On The River Seine

Sunday 30 May 1999. After Versailles, the coach took us back to the hotel where we thankfully changed out of our wet clothes and got ready quickly to be taken back into Paris where we were to go on a boat trip on the Seine before going back to the same restaurant as the previous night for our meal.

The boat seemed enormous, and was certainly much bigger than those that I have ridden in up English rivers. It was fairly full when we boarded and we sat in the centre aisle at the front, near the young girl who was giving the commentary in four different languages.

When she stopped after French, English, German and Spanish I raised my eyebrows and said "Japanese?" which caused her to burst into giggles and say "Non!"

Holding the camera out, I took this of myself - expecting to see a bit more of the boat actually, but just look at that muscle!!! What? It's my forearm??? Oh... I thought it was a bit hairy... Alright girls, alright, yes you can be in the picture... Wow, a moustache and clip-on sunglasses - those were the days!

We got back to find the coach waiting for us, but it was warm again and we were all waiting until the last possible minute to get on board! The Eiffel Tower in the background shows the location of the landing stage for the boat trips. The trip had lasted quite a while and it was very pleasant sitting there watching the sights go by! The coach set off again, taking us on almost the last leg of our Paris trip.

We were now heading for Montmarte and the Sacre Coeur, the artists' haunt and one of the most romantic parts of Paris. My sketch pad hadn't been touched during the holiday as there was no time to stop long enough anywhere, but after Versailles, I had looked at the sodden mess of it and threw it away...

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The Panthéon & Notre Dame

Saturday 29 May 1999. We are in Paris for the weekend on a Leger Coach trip.

Having left the Louvre, we drove into the Students' or Latin Quarter. In the early years of the Parisian educational establishments, Latin was the common language of the students who came from all corners of Europe. The photo shows the Town Hall of the 5th Arrondissement (district) of Paris. The area has long had associations with unrest and revolution. In 1832 the events remembered in Les Miserables, in 1848 and notably in 1968 when the world watched in shock as students built barricades and almost brought down the French Republican government of de Gaulle...

The Panthéon. This repository of famous dead bodies is the result of a rather rash promise of Louis XV in 1744 to build a church should he survive an illness. He did survive, but did not have the funds to fulfill his promise and public lotteries were held to finance the building. It was built on the site of a Dark Ages basilica which housed the remains of saints and kings and was finished just in time for the Revolution... Buried here are Voltaire, Victor Hugo and Louis Braille, the inventor of the reading alphabet for the blind. The sun was on the wrong side of the Panthéon to make for a decent record photograph, but as the coach passed the end of the street I snatched this semi silhouette from the window and have to admit to a certain liking for this shot. Notice also the light shining through the globe of the street lamp.

One of the great sights and monuments of Paris is the Notre Dame cathedral, on an island of the Seine: the Île de la Cité.

The coach dropped us off on the banks of the Seine, where a number of street market stalls were selling souvenirs and paintings.

I'm standing beneath a long row of orange trees, shaped into oblongs.

We walked down the river bank to take photos from the rear of the cathedral as once more the position of the sun meant that the front of the cathedral was in shadow. Like many buildings, Notre Dame is being cleaned for the year 2000. This means that there is a certain amount of scaffolding around the city, but not enough to spoil a visit for any but les seriously miserables...

The roof of Notre Dame includes this group of statues leading down from the central spire. We had no time to go into the cathedral unfortunately. A coach sight-seeing trip does not stop in any one place for long, but gives a good grounding for a follow-up trip. There was a fairly large queue in front of the entrance. We settled for buying a couple of souvenirs and I bought a hat to stop my head from going strawberry!

We were called back to the coach. A shame as an hour with a glass of vin rouge on one of these floating kiosk cafes would have been very pleasant!

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