Sunday, September 13

Sunday – the last full day of our wonderful visit to France – we enjoyed sleeping later than usual, as we were totally on our own. After a late breakfast, we took the Metro to Jardin du Luxembourg – the gardens of the Luxembourg Palace. The gardens and palace were commissioned by Marie de Medici, wife of Henry IV, in 1615, and were designed to resemble her childhood Florentine home. The palace now houses the Senate of France, and the gardens are a public playground, with a huge circular pool and fountain, in which children were sailing toy boats (not motorized – once in, you had to wait until it arrived somewhere you could retrieve it), lots of chairs, lawns for picnicking, tennis courts, a restaurant, lots of beautiful flowers, palm trees (don’t ask me how they survive Paris winters), sculptures, etc. The gardens were full of Parisians and visitors of all ages enjoying a relaxing Sunday.

At this point, we’re proud that we’ve managed to find our way several times on the Metro without ending up in Yugoslavia.

From there, we walked to Ile de la Cité, stopping for lunch along the way on a bustling street. Notre Dame is on the Ile de la Cité, and we took several photos of the outside, but didn’t get in the long line for an indoor visit. Then we caught the Metro back to our hotel, and rested until the farewell reception at 5:30. After saying our good-byes, we headed to dinner and a night boat ride on the Seine.

Dinner was at a touristy (but good) place close to the boat ride and the Eiffel Tower. The boat ride was a bargain – only €5 per person as senior citizens! We were on the 9:00 p.m. boat, and the ride lasted about an hour up and down the Seine, past many of the buildings and churches that we had seen in daylight from the shore. The highlight was the view of the Eiffel Tower, which we had at the start of our ride. The end of our ride took us right up to it. It is illuminated at night and, every hour after dark (stopping at some civilized hour) it sparkles for about 5 minutes – a nice effect, but one that is impossible to capture in a photograph.

And that is the end of our adventure. Now it’s back to reality!

In case you were wondering what happened to Giverny -- we decided to opt out of this optional tour, since we were told that there were no works of Monet's there. Plus we didn't want to get up that early. Just call us lazy!

One final thought – when I am reincarnated, I want to come back as a dog in France. They are treated royally, and pretty much go wherever their owners go – to dinner, shopping, out for a stroll, etc. Truly a dog’s life!