday, September 18th was a mix of sun and cloud with a bit of a breeze blowing. Summer seemed to be giving way to autumn in the flip of a switch.

We took the bus to Galway Irish Pub for lunch and some sightseeing in the area. There was quite a traffic jam and some closed roads as we got off the bus. There was some kind of event happening in the area to encourage people to bike or take public transit downtown.

I liked the names on the animals/figures

With another good food experience under our belt(s), we headed in the general direction of Musée du Louvre. I’d love to spend time in the Louvre but it is a huge museum and I just don’t have the time to see all the things I’d want to see so we settled on checking out the outside area.

There were a few things to see along the way.

So many book sellers along the left bank of the Seine

Soon we were along the back side of the Louvre. It is a massive building.

As we walked we came to Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel – the entrance of the former palace where the Louvre is.

We continued on to Carrousel Garden and Grand Bassin Rond (which isn’t as big as you’d expect.).

When we got to Place de la Concorde, we found ground zero for the bicycle event.

There was music and some kind of show going on and a really weird human powered something or other going around the Place de la Concorde.

We headed back over the river on the very opulent Pont de la Concorde. It’s pretty impressive for a bridge that’s over 200 years old. I wasn’t all that happy with my photos so none of the bridge, just shots off the bridge.

I love the look of so many of the buildings.

As we got near Lucille and Curtis’ apartment I saw something other than buildings that I liked.

We hung out at the apartment for a few hours and left to find a late supper near Tour Eiffel as my bride had booked us all a 9:00 pm tour to the top.

Many years ago, when I was a photofinisher, I had seen the Eiffel Tower from every angle you could imagine and never thought I’d have any interest in it if I saw it in person. (I was wrong) It’s an impressive structure and at night it is a sight to behold. They make the lights twinkle to look like it’s glowing for about a minute on the hour and sadly, my video can’t be seen here.

The breeze that was blowing at ground level seemed a lot colder up on the 2nd level.

In for a penny, in for a pound; we took the elevator up to the top.

I know the views should be similar just from higher up but something about being up there seemed different than the 2nd level.

We met a nice British couple and their baby while up there and another Canadian couple as well.

We decided against having champagne as the glasses were extremely small, the price extremely high and the cold wind making us want hot chocolate instead.

Curtis shooting a laser beam from his head.

Finally it was time to head back down.

As we were walking away so I could get an overall shot of the tower I was asked if I could take a photo of a young couple with the tower in behind them on their phone.

I took an couple of photos and the young man asked if I minded doing another one.

He quickly pulled a ring out of his pocket, dropped to one knee and proposed to the young lady. I snapped a couple of quick photos and switched it to video for them.

They were from Switzerland and not at all dour like Adam Kerr leads me to believe all Swiss are in the journals of his blog – Canada Slim.

I never thought to grab a photo of the couple I shot their engagement photos.

We’d spent a couple of hours in and around the tower so it was more than time to call it a night as Lucille had school in the morning and Curtis had to go to work.

We got to the subway station after 11:00 pm and after a short wait, were on our way.

It was closer to midnight than we’d of liked when we got back to the apartment. I had gotten almost 17k in steps for the day. No wonder I was tired.

But first, a stop in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

When I booked our trip way back in November of last year, I booked a direct Calgary, Alberta to Paris, France flight with WestJet on their 787 Dreamliner.

In May of this year, WestJet cancelled our outbound flight and offered us a short 2 hour stopover in Halifax if we flew on the 737 Max-8. We would be leaving Calgary earlier in the day and arriving in Paris before lunch time instead of mid afternoon like originally planned. As much as I wanted to avoid flying on a 737 these days, I really didn’t want to fly another day and I figured Halifax would be a lot easier to navigate than if we had to land in Toronto so I agreed to the change.

It was a full flight out of Calgary under blueish skies on Saturday, September 10th at 1:20 pm. There was a lot of forest fire smoke in the air so even at altitude, the sky wasn’t it’s usual shades of blue.

It was dark when we got to Halifax at 9:00 pm local time and were glad to survive the really hard landing we had. With only a 2 hour layover I didn’t try to get any photos of anything.

11:00 pm had us back in the air winging east towards the Atlantic Ocean on our way to Europe.

We tried, and failed to get any real sleep on the flight. Between the air traffic and fog, we were almost an hour later than our scheduled 10 am local time arrival on Sunday, September 11th.

Getting through Customs and getting our luggage took over an hour ( I think the 3 mile walk to get there took the longest) and the cab ride to my sister’s place was over half and hour so we “arrived” around 1:00 pm.

My sister, Lucille and her husband, Curtis were waiting with bated breath, not so much to see us, but to be able to go have lunch.

We jumped right into it by walking over to the #21 bus and heading towards Notre Dame.

We had lunch at Galway Pub; an Irish Pub near the right bank of the Seine. The waiter we had, Matt, had an Irish accent, but is actually French American. It’s a weird combo but he was a nice guy.

After lunch we trekked along the river and crossed over to see Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris. Well, what we could see of it as it’s still closed since the fire in 2019.

Notre Dame rebuild progress side view from across the river.

We meandered along the river taking in the sites.

Wow, a bike lane in the city. Who would of thought it was possible?

A small musical group was finishing up their set as we walked by.

We made our way over to Hôtel de Ville. It’s a whole lot bigger and nicer City Hall than what I’m used to seeing in little ole Red Deer.

We started heading towards the subway to got back to the Moffat’s apartment.

Apparently the Saint Jacques Gothic tower is the last remnants of a big church that got demolished during the French Revolution.

I took a few photos of the building along the way. (Surprising, I know. Or, as the locals would say; “Quelle surprise.”)

We were back at the apartment for a few hours before heading out for supper at an Italian restaurant; Le San Giovanni. I didn’t take a photo of my spaghetti bolognaise but I can tell you it was a whole lot better than the spaghetti I ordered on my first night in Beijing back in 2015.

I did get a photo of my drink though.

It was only a short walk to and from the restaurant but Lynda and I managed to get our 10k steps in. (Unlike our flying day)

We crashed hard for the night around 10:00 pm and sleep came quickly.

Hank's Blog – Musings of a Wandering Mind

Paris, Day 5

To Paris, France