Today’s Photos
Marissa and I departed from Toulouse last night to get a head start on our week long trip to Paris and Normandy. We made it as far as Limoges, which is about 300 north of Toulouse, before stopping in at a hotel for the night. It was pouring buckets of rain along the way, it was the only thing that slowed down these French drivers.
This morning we visited Oradour-sur-Glanes, a village where 642 inhabitants were killed and burned by the Nazis on June 10th, 1944. The town has since been left as is as a monument to those that were killed. Of the 642 victims, 247 were women and 205 were children.
Despite having watched countless documentaries and many WW II movies I found Oradour to be a disturbing site. As you walk through it is difficult not to imagine what took place there 62 years ago. Within the town site there is a memorial which houses several personal artifacts that once belonged to the massacred town folks. Some of these items, namely a stroller and a child’s bicycle are especially difficult to look at but serve as a reminder of the horrors we are capable of during war.
After Oradour we continued north for 4 hours and we arrived in Paris around 5pm. We decided we would avoid driving within Paris itself and so we parked at Orly airport and took a taxi into town. Finding an airport is a much easier task than trying to navigate one’s way through a city like Paris. The parking at the airport, though not cheap at 15 euros per day, is still more affordable than most of the city parking.
After checking in at our hotel we went out to dinner to a fantastic restaurant called Chartier, with our friends John and Anne. According to ‘Frommers’, Chartier originally opened in 1896 and “is now an official historic monument featuring a whimsical mural with trees, a flowering staircase, and an early depiction of an airplane”. It was overflowing with people speaking all sorts of languages. In fact, just walking around Paris, it was not uncommon to hear english spoken in the crowds.
After dinner Marissa and I stopped in at Starbucks to grab a coffee for the 45 minute walk back to our hotel, the highlight of which was passing by La Place des Vosges. There is one notable difference between a Paris Starbucks and a North American starbucks: here in Paris you can have your ‘Bucks coffee served in a large glass coffee cup instead of a paper cup.
Today’s taxi ride and the evening walk merely scratched the surface of what Paris has to offer and we can’t wait to explore more! But here are some initial observations:
– Paris seems endlessly huge
Рthere appears to be a panoply of interesting shops specializing in just about anything you could want. For example we passed one shop that specializes in very old music instruments and one completely focused on Faberg̩ eggs.
– on some city streets one finds tents where homeless people are living. An article in Time magazine discusses this.
– thus far every single Parisian I’ve spoken to has been very polite and helpful.
– there is lots of diversity in people here and one hears many different languages spoken as one walks down any city street.
Рthe number of caf̩s and bars is incredible. They are everywhere.
