Next morning, up at 7:30 AM. Down to Belushi’s for breakfast of cereal and milk, some fruit, a little cheese, a cold cut slice or two, and coffee. At least the cereal was good. What am I saying…it was all good. Just not use too having cold cuts for breakfast is all. Then out front and wait on our tour guide. She shows up at 8:30 and 10 minutes later our group of 25 or so heads off to ride the subway. We’re within a 5 minute walk from the underground platform. This is part of the training to help us get around town. And it was helpful. The subway system is so big in Paris that it’s easy to be confused just because of the scale of the thing. The guide helps us all buy tickets at the machines, guides us to the correct platform and onto the subway. Fairly modern. Comfortable. Within another 10 minutes we exit to a plaza with some famous statue. And our guide hands us off to another guide waiting for us in the plaza. This one will be guiding us all 5-6 hours of the walking tour. No money is collected by anyone. These are free tours and if you feel like donating you’re welcome to but it’s not required. You can leave the group whenever you wish too.
Eventually, there must have been 100 people queuing up for guided walking tours here. Each group will be around 25 people. The guides all have formal training, and official sanction from the Paris government. We happened to be the first bunch that showed up. Very soon though the plaza was crowded.
I took advantage of the lull and had me a cafe’. Remember: “To err is human. To loaf is Parisian.” -Victor Hugo
These little cups of coffee are expensive. Have to learn to sip them instead of gulping them like at home. They are very strong so don’t really need as much. The little packets are sugar. Needed them. This one was like almost $5 USD.
And then, off we go. Almost immediately we cross the Seine. Ya know, it use to be a big thing, a well known place in Paris called The Left Bank. But I have no idea where that is these days. I know decades ago it was the sleazy part of town. Artists, writers, young people, and prostitutes hung out there because of the cheap flats and lower cost of living. Never really overheard anyone talking about it during my walking tour of Paris and I just didn’t think about it either. Maybe that’s it right there? On the left?
And we were in an area where close by is The Louvre, Notre Dame, the Tuileries Gardens, the Place de la Concorde, the beginning of the Champs Elysees. In the above picture are the famous book stalls of Paris along the Seine. We passed a small French cafe’ that was once a favorite haunt of some famous author.
Don’t know why I took the shot below. Might be an old palace turned into a hotel or something. I forget. Could be the Place de la Concorde.
Oh, boat tours. I’m going to have to do one of those…
Golden gates before The Palais de Justice. This has been a hall of Justice since the 14th century.
Than we walked over to that churchy looking building. Also part of the justice center.
One of the oldest functioning clocks in the world. 
Then we’re back alongside the Seine. Notice the beautiful weather…but light jackets were pretty much required. It was just a tad coolish. It didn’t matter though, I was happy to be here touring Paris in any weather. You know what they say, “Paris is always a good idea.” -Audrey Hepburn.
And while we walk along the Seine, there are many historic buildings to gawk at. I forget what they all were. Maybe the University over there.
Over there is Notre Dame. 
And here’s one of many bridges where dummies, err, I mean lovers, are hanging locks on the bridge to signify their locked in place love for one another, then tossing the key into the river. EVEN THOUGH every 6 months in winter and every 6 weeks or so in spring, summer, and fall a crew comes along and cuts all the locks off because they are a hazard, adding too much extra weight to these very old bridges. 
Our guide even asked us not to publish photos of all the locks on the bridge because they’d found that when they make it to social media it causes even more people to do it. So that one picture above is all there is from me.
It’s easy to see why people say such nice things about Paris in the springtime. It’s gorgeous. One might say: “When spring comes to Paris the humblest mortal alive must feel that he dwells in paradise.” -Henry Miller
After visiting the bridge of the misguided, we walked into the courtyard of the Louvre. This was a royal building of some kind back in the day. One of the French Kings, Louis the 14th maybe, didn’t care much for it so he had them build him a palace outside of Paris at Versailles. See that breezeway there where people seem to be heading or coming from? We will walk into that in a bit.
Over on the other side of the courtyard.
Walk through the breezeway and there’s the pyramid. Really seems out of place. 
Our tour guide was an American who came to visit Paris 7 years before and just couldn’t leave. Been here guiding tours ever since. She didn’t seem to mind my questions about things we were seeing. We took a rest here in the courtyard of the Louvre for 30 minutes or so…this after walking for nearly 3 hours. 
After our rest, crossed the street and walked right up to that gold statue over there, don’t know why I didn’t get a close up picture. It’s Joan d’arc. 
Not sure where this is. Big courtyard though.
Got to a public park area. Way off in the distance is the some famous pointy obelisk. 
Some famous statue.
It’s taken us another 2 plus hours to get here and we’re pretty tuckered out.
