City Tour

We started back in the Bastille neighborhood and drove the right bank which has beautiful mansions with stone and iron work. Napolean the third (who is both a nephew and grandson of Napolean) is responsible for modernizing the city of Paris. He took the medieval city and brought in gas lights, rail stations, and wide boulevards for strolling. Hausmann was his city planner who designed the beautiful boulevards that radiate out from the Arc de Triomphe. 

We crossed over Ile de la Cite to pass by Notre Dame into the left bank Latin Quarter where we ate last night. This area is home to la Sorbonne and most of France's top universities. University is almost free in France because they are state run; there are no private universities. It costs only about $1,100 a year! Also we saw Shakespeate and Co, the quaint bookstore frequented by Hemingway, Oscar Wilde, James Joyce and others. 

Nearby is the Panthéon, which houses the tombs of Voktaire, Montesquieu, Louis Pasteur, Louis Braille, Victor Higo, Marie Curie and other famous Frenchman. 

Exiting the Latin Quarter into the Luxbourg Gardens one of my favorite spots. It is very picturesque on a sunnier day. There's a castle built by Marie de Medicis and it now houses the French Senate. It is surround by beautiful gardens fountains and green spaces and the typical French chestnut trees which are just starting to bloom. 

Next into St Germain des Près, one of the wealthier districts in the city. It houses many luxury and fashion shops. Famous French philosophers and writers frequented coffee shops in this area in the 1950s. This area is also where Sartre's existentialism movement was born. 

With a quick pass by the Orsay musiem, a former train station that now houses Imoressionist and later art. 

We cross over the Seine paste the Louvre again into the Rivoli area past the statue of Joan of Arc. 

Side note: we have a few sleepy soldiers!

We passed by the Louvre again, the old hunting fortress and royal palace until Louis XIV moved the court to Versailles. From here we can see down to the Arc de Triomphe at the other end of the Champs Élysées. 

Posting this half now will continue shortly!