These messages are from a series of e-mails written after our vacation to Paris and Italy, in the summer of 2002. The events recounted in this internet diary occurred on Thursday, June 20.
--Jim McQueen
Thursday morning we took the metro down to the left bank of the Seine for a boat ride. The four of us got there a little early, so we stopped and had coffee and croissants. Sean had been having occasional cups of coffee with us, but he was tiring of it -- I think this was the last morning he had a cup.
It was overcast that morning, and it was sprinkling as we walked to the quay. I was the only one who'd brought any rain gear, but just at the right moment a street vendor appeared, hawking umbrellas. I asked him the price, but since we were almost at the boat I decided to wait until the ride was over, and see if it was still rainy. As I began to walk away, he cut the price by 1/3, so I bought umbrellas for Nancy and the kids.
We found Mom and Susan already on the boat (the wrong boat, but they soon straightened us all out.) We headed off on the river, with a load of French and German tourists.
The first photo with Mom and Susan was really supposed to feature the other boats tied to the quay. There was a row of restaurant boats, which cruise the river at dinnertime. Nancy and I had done that in the 80's and enjoyed it, but the ride we were already on would be enough boating for one week.
Our cruise began at Musée d'Orsay and started up the river. Susan recognized one of the first buildings as a famous French department store -- which we never got back to. Soon we passed the Ile de la Cité, and the boys braved the raindrops to look at Notre Dame from the bow of the boat.
Love,
Jim
It stopped drizzling soon after we passed the islands in the center of Paris. After a mile or so, the boat turned north into the St. Martin canal. We entered a set of locks, and we were raised to the level of the canal. Heading away from the Seine, the start of the canal was lined with a marina, filled with small pleasure craft. The marina was built in the old moat of the Fort of La Bastille.
At the end of the marina, we could see the column built as a monument at the location of the Bastille. In front of the column was a tunnel, and our boat motored right into the tunnel!
We were in the tunnel for quite a while, it is over a mile long. Every once in a while, we'd pass under a vent hole to the surface. I wondered what the vents looked like from the top.
At one point, there were rainbows projected on the side walls -- the guy giving commentary said they were put there as art.
Love,
Jim
P.S. I was just searching online, double-checking some of the place names, and I found a description with good details of the canal. This looks like an online diary of somebody else's 1999 visit to Paris:
http://userwww.service.emory.edu/~marisa/FRANCE99/canal.tour.html
We were all enjoying the boat ride on the canal, but as I watched the scenery go by, I realized that the return trip would be boring. I thought the tour would be better as a one-way journey, but I realized that would require an inconvenient, alternative method of getting home.
I got out the boat's brochure, to see if it had a map showing our turnaround point. Even though I couldn't read the French, it didn't take me too long to discover -- we WERE on a one-way ride!
We got off the boat at Park de la Villette. (Fortunately, this was just inside the last zone that our metro passes were valid for.) The park is huge -- just like the slide the boys found in the playground.
In Park de la Villette we found another attraction that we'd planned on visiting, the Center for Sciences and Industry. We thought it would be a good place to let the kids explore the exhibits. The center was a huge modern building, and in front was an impressive mirrored sphere. The "Geode" was actually an Imax-style theater.
We went inside, and it took us a little while to decipher the odd ticket prices. By the time we'd gained admission to the exhibits, it was a little past lunch time, and it took us quite a while more to settle on more baguette sandwiches from one of the museum's cafés.
By the time we set the kids loose on the exhibits, it was turning in to a long day. Nancy and I poked around some of the medical displays, but it wasn't as much fun for English speakers. Mom held down the fort at a quiet table in the café.
Outside of the Science Center, a 50's era French submarine is on display.
Scott and I took a look inside the Argonaute, and Scott peered through the ship's periscope in the adjacent information center. After an obligatory stop in the gift shop, we found the metro station and headed back into town.
Love,
Jim
After our boat ride and visit to the Science Center, we took the metro back into Paris. At the Reaumur Sebastopol station we split up -- The boys went to spend the night with Mom and Susan, while Nancy and I went home to clean up. That night Nancy and I went to a dinner show at the Bal du Moulin Rouge.
When we arrived for the 7:00 PM seating, it was still light out with summer approaching. The Moulin Rouge was located on a traffic circle with a tiny garden in the center, packed with tourists. It seemed a perfect place to pose Nancy for a photo, so when the light turned green we crossed over.
As we reached the middle, a woman walking behind Nancy spoke to her in French. We didn't understand, and replied in English. She searched for words and finally told Nancy, "Be careful to your purse." She went on her way, and I took a snapshot of Nancy and the nightclub.
As we made our way over to the Moulin Rouge to join the queue, I caught another glimpse of the woman who'd spoken to us. She was hurrying through the crowd, a few steps behind some scruffy character, returning back into the metro the way we'd come. It dawned on me that she might have been an undercover policewoman, trying to catch pickpockets.
We'd been to the Moulin Rouge in the 80's, before it was made into a movie. I'd remembered sort of an old-fashioned vaudeville show -- a string of unrelated acts. Some had been quite unusual, and all had been very entertaining. (One act I still remember was a guy who made shadows on the wall with his hands. Sounds silly, but he was really astonishingly good, and the act was charming.) I also remember being at a small table for two, and hearing a different language coming from every table in our vicinity -- very cosmopolitan. (Nowadays, you get the same effect at any McDonalds in L.A.)
This time, we started our dinner at another table for two -- pushed up in a row against three others, to make a table for eight. The women next to us were a mother and daughter visiting from southern England. We ordered selections from a price-fixe menu, which included a bottle of champagne. A band played on stage, and a singer sang nightclub songs.
The show started at 9:00 PM, and it was very different from what we'd seen twenty years ago. The new show was much larger, and very slick. It seemed right out of Las Vegas. Bare-breasted showgirls danced with complex choreography. There were pulsating light effects. At one point, the front part of the stage opened to reveal a giant plexiglass pool, which rose to stage level while a girl swam with a half-dozen really large snakes. The new show was still entertaining, but somehow missed the old-world charm of the nightclub we'd been to before.
Love,
Jim