Last Day in France May 10, 2012

May 10, 2012

Great lunch at a cute street cafe

Luxemborg Park

Our day would begin early so we could start the commute to Paris drop off the car as we were under a time constraint (Bob trying to save a day of car rental charges). We checked out and headed down the road, but missed the turn to Paris so had to back pedal for a few miles. Once on the freeway, things were looking really good until we got closer to the city. It took about 1 hour to go a few miles, this makes our rush hour in a snowstorm look like nothing. While stopping at a construction site our car was surrounded by people washing our windows and of course wanted money, we sped away quickly. Once inside the city with the GPS working overtime we drove directly to the train station to say good bye to our little car. It was too early to check into the hotel but were able to leave the bags in a secure area. Bob and I would spend the day wandering about Paris getting our last look at the city. Being this was our second visit in two weeks we mastered the Metro and the commuter train to get from one side of the city to the other. We stood in line for about an hour to try and get to the top of the Eifel tower but became discouraged when 25 people were allowed to go ahead of the line. We arrived back at the hotel and were able to check in. The hotel  Libertel Gare de L'Est Francais is directly across from the train station and from outside appearances and even the lobby things were looking good. After exiting the elevator it looked like a construction zone, no carpet, new sheetrock, and stuff all over. When we opened our room it was a pleasant surprise, completely redone, only negative things: no air circulation, no internet and lots of street noise. We decided to try one of the places Jan had recommended in her book for dinner , called Les Deux Magots, famous for famous authors, one being Hemingway. The weather could not have been better I compared it to a hot summer night, 75 and a touch of humidity. We took the metro back and amazingly enough the clientele was less threatening than during the day.