We headed over to Notre Dame after touring Saint Chapelle. Bill and I had spent quite a bit of time inside the cathedral on our first visit to Paris, so we opted to go down into the archeological site underneath the cathedral to see the remains of the Roman fort that had been located there.
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| Notre Dame |
The excavation has uncovered quite a bit of the Roman ruins on the small island where Notre Dame and Saint Chapelle now call home. Much like in York, the Romans had found a strategic location to build their fort; when the power of Rome faded, others found the location to be a terrific stronghold, so people of power kept occupying the location... most notably the church!
I took quite a few photos of the Roman ruins, but they were all variations of the photo below, all dark stone and dirt. I've included only one photo as I assume you'll get the idea.
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| Roman ruins beneath Notre Dame |
We continued our feasting at a fabulous restaurant for a rather expensive final dinner in Paris. Because our group went separate ways during the day we heard stories from the others in our group. I found the most interesting story to be Dan and Julie's tale of tween / teen pickpockets.
They visited the opera house in Paris and over dinner they said it was beautiful and well worth the visit. After their tour, they sat out on an upstairs balcony overlooking the tourists below. They eventually saw some commotion and realized that a local had grabbed a young Roma gal's hand out of a tourists' purse mid-pickpocket. Apparently the Roma (derogatorily called gypsies) work in groups around Paris. Not 10 minutes later they witnessed the same gal, working with a few others to cause a distraction, pickpocket something out of an open backpack. The backpack wearer turned around, realized something was amiss, but the Roma were long gone. After hearing these tales, I was very glad for my secure, cross-body travel purse!
*****
The next day our train didn't depart Paris until 4:00, so we had plenty of sightseeing time ahead of us. We had a delicious but poorly served breakfast at Ladurée (we think the waiter actually quit his job mid-meal) and then walked over the the Musée de l'Orangerie to see some of the massive works by Monet.
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| Le Matin Clair-Aux Saules by Monet (PHOTO FROM L'ORANERIE) |
It was such a beautiful day that some of our group decided to sit in the sun instead of going into the museum. No photos were allowed inside the museum, but the Monet paintings were stunning.
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People watching outside l'Orangerie
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Upon leaving the museum we walked back to our hotel to collect our luggage. Along the Champs-Élysées we encountered a group of Roma girls. They were holding petitions to sign and indicating that they couldn't talk.
We all figured this was just a rouse to distract us, so Brian said very loudly, "No! We don't want anything to do with you!"
The girls just went to the next group of people, so Brian got out his camera and photographed the girls, who immediately lifted their clipboards up to cover their faces and turned around until we had walked past. I realize this is a way of life for the kids, but how can parents teach their children (the girls were probably 12 − 16 years old) to pickpocket? Makes me sad.
And on that note, we travelled back to North Yorkshire.
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