The plaza right here, just outside those gates below, is where the Paris mobs during the revolution guillotined those that offended them over the years. Mainly royalty, but not always. Right behind me is a palace. Most royalty were kind of assholes and many brought it on themselves with their greed, self indulgence, feelings of self-entitlement. Sound familiar to anyone in this country?
This is where our tour guide gave her pitch for donations and I’d heard so much interesting history that I was happy about giving her €35 (35 Euro). Off in the distance, my destination for the next day (I was thinking), the Eiffel Tower.
This statue is famous. Can’t remember why though. And it’s really cool looking. Off in the distance you can see the Glass Palace that was built for a world’s fair in the 1800’s.
And here we are at the obelisk I showed you earlier. It’s the The Obelisk of Luxor at the center of the Place de la Concorde.
Then I just sat around and rested for an hour. The tour guide gave us fairly precise instructions on how to get back to the hostel and it wasn’t that far. Took the subway which had an entrance only a few feet from where I took that above picture. Bumped into a guy getting on the subway who’d been on the tour with me. I’d never noticed him, but he knew me…probably because I’m a wise ass? He was confused about which train so I helped him out. A German guy about 35 years old. Friendly enough. Maybe a little shy and awkward. Pretty good English speaker too.
We were talking and actually missed our stop, had to walk to the other side of the tracks and go back one stop. Eventually get back to the hostel, and since it’s 5:30 PM by now, at the last moment I veer off to have a French meal at one of the cafe’s I’d wandered by yesterday. Where I went looked like it had the best menu to me. I order like I knew what I was doing. Turns out that everything was delicious. I’m guessing I could have ordered anything and it would have been fine. But no escargot on the menu! None of the menus I’d checked had them. I wanted to try that dish.
The waiter was delighted when I turned up my nose at ketchup. Meh. Not going to have ketchup in Paris. See that sauce in the little bowl? Spectacular. Sooo, sooo good. Some kind of beef sauce. Delicious. I asked the waiter if they sold bottles of it? Non. The steak was great; tender, flavorful and no need to dip it in the sauce. Used the bread for dipping. Salad dressing delicious also. More tangy than US blue cheese dressing made with some back flavors I didn’t recognize. Lime maybe. Would have liked to have had more and varied veggies in the salad but the walnuts were a nice surprise. Potatoes were perfect. Wine was good.
After that delicious dinner, I asked the waiter if they had Cherries Jubilee? “Non”, he says. How about Peaches Flambe’? “Non, monsieur”. Well, do you have anything you can light on fire that I can eat? Maybe with icecream?? He gets a big bright smile on his face and says, “Oui” and runs off to the kitchen. Ten minutes later he’s back with this crepe that had orange pieces and with an orange flavored sauce that he lit it on fire (Brandy liqueur) just before serving. Good. Flames died out fairly quickly but they were pretty blue while they lasted.
Then it was back to my room to get a picture of sunset over Paris and the Eiffel Tower.
Back downstairs to enjoy some 2 for 1 Corona’s and think about the nice day in Paris. Makes one think about stuff.
“Paris was a universe whole and entire unto herself, hollowed and fashioned by history; so she seemed in this age of Napoleon III with her towering buildings, her massive cathedrals, her grand boulevards and ancient winding medieval streets – as vast and indestructible as nature itself.” -Anne Rice
So I’m sitting there by myself nursing my beer, browsing the web, and two good looking young women come over carrying their drinks and ask if they can join me at my table. I’ve been in a state of reverie and hadn’t been paying attention so didn’t know if the place had gotten crowded. I say sure they can join me. Then I look around the bar and there are plenty of empty tables. And seats. I asked them if I was going to be their ‘guard guy’ intended to keep guys in the bar from hitting on them (I tell them I have no problem with that). No, that’s not why they sat with me, just a side benefit. Then they point out that they had been on the walking tour and I’d made them laugh several times with my silly questions and answers when talking to our guide so they thought it would be fun to sit and talk with me. Well, isn’t that nice of them. Beautiful company! I never noticed them on the tour. Of course there were 25 people all milling around during the tour and I just missed them.
They are from Holland. It isn’t long before we’re talking up a storm. They are in their late 20’s, single, atheists like nearly all their peers, travel a lot…like down into Europe 2-3 times a year for a week or two at a time, both well educated, have good jobs, and neither are planning on having children. Not that they never will, but not right now. Very interesting young women. Oh, they head into Amsterdam on a regular basis for, well, whatever it is young women do these days. We talked quite a bit about social mores’ in Holland right now, because that stuff interests me. They didn’t seem put off by my sometimes blunt or intimate questions. Seemed interested and were interesting. Pleasant way to spend a couple hours in a bar in Paris. “The chief danger about Paris is that it is such a strong stimulant.” -T.S. Eliot
I did get their names but I’ve forgotten. Shame on me. The blond’s postings on FB show up on my FB page occasionally but haven’t seen her on there in a while. Ships passing in the night and all that. I did very much enjoy their company. Even more so the next night…