The Professor's Wife

Visiting the Eiffel Tower and the cathedral of Notre Dame

Flowers for sale at the open air market at the metro stop Place de Fetes

Georgia has a shirt with the tower on it and it is one of the sights that the girls readily recognize as Paris. Look. No rain.

Eiffel tower

Statue at work on the Eiffel Tower

Des ouvriers en train de peindre la tour Eiffel, 1932

I love the Internet and all of the treasures that are available such as this one of statues on the Eiffel Tower

We got on a bus close to the Eiffel Tower and traveled past a few memorable sights before getting off the bus close to Notre Dame

Once again the line to go into the cathedral was overwhelming. We decided to walk across the bridge to the Latin Quarter to look for onion soup. Instead, we ended up eating crepes on the street. We went passed Cluny and discovered it was completely closed for renovation. It has been an interesting trip to Paris.

The emperor Charlemagne just opposite the cathedral.

Musée de Cluny – Musée national du Moyen Âge

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Museum in Paris, France

The Musée de Cluny - Musée national du Moyen Âge, formerly the Musée national du Moyen Âge, or just the Musée de Cluny, or the Musée national du Moyen Âge – Thermes et hôtel de Cluny, is a museum in Paris, France. Wikipedia

Address: 6 Place Paul Painlevé, 75005 Paris, France

Phone: +33 1 53 73 78 00

Architectural styles: Gothic architecture, Renaissance architecture

Did you know: The Musée de Cluny houses a variety of important medieval artifacts, in particular its tapestry collection, which includes the fifteenth-century tapestry cycle La Dame à la Licorne. wikipedia.org

While the tourists went off to visit the Louvre, Earl and I went a few blocks away to the 4 Freres for Algerian food. The restaurant has been remodeled a bit but has the same generous servings of couscous and the same friendly staff.

I am not sure how I feel about these precious snap shots of me with my mouth full of food.

We had couscous with beef. There was far more food than the two of us could eat.

No idea what this strange object is. It was standing outside of the metro at Place des Fetes

When everyone had rested up for awhile, we took advantage of a lull in the rain and walked to the park at Butte Chaumont. It is charming. Spring seems to be more advanced in Paris then in London. More leaves and buds on trees. Behind Gemma is the cupola on the hill.

Walking past the hotel de ville

The suspension bridge definitely moves when you walk across it.

The bridge was built by Gustav Eiffel the builder of the Eiffel Tower.

Unfortunately the grotto is completely closed off. Two years a go, we could walk into the cavern. This is a tiny remnant of a water fall still existing above the grotto.

The lake and cupola in the background. No one volunteered to walk up the steep slope to get a closer look.

The park is more than usually man made. It began its life as a quarry and was developed into a park with a lake and a bridge and a man made grotto.

The grotto and waterfalls[edit]

The grotto is a vestige of the old gypsum and limestone quarry that occupied part of the site, now adjacent to rue Botzaris on the south side of the park. It is fourteen meters wide and twenty meters high, and has been sculpted and decorated with artificial stalactites as long as eight meters to make it resemble a natural grotto, in the style of the romantic English landscape garden of the 18th and 19th century. An artificial waterfall, fed by pumps, cascades from the top of the cave and down through the grotto to the lake.

A gallery of the former quarry has been transformed into a grotto with a 20-meter high artificial waterfall.

The bridges[edit]

A 63-meter-long suspension bridge, eight meters above the lake, allows access to the belvedere. The bridge was designed by Gustave Eiffel, the creator of the Eiffel Tower.^[6]

A twelve meter long masonry bridge, twenty-two meters above the lake, known as the "suicide bridge", allows access to the belvedere from the south side of the park. After a series of well-publicized suicides, the bridge is now fenced with wire mesh.

A 63-meter long suspension bridge, designed by Gustave Eiffel in 1867, allows access to the island in the lake.
The so-called suicide bridge, 22 meters high, gives access to the island from the south side of the park.

This is St Francis Assisi church on the way back to the apartment.

Information in French only

Off to Paris and a trip to Versailles on March 27th

Our first full day in Paris with Kristi, Alex, Gemma and Georgia was rainy. While Kristi's family went to look at the grounds, we took a couple of pictures of the exterior of the palace. This was the first week of Easter vacation for a lot of people and the lines were longer than I can ever remember seeing. Lots of people waiting in the rain with their umbrellas up. Kristi's family decided not to spend over an hour standing in the rain waiting to go inside. I think an hour was an optimistic guess. The line did not appear to be moving at all.

Earl and I went to eat crepes while the Furners explored the grounds. We all met up again at the railway station for our return trip to Paris. All of the computers were apparently down so none of the train schedules were showing and none of the ticket entrance were opening either. Finally we figured it out and found one open gate to go onto the train platform.