Saturday, July 19, 2008

Notre Petite Vacances

We had originally planned to drive to Paris, but, with the price of fuel and not really wanting to navigate through the City of Lights, we decided to take the train. That was a good choice until we decided to taxi rather than walk to the studio apartment. I thought I was doing well with my French accent - ha ha and sadly not so - because we landed at 27 rue des Bouet rather than 27 rue des Bluets street. Naturally we didn't realize the mistake until the cabbie was well out of sight. Before we realized we were at the wrong address, we tried the code on the door, several times, and could not understand why it was not functioning. I went to purchase a phone card so that we could contact the apartment owner. Tony stayed at the apartment building guarding our heap of luggage, continuing to try to open the door and no doubt coming up with the conversation he would be having shortly with the owner. By the time I returned with a phone card, a young lady helped us into the apartment building. She told us that the code we had was definitely wrong and she gave us the correct code. When we entered the building, Tony and I looked at each other and in unison we knew we were not in the right place. We checked the building number. 27? Yes. Street name? oops. Fortunately, very fortunately, we were not far from the correct address. (note to self: must practice French pronunciation a bit more!)





The only photos I took were at Père Lachaise Cemetery. (French: Cimetière du Père-Lachaise -officially cimetière de l'Est “eastern cemetery”). It is the largest cemetery in the city of Paris, 118.6 acres, although there are larger cemeteries in Paris suburbs. Père-Lachaise is one of the most famous cemeteries in the world. It is reputed to be the world's most-visited cemetery, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors annually to the graves of those who have enhanced French life over the past 200 years.




The popular graves at the time of our visit were
Oscar Wilde



Edith Piaf



Jim Morrison
and
Frédéric Chopin



Our petite vacances was magnifique...strolling through local markets, watching the world go by at sidewalk cafés, fresh croissants every morning outside on the terrace, dining with a view of the Eiffel Tower, no agendas, no alarm clock...just being, just bliss!

No comments: