His View 

France - Feliks' perspective

 

Paris

I’ve been to Paris plenty of times before when I saw it in movies, pictures and Vegas. This was the first time I was going there in person. I’ve heard mixed reviews but the one thing that was consistent was that it was big and full of tourists. It sure was. 

 

We arrived a little late in the evening but luckily we booked a hostel right by the station. The next morning we started our record-breaking walk. We had a pretty long walk to start our day from our hostel to the Notre Dame Cathedral. We walked down one of the main streets, Bd de Sebastopol. I have to say that the walk itself was a pretty good attraction. We started out in a very loud and busy neighborhood. People were all over the streets trying to sell you fruit, jewelry, fake hair, and cars were parked everywhere, mopeds flying down the streets flowing through traffic like water around rocks. So many times I cringed at the sight of an almost-wreck at the way these mopeds and motorcycles were driving between cars. It was a free for all, and the mopeds were beating the cars. As we got closer to the river the streets got a little more quiet; mostly there were less people, but the traffic never let up. It reminded me of our experience driving through Washington DC and Philly. 

 

The Notre Dame church was pretty cool, massive and beautiful. Inside the church I was surprised to find some museum-like displays talking about the church. I would guess that they get so many visitors that they had to do something. We did have the option to climb the towers and get the awesome view but the line and price were not that interesting. We continued to explore the area and found a nice little flea market. There were lots of things that would look good on a wall, but obviously with the limited space of our bags we left empty-handed. 

 

Our next stop was the Pont des Arts, the bridge with all the locks. It definitely was not what I expected. There were so many locks, so so many. In some spots, the locks had broken the wire they were locked to, and the city had to place plywood to prevent others from placing more locks there. It was incredible to see so many locks. I seriously wonder how much extra weight is added to that bridge. Needless to say, we found a nice little spot to place our lock and tossed the keys into the river. I was a pretty cool moment. 

 

Our next stop was the Louvre Museum. I’m sure you know by now that we are not museum people but this was the art museum of art museums. It was massive. Shaped somewhat like a square horseshoe, it could take days to really see everything. We did it in about 3 hours. We breezed through most of the paintings and really took our time with the sculptures and item exhibits. There were some really cool Egyptian statues, old swords and jewels, crazy detailed household items, and one of the most extravagant apartments in history. We also saw all the famous Greek statues, and of course the Mona Lisa. I read the DaVinci Code and remember that the French police officer said that the giant glass pyramid at the entrance of the museum was a tragedy, and I must say that I have to agree. It seemed a little out of place like a plastic spoon on a golden plate. 

 

Right outside the Louvre is a very interesting and beautiful garden, followed by a massive park complete with tons of locals chatting on benches, random statues and scepters, and a merry-go-round. Caywood found a crepe, I found a hot dog and we walked through the winter market area where vendors were setting up their booths. We saw some pretty cool setups and I would really love to see that place when it was all set up and running. 

 

As we made our way to the Eiffel Tower we turn down Avenue Pierre 1er de Serbie and found the “Fifth Ave” of Paris. Window shopping was fun. We got to the tower right as the sun was going down and took some great pictures. Neither I nor Caywood had any interest in going to the top, so we continued to the Arc de Triomphe, a massive structure in the middle of a roundabout. I mean it was massive. After a couple of minutes of looking we found a crepe stand and had one of the best crepes ever. Caywood will confirm this. The last thing was to see the Moulin Rouge theatre. It was cool. 

 

Overall, Paris was huge, we walked around 15 miles and that was only in the city center area. There is so much to do and see and you would need a solid week to really enjoy it. The amount of tourists really slows things down. The traffic is insane; not that it's stand-still, but the mopeds flying through the streets. I would not feel safe renting a car or moped in that city. It was pretty dirty in some spots but it was pretty clear when you were in a “good” neighborhood versus a bad one. I was completely surprised to see people just urinating in public as if they were in their own home. I think I will be good seeing Paris from the comfort of my own home in the future. WiFi was pretty difficult to find but there were free public bathrooms everywhere. 

 

 

Lyon 

Our stop in Lyon was mainly to see Caywood's old friend from childhood. Marie and her boyfriend Fred were kind enough to host us for a couple of days in their apartment right outside the city. 

Our first day to explore we wondered over to La Basilique Notre Dame de Fourviere. A beautiful church at the top of a hill that was covered pretty much from top to bottom with mosaics. There actually are three churches here. The one in the basement is the original church, the big church was built on top, and a small chapel is to the side. The view of the city from here was magnificent. In order to get to the top we had to take a train car that was pulled up by cable.

 

After the church we wondered around the old city area where there are apparently multiple passages used by the locals to move about the city during war. The doors to these passages were normal house doors, and the passages could lead from one block to block. We found a map at the tourist office that showed the location of all of them. Most of the ones we found were now entrances to apartment buildings and were locked, but we did see a few that were still open. 

As we walked through the shopping area, Caywood had her first eclair which she enjoyed very much. There were so many bakeries and shops that filled the air with delicious smells. The whole area was really neat, filled with old buildings and random statues. That evening we went out to dinner at a local restaurant and had a three course meal. My starter consisted of shaved pigs nose, a cheese salad, and some kind of pig cartilage salad. I ate most of it but it wasn't easy. The main course was more my style, fish with rice, really really good. The dessert was the best, the biggest ice cream sundae ever; I struggled to finish it due to the massive amount of whipped cream but it was worth it, I could not move after. 

The next day, Caywood and I decided to take a break and spent the day planning and relaxing in their apartment while they were at work. It was much needed and felt great. That evening we went to see the new Hunger Games movie, in English. I liked the first two movies and I can’t really say that for the third but I understand why it had to be so slow. Hopefully the fourth will be much better. 

 

Overall, from the little that I saw Lyon, it seemed like a nice little town. It wasn’t too busy but there was still plenty to see and do. The people seemed very relaxed and not too much in a hurry to get anywhere. The streets were really clean and they had public bathrooms at the subway stops. Can’t say about the WiFi since we had no urgent needs at any time.