Our Big Fat Crazy Hiatus: Paris- Living On A Houseboat Barge With A View Of The Eiffel Tower

We flew from Rome directly to Paris. To say it was direct, is to ignore the flurry of activity that preceded this "direct flight". Ha! We started out our day at 4:00 am, with us hauling our suitcases down the narrow lane in Meta. The taxi met us at the end of the hill and drove us to the train station. Shannon, Christopher and I decided to not wait for the taxi so we RAN, yes, ran down the winding narrow road at the crack of dawn to the train station. What a way to wake up in the morning! We made the first train by 5:05 am and bumped luggage up and down stairs rushing to the airport via the train, took the flight (Cyndy, my sister, had some check- in problems too) and then we were in Paris. From there, we took the metro with all of our luggage on and off of metros...almost leaving a suitcase behind one time. Really, the whole thing was like some kind of Monty Python film, complete with a zany cast of nine! After this hair-raising day we, made it to our houseboat barge with an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower from the back door!

My sister, Cyndy, her husband, Brian and children, and my Mom, Kaye had only three days left on their vacation, so we saw the hightlights of Paris in fine style! We walked around the area near the Eiffel Tower, which was swarming with immigrants selling souvenirs and tons soldiers carrying semi-automatic weapons! Kathleen, and the cousins enjoyed going on the carousel. The city of Paris is well organized and has lots of bridges, wide boulevards and parks. Most of the city was remodelled in the 17th and 18th century so there is a homogenous look of cream colored buildings and wider streets than in Italy.

We did a bus tour of the city where we saw many different areas of town...the city is steeped in culture and interesting people. One night, we toured the Seine River on a boat, and saw all the bridges along the way. My favorite bridge was Pont Neuf which was built centries ago and had carved faces all along the width of it.

The tour of Versailles Palace was facinating. It was big and very ornate. The layout seemed odd to me, it was one giant room after the other with no hallways. I could also see evidence of secret doorways where the royalty and court alike could "visit" back and forth. There would really be very little privacy in a palace like this, I guess that is why there were secret passageways.The gardens were beautiful on a very large piece of property. It seemed such a decadent way for the leader to live with no regard for the starving people in that time of history.

Finally on the last night, we climbed to the top of the Eiffel Tower! It was a glorious view of the city at night! We even had a sip of champagne at the top!

We really enjoyed our home base on the houseboat. It was spacious, it was in a super location, and we enjoyed watching the boats cruise by our living room window! Paris was lots of fun but at the end of three days, it was with sadness that we had to goodbye to our extended family.