Wednesday, June 9 1999 : The Paris Trip Friday, June 4th We boarded the TGV high-speed train in Annecy for the three-and-a-half-hour ride to Paris. We sped through the Burgundy countryside at speeds approaching 180mph, ate our picnic lunches and read novels as though we did this kind of thing every day. We had been worried by the transit strike that had broken out two days earlier, but that labor situation was resolved by the time we arrived at the Gare de Lyon train station early Friday afternoon.             Upon our arrival in Paris, we dropped our luggage off at our hotel in the Montparnasse district and headed back into the métro to go to the Latin Quarter. Our first stop was the enormous church of St Sulpice, as we then walked north to more familiar landmarks. The photo at left below shows the steeple of St Germain des Prés, the oldest church in Paris. The center image shows the newly restored Pont Neuf that was originally built in the reign of Henri IV, at the end of the 16th Century. The third image shows Jessica and Egle hamming it up outside the Christian Dior boutique on the left bank. We ended the day with a group dinner in the Latin Quarter's Rue de la Huchette, one of the oldest streets in Paris. It was already known, as early as the 13th Century, as a street filled with restaurants and pubs. We ate a nice dinner in a Greek restaurant for 50F a head, (about $8) and received free Kirs as cocktails in the bargain. (You will note that in every picture taken with electronic flash, Kir appears to fluoresce with an unearthly glow). We then returned to the hotel to prepare for the next day's touring. Saturday, June 5th After a quick breakfast at a café near the hotel, we took the métro back to the Latin Quarter for a good look at Notre Dame cathedral. We walked through the Rue de la Harpe and Rue de la Huchette, past St Séverin church (which we had visited the previous evening). The students posed for the obligatory group photo in the cool weather. Their pose conveniently hides the scaffolding that covers the lower third of the façade, as the cathedral gets cleaned and spruced up in time for the millennium. The weather was gray and unseasonably cool, but the even light made the stained glass of the great rose windows easy to see and admire. At lunchtime, we met a group of French students in the "Café du Commerce" in the 15th Arrondissement. The French students tried their English, the American students tried their French, and conversations lasted some three hours, and only ended as we resumed our tour of the city. We walked past the Ecole Militaire to the Eiffel Tower, one of the few monuments unaffected by the museum employees' strike. It had rained cats and dogs during lunch, so that the air was now clear and the city sparkled in the afternoon sunshine.   We climbed to the second level (the waiting lines for the 3rd level were just too long, as tourists flocked to the few monuments open during the strike) and identified the numerous landmarks that we were now able to recognize. Again, the students posed for a group picture as we walked toward the Trocadéro, where several members of the group negotiated the purchase of souvenirs from a sidewalk vendor. From the Eiffel Tower, we took the métro to the Arc de Triomphe; we then walked down the Champs Elysées just as a military parade came marching up the avenue for the laying of wreaths on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, in commemoration of D-Day some fifty-five years ago. The group then broke up for dinner and students went their separate ways. Sunday, June 6th Some students rose early to attend mass at St Sulpice, a church known for its excellent organ. We met a number of other students at our rendez-vous point, at the Fontaine St Michel; we then proceeded by métro to Montmartre to see the 19th Century Sacré Coeur Basilica and the famed Place du Tertre, where throngs of tourists gather to watch artists paint and draw. The weather kept changing, and we broke out the umbrellas and sunglasses alternately every fifteen minutes or so... From Montmartre we walked back into the Marais district to see the impressive church of St Eustache; after supper we took a boat ride on the Seine, gambling (successfully, as it turned out) that it wouldn't rain on us during the tour. As dusk fell on the city, we saw all of the landmarks brightly illuminated against the dark blue sky. The sign on the Eiffel Tower reminded us of the proximity of the year 2000, and we admired the city while thinking nonetheless of the soothsayer's prophecy that the city would be destroyed on August 11th. Time will tell. At the end of the boat ride, people seemed pretty tired, though, surprisingly, several chose to stay up the rest of the night to watch the sun rise over the city. Monday, June 7th The transit strike was to resume for some hours, stopping all bus and métro traffic between 1pm and 5pm. So, after a visit to the Place de la Concorde, most of the students chose to spend the day shopping along the Rue de Rivoli . The photos below show (at left) Egle waiting in line Monday morning at the US consulate to get a renewal for her student visa, and (at right) students at the end of the day, utterly exhausted after hours of walking. All in all, it was hard to imagine how the students could possibly have fit in museum visits, considering all the things that they did do. Then again, they might have been less avid shoppers had they spent a day or two in the Musée d'Orsay or the Louvre. Tuesday, June 8th We met in the hotel lobby for the trek back to the train station and our journey to Annecy. We made good time and were able to board our train after enjoying a last cup of coffee in the train station's café. As the train sped through the Charolais region, just about everyone in the group was sleeping. Fortunately, when we arrived in Annecy, French host families were waiting to drive the groggy bunch back to their respective homes. Classes resume Wednesday morning. A short excursion is planned for Wednesday afternoon. Classes will be held on Thursday and Friday also; Saturday and Sunday will be the AFA outing to the south of France. With only a couple of weeks to go, we still have a lot of study and many activities to keep us busy! Questions? Comments? Please write by clicking the @ link below     You are visitor No. (more or less) to one of our "Trip" pages in quite a while. Thanks for stopping by!   Page and images ©1999 by Robert F. Jeantet End of the 1999 trip07 page