Week 2 impressions?

This city is massive, gorgeous (even when it rains all day) and incredibly busy. We are staying in a very central part of the city, the 7th Arrondissement, which means we're super close to the Eiffel Tower, Champ de Mars and access to the Seine. Finding a quiet moment, and a break from the constant whir of the diesel fueled charter busses, takes a bit of effort. As we've explored more and more neighborhoods since being here, I've been surprised that even the "off the beaten paths" areas are even flooded with people. C'est la vie- I guess this is the meaning of city life.

On Friday, we set out to discover the Luxembourg Gardens in the 6th Arrondissement. The gardens seem to be a "must see" on most lists, but I've been told by more than one person that they're not your typical garden; beautiful and idyllic, but not for lying around. Once we arrived, early evening on Friday, I understood.

The park has been around for hundreds of years and is made up of all sorts of elements including the palace (home of the French Senate), tennis courts, more statues than I can count, a beautiful fountain, park benches, several tennis courts, walking paths and perfectly groomed trees. Lines of trees are everywhere actually, giving the park its "green" feel, but in reality there is very little grass, making it a not so great place to picnic. The lack of grass is made up for with the abundance of patio style chairs throughout the park. I've never seen so many liberated chairs without people in them in a public place. Clearly there had been people in them because they were arranged in such unique fashions that made us wonder who had been sitting there and what were discussing. Mark and I laughed that it almost looked like an apocalypse type movie setting where the city had suddenly been emptied and these were the only traces of the people who had been there earlier.

Maybe it was because we were there on a Friday evening when the Parisians have other, better things to do than take a stroll through the park, but we felt for a little while like we had found a little corner of tranquility in the big busy city.

On Saturday we took the subway to the Promenade plantee in the 12th, which is like the highline in New York. Situated on an old, elevated, railway line, the walk extends almost 5 kilometers through a path of trees, flowers and an occasional park. Because we were ten meters above ground, we were among the treetops and finally had an eye-level view through the windows of some of Paris' most beautiful apartments. As Mark commented, though, even though we were higher, we still felt like we were looking up at the beautiful architecture here.

What I liked so much about the walk, aside from it being a peaceful escape from the busy city streets, was the variety of architecture we saw and some of the variance from the typical Parisian style housing that we are becoming accustomed to. I thought this was a great find if you're looking for something off the beaten path (literally). Hopefully we can make it back to do a picnic in the park that we stopped in to feed Andrew. Until next time…