After my day off, due mainly to weather, I couldn’t just sit in the house another whole day, even though the weather was just as bad as yesterday. I did ask for, and received, permission to stay another 2 days in this apartment. The owner was very happy to allow it, and gave me a 25% discount. Neither of us had to pay AirBnB so we both saved money on the deal.
Anyway, carrying my umbrella and wearing my hooded jacket, I braved the wind whipped rain and dashed to the subway station 10 blocks away. Off I went on an excursion to Notre Dame.
There is Notre Dame, after a short walk from the Metro. Those double towers over past the bridge. 
Built in 1163, it’s one of a few gothic cathedrals still surviving in Europe of this quality. Among the first large buildings to use flying buttresses.
It’s free to enter the church and misguided people still worship here. That doesn’t detract from it’s architectural and artistic interest. Check out all those statues in the front facade above. No flash allowed inside so some of these shots are a bit shaky. 
The stained glass windows from the 10th century were famous at one time, but were smashed during the revolution. In the 1800’s, they were restored along with much of the damage to the building so the stained glass we see today is only a couple centuries old…though thought to be attempts at copies of the originals.
It’s a striking building. Lots of light inside, even on a dismal day like today.
The sculptures are remarkable.
The cathedral itself is really interesting and hidden away are tens of millions of dollars worth of religious icons. They charge 4€ to view them in the ‘Treasury’. I was wondering the whole time why they didn’t sell these treasures to museums or collectors and use the money to feed, clothe, and house the poor and indigent? These pieces are virtually priceless.
You can see that they do get a fairly large crowd here on a daily basis. The purpose of the picture though is to show the interesting vaulting.
Then here is a close up of those amazing sculptures on the facade. These just outside the door. Very cool. 
Thousands of man hours went into these sculptures. The door carvings were very interesting too, but I couldn’t get a good angle for a picture.
It only took an hour or so to tour the Dame, so since it was only 11AM, I headed off to another museum within walking distance. Passed this typical French cafe’. It’s been there since the early 1800’s. 
Then passed this library. Or college or something. I forget. Ah, wait, Google picture search says it’s the Institut de France. Neat looking set of buildings. All closed up this particular day so not many people around.
A few blocks past the Institut is this museum. I’d planned on visiting it today but just my luck, it’s closed on Mondays.
See the woman in the red pants on the right of the below picture (and the picture above near the statues)? She had two kids with her. I didn’t notice her until she came up behind me when I was taking a picture, bent down near my shoe and came up holding a golden ring saying I’d dropped it. Hmmm. Sure, OK, I took it and she walked away with her kids. I looked at it a little, no inscription, and stuffed it in my pocket. Less than 5 minutes later, she comes back and first off tries to get me to give her money for the ring so she can buy a coffee…then it changes to milk for her hungry baby boy. I smell a scam. But it was kind of fun screwing with her over a fake ring. Eventually, I had a moment of weakness and gave her 3€ coins (under $4 US) for it telling her that’s all I had, though I had much more in coins and paper Euros on me. She protested at how little that was, I ignored her pleas. Eventually she stormed off in a huff calling me something nasty in French. I still have the ring. I did wear it for 48 hours or so to see how fast my finger would turn green but it never did. I found rings that looked very similar in a big box store later that day and they were 7€ but I’m not taking bets that the one I have is worth that. Funny how some people make a living at scamming tourists. They should try real jobs. Less hassle, less chance of running into bastards like me that screw with them, heheh. Now if you are going to be married soon and need a nice ring from PARIS, France, I’ll hook you up for $50. 
And here comes the rain. It wasn’t all that cold, my light jacket was sufficient, but the rain was so heavy, I did have to duck under awnings twice to wait out the worst of it while walking to the cafe’. My umbrella certainly helped though because it didn’t really let up. I had a cappuccino and a biscuit while I waited out the downpour of the moment. Over a half hour. When it finally slowed to a drizzle, I put on my hat and jacket, made sure I picked up my change, stuffed the camera in my coat, and walked off leaving the umbrella sitting on an empty chair. 
Thirty minutes later, back at the apartment, I realize I no longer have an umbrella. Damnit!!! Well, too bad. I wasn’t going to travel back to the cafe’ on the outside chance that nobody had picked it up and walked off with it. It was only worth 3€ after all.
The next day, again, the weather was really bad. Stayed home searching on the internet for things to do in Paris. Considered paying for another 3 nights in this apartment. Maybe I’d do another trip to the Louvre?
Screw it, I was sick of this weather so I bought a train ticket to Marseille. It’s one of those ‘you must print out your own ticket and bring it’ type online deals but my host let me use his printer. Handy that. Then I found and reserved an apartment through AirBnB that seemed to be very near Marseille’s city center and the docks. I wanted to be close to the docks because during my search of things to do in Marseille, I found several tour boat offers. Marseille has what’s called France’s Fjords. Really beautiful. And there were tour boats that did tours of fjords both west and east of Marseille. I wanted to do all those tours and an apartment close to the docks made it easier. Nice and warm down in Marseille too with white fluffy clouds instead of dark black clouds. I had planned on heading for London after Paris, or possibly the west coast of France, but both areas were having huge rain falls too, so, no thanks.
And this ends my visit to Paris. If the weather had been better, I might have stayed another 3 days or a week. Really a highlight to the entire trip. Enjoyed the city, the sites, the river Seine, Versaille, the subway, and curiously, the people. I’d only run into one surly bus driver. And one guy, in his 20’s I’d say, who sat down right next to me on an empty 25 foot long bench seat in a nearly empty subway boarding area who tried to scam me. I did the “I can’t hear you” routine, since he tried to whisper to me, until he gave up in frustration and walked away just as the subway arrived. But the rest of my visit was so much fun. I would really like to come back to France and take a month to tour the whole country. Maybe in June though.
That’s it from Paris, next posting will be from Marseille! Beautiful, balmy, Marseille. Thanks for reading.