Damon dropped us off at the bus terminal on Monday morning, and Mom and I took Bus Eireann to Shannon airport for our short flight to Paris-Beauvais, where we caught another bus into Paris. (Mom got to learn the ins-and-outs of European travel and flying budget airline Ryanair: lots of bus transportation and cheap flights with no frills.)
We checked into our cute little hotel near the Eiffel Tower called Hotel du Champs de Mars, which I highly recommend. I'm not sure you can find anything this nice and centrally located in Paris for 90€ a night. We strolled through the gardens of park Champs de Mars and then along the River Seine, so Mom could see all the wonderful bridges. We crossed over the famous Pont Alexandre III, past the Grand Palais, before enjoying a walk down the lovely Champs-Élysées, where we stopped at a sidewalk cafe and enjoyed tea and hot chocolate, before climbing the Arc de Triomphe. We finished our first day with an authentic French bistro dinner at Chez Georges on Rue Mail, before taking in an evening boat ride on the Seine with Vedettes Pont-Neuf. It rained off and on our first day, but it wasn't too bad.
On Tuesday, we woke up to light rain, which lasted most of the day. We had French pasteries on the famous Rue Cler market street (right around the corner from our hotel), then walked over to the Eiffel Tower to find very long lines, all before 9:30 a.m. We decided to hop on a tourist bus in the rain (and save the Eiffel Tour for Wednesday morning), though the bus became very crowded and difficult to enjoy all the sights, but we were dry. We took one loop on the bus past the L'Opera, Place de la Concorde, Notre Dame and the Louvre before catching the Metro to pick up our Versailles tickets. After a hectic train change to get outside the city to Versailles (we almost lost each other between train cars -- and got on the wrong train), we finally reached our destination and spent a rainy, soggy afternoon at the Palace of Versailles. We avoided the long lines by first visiting the Estate of Marie-Antoinette, a highlight of the trip. The Petit Trianon was under renovations, but we toured her personal theatre, gardens, grotto and the famous farm with her private residence near all the vegetable gardens and farm animals -- goats, sheep, cows, chickens, donkeys, pigs, etc. Then we toured the Grand Trianon, before walking back through the palace gardens to the Chateau Versailles. The lines were gone, and we finally navigated our way onto the second floor (without following a mob of tourists, this proved to be difficult). We strolled through the Chapel, Grand Apartments, Queen's apartments and Hall of Mirrors before having the tour cut 30 minutes short. The web site and brochures said the palace closed at 6:30 p.m. (last entrance at 6 p.m.) But as soon as 6 p.m. hit, they directed everyone to the door. A little bit of a bummer, since I'd planned the visit so that we would have one full hour inside the palace. We enjoyed a casual dinner (replete with French onion soup!) that night at a corner bistro near L'Ecole Militaire, not far from our hotel.
On our last morning, we hoped to get back on the tourist bus for one last loop to get our moneys worth, but the Eiffel Tower still beckoned. We endured the winds and rain while standing in line (probably only waited 45 minutes), before taking the elevators to the second story of the tour. The weather improved and the sun magically appeared when we got to the second level. We then took the metro over to Jardin du Luxembourg for an impromptu picnic lunch with the birds before doing some shopping and heading back to our hotel to collect our bags and take the metro back to Port Maillot to catch our bus back to Paris-Beauvais airport. It was wonderful to show this amazing city to Mom and share the travel experience with her. I just wish we could have spent a week in Paris, taking in all the sights and spending long afternoons sipping wine and people-watching at the cafes.
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