Paris, Above and Below// Paris & Iceland, Day 3

Tuesday, October 3, 2017
I ended up with a migraine the night before, possibly due to all the car exhaust fumes we'd encountered while we'd spent the previous day walking around the city.  I hadn't gotten a ton of sleep, and I was a little nervous about the sunny day of outside walking we were staring down, but I felt fine the rest of the day. We stopped at a little cafe for a croissant and espresso for breakfast.

We continued our walk down to the Arc de Triomphe, one of the most famous monuments in Paris that honors those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The names of all French victories and generals are inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces.

Beneath its vault lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I.

The Arc stands at the western end of the world-famous Avenue des Champs-Élysées.

I hadn't expected to do much shopping here, but I did stop in a couple of stores, including Marionnaud, an international French perfume chain and Yves Rocher, a worldwide beauty brand.

I would've done more shopping, but we had pre-booked our visit to the Catacombs at noon, so we had to jump on the Metro to make it over there in time.  We had just enough time to pop into Moisan bakery Le Pain au Naturel that was right across the street where I had the most delicious lemon tart.

The Catacombs of Paris are underground ossuaries that hold the remains of more than six million people in a small part of a tunnel network built to consolidate Paris' ancient stone mines.

There are more bones than you could possibly imagine here!

We stopped for a crepe with champignons (mushrooms) and fromage (cheese) before heading over to Notre Dame. There were lots of restaurants and shops in this area.

Notre-Dame de Paris is a medieval Catholic cathedral widely considered to be one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture. It is among the largest and best-known church buildings in the Catholic Church in France, and in the world.

There were gargoyles here, too!  In case you didn't know (because I know I didn't), a gargoyle is a carved or formed mythical figure with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building. A trough is cut in the back of the gargoyle and rainwater typically exits through the open mouth. Gargoyles are usually an elongated fantastical animal because the length of the gargoyle determines how far water is directed from the wall.

We hadn't expected to go inside the church, but we learned it was free, so we decided it was definitely worth checking out.

Back outside, we walked around to the side of the building.

As we walked around the city, scenes like below weren't uncommon (often with more people seated there). I loved how the chairs and tables were displayed to let people look out at the city as they enjoyed their meal.

You can check out our vlog for this part of the day here:

The threat of pickpocketers was also something that was common.  On the train earlier, an older man accused a younger man of pick-pocketing him and roughly grabbed him, resulting in the older man's wallet falling. I had heard the commotion, but I was further away; I thought maybe someone had a misstep or something when boarding the train.  Francisco was very close by to witness the incident, but the entire exchange was in French, so it wasn't entirely clear what was going on.

Actually, we may have been part of a scam the day before.  We read about these scams after seeing a sign in Paris that said something like "not deaf or mute just pickpockets". As we'd made our way over to the Louvre the day before, we were stopped by a couple of girls with a petition who were signing at us and indicating they were deaf/mute.

As this website states, "another variation would be young girls approaching you to sign a petition to help save the world/help the deaf/the mute, etc. They might pretend to be deaf/mute themselves. A clipboard is shoved in your face, and you see several signatures and some French words. These words basically mean that if you sign, you have to give 1,000 euros or you will face a penalty. If you don’t pay, suddenly more kids will appear out of nowhere to pressure you to pay. While being distracted, you become an easy pickpocketing target."

I'd started filling out the form but just wrote in 0 for the currency column. They persisted for a while, but they left without harassment (or pick-pocketing!).

We walked by the Sainte-Chapelle, a royal chapel that had been the residence of the Kings of France. It looked to be all gated off, so we couldn't really get a good vantage point. 

We also had a quick stop at the Panthéon, which functions as a secular mausoleum containing the remains of distinguished French citizens.  I wanted to go just for Victor Hugo, but Francisco nixed this.

We had structured our day to end up with plenty of time at the Eiffel Tower, perhaps too much time, but better safe than sorry.  This wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars was originally constructed as the entrance to the 1889 World's Fair, and it has become a global cultural icon of France and one of the most recognizable structures in the world.

Y'all, someone was doing a photo shoot on top of a multi-story building. Talk about intense.

We actually weren't finding as much appealing food in the area, but we ended up stopping in a small place for a sandwich and dessert.

We also stopped at Grégory Renard Cacao et Macarons to pick up picnic treats. 

It was on this mini-expedition for food that I discovered our first Parisian toilet pod AKA the sanisette public toilets, high-tech, modern, self-cleaning toilets.  You press a button to open the door when it's your turn to use the facilities. When you leave the pod, the door closes behind you and the toilet is automatically cleaned and disinfected by a motorized mechanism.

Our feet were definitely killing us at this point. We had walked nearly 30,000 steps, just a little more than the previous day. We settled in for our makeshift picnic while we waited for the sunset and the light show to start. You can watch our picnic vlog here:

At our original picnic spot

 We had plenty of time to take all kinds of silly pictures.

We were constantly offered "beer, wine, cigarettes" by foreign vendors wandering all over the park. They were annoying but still provided great entertainment for us, especially when the cops showed up and busted them.

The sun set around 7:30, and then the lights came on on the Tower.

The twinkly lights didn't start until 8:00, and I think they only run once per hour. The light show only lasted 5 minutes, and this is not enough time! Those few minutes flew by as we snapped photos and took videos for the duration.

Eiffel Tower through the trees

From there, we walked to the Metro station to go back to our Airbnb. This was a late night for us, and we probably didn't go to bed until 11:00 or so.

Here is our last vlog for the day:

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