We arrived in Paris at the beginning of the largest national strike in decades. We left a week later with no end in sight for the strike. It was still a great week of vacation for us since we saw most of what we planned despite the issues. It just required a lot more walking and adding a few taxis into the mix.
The transportation part of the strike had the most noticeable impact. Some metro trains ran during rush hour but they were so packed you could rarely get on them. Many of the buses ran throughout the day but they had the same problem as people had to work and had to commute. Fortunately our hotel was central to where we wanted to be in the Montmarte area so a long walk got us to many of our destinations.
Most things were still open or had slightly reduced hours. Some of the Louvre was closed but it's so huge that it was still a whole day to see most of what was open. Our Marillion concert was full from being sold out, so everyone made it there somehow. We made it by taxi and returned part of the way by bus.
I already had tickets to the Paradis Latin cabaret show which was packed with people despite the transport issues. We actually made it there on a crushed metro ride though the station closest to the show was closed. We ended up in a taxi to get to the hotel. The show was an amazing Cirque du Soleil type of cabaret with dinner. It's pricey but worth it.
I went to Paris years ago but it's so huge that I didn't really see anything I'd seen before. My wife has been to Paris many times before meeting me and there were still some new places for her. Paris is one of those destinations that you can go back to without getting bored of the same thing.
I'll break up the trip into multiple posts since there's lots of cool museum photos to share. The Grevin wax museum is a class above any other I've visited. A tour of the impressive Palais Garnier Opera is essentially a museum visit. The Louvre is amazing and definitely shouldn't be missed. I don't mean because it has the Mona Lisa which isn't worth standing in line to get a selfie. The modern art Centre Pompidou is a wonderful experience. Musée des Arts et Métiers isn't art, but is instead a scientific history museum with fascinating artifacts. We saw a few lesser museums nearer the hotel that I may leave off the blog.
It was a packed week so I'll finish this post with random pics around Paris.
mostly useless this week
legos!
Metiers Museum (Musée des Arts et Métiers)
I'll put these pics in this post since I didn't take so many. It was an interesting museum with much more than the few old computers I have pictured here.
Montmartre Cemetery
This old cemetery has a bridge built over part of it and some interesting graves. It's interesting to see the really old and really new elaborate graves built in place of long abandoned graves.
I Love You Wall
jag älskar dig!
No comments:
Post a Comment