Vist dates: September 26-27, 2026
Our Roads Scholar tour kicked into gear on Saturday September 26. Our tour guide was Paola and she was fantastic. She was born in Italy; grew up in Peru; returned to Europe in Paris; and now lives in Spain – where the cost of living is much lower.
The Pope was in Paris during our visits and that clobbered a lot of the plans. Paola worked to adjust and get us all where we needed to be. A tour bus of 25 people won’t really work in Paris so Paola gave everyone a preloaded Metro card and we walked together to a nearby subway stop. We were all given headsets tuned to Paola’s broadcast so we could learn about what we were seeing and how to navigate. A lot of downtown was closed off – including Metro stops – for the Pope and his 600,000 followers; so Paola had to figure out on the fly how to change our route. This meant taking three trains instead of one. Getting 25 old folks together on a crowded subway – we were spread over two cars most of the time – takes the patience of a saint. She got us all through and we didn’t lose anyone.
Our first stop was the Musee d’Orsay. Originally it was a train station but has been turned into a beautiful museum. A note on the pictures; it wasn’t really that uncrowded on the steps. I use either Apples magic eraser tool or Lightroom’s AI Generative Remove to get rid of people in pictures when I can.
Remember that Van Gogh self portrait I wrote about in my first post on the trip? Here is another – I imagine done around the same time.
That dominant yellow and blue knock me out. Again, the portrait made by all these bold lines looking like they were applied with a pallet knife. I’ve seen prints of this before (and even bought a magnet of it at the gift shop) but those copies do not do justice to the real thing. It’s a masterpiece and I LOVE it.
On an upper level we walked behind a giant clock at the one time railway station.
Our next stop was Sainte-Chappelle on the same Paris island that is home to Notre Dame. This detail of part of the Gothic chapel entrance creeped me out a bit. I should have taken a picture of the whole thing as well. These characters are crushed together in hell while those in heaven are above.
We didn’t get to get close to Notre Dame because it was still closed for the Pope.
Our final stop for the day was Montmartre on a hill overlooking Paris.
Jim, Terri, Carla and I posed for a picture.
It was getting toward evening and Paola gave us all the option of returning to the hotel on the bus with her or staying at Montmartre and making our way back on our own. We stayed and found a nice cafe where we could sit outside and enjoy beer and a charcuterie board. Afterward we looked down on Paris landmarks. Shooting toward the sun brings out the haziness of the day.
The Eiffel Tower is amazing close up (you’ll see in a minute) but seeing it tower over so much of Paris from a distance gave me a new appreciation of its size. When we were on a bus heading to Versailles (next post) we could see the Tower from the edge of the city.
Although we couldn’t get close to Notre Dame we got this alternate angle.
The golden hour was approaching and I love how I caught the contrast of stonework of the chapel and surrounding buildings.
We took the funicular down the mount and walked down a few streets until we found a taxi stand to take us back to our hotel (The Opera NH Hotel). The four of us weren’t done having fun yet; so we walked a couple of blocks back to Maison Louvard, where the whole tour group had dinner the night before, for a bite of dessert. France, right? Dessert!
We started the next day by climbing on a bus after a group breakfast and heading to Versailles. I’ll have a whole post on that next. When we returned we were dropped off near the Eiffel Tower where we boarded a boat for a cruise on the Seine.
I caught another alternate angle of Notre Dame’s twin towers,
The tour we were on did not include the Louvre; if there is time for only one museum I’d pick Musee d’Orsay every time. But viewing the museum from the river gave me a new appreciation for just how big the museum is.
At the end of the cruise we had a choice to make – like the day before; go back to the hotel on the bus or wander around Paris on our own. Paris is a long way from Portland and we were determined to make the most of our time. The Mattilas saw the Arc de Triomphe in 1983 and wanted to see it again. They took the Metro to the stop, popped up to the street, took a picture, then headed back down to the Metro. This time we wanted to spend drinking a beer and people watching on the Champs-Elysées.
Along with the Pope being in Paris during our visit it was also fashion week. We walked up Ave. George V toward the Champs-Elysées and passed by the Crown Plaza hotel replete with Rolls Royces and other expensive cars sitting curbside. Terri pointed out that the homeless people didn’t give us a second look and focused their pan handling on the upper 10%. We walked past a Hermes store a Rolex store, and other high end retail establishments. Each had a line in front. When a shopper exited with their new prized possession, the next shopper was allowed in. Ah, how the other half live. We had a grand time sipping our beers and watching the very fashionable people walking by. I saw one man with glasses that reminded me of the ones LaVar Burton’s character Geordi La Forge played on Star Trek: The Next Generation. I don’t know how he saw where he was going; but he managed.
Carla, the boys and I visited Paris a number of years ago – it must have been pre-Blog because I can’t find a post. We made our way across the horrendous traffic circle and climbed up to the top of the Arc de Triomphe for the view. I don’t have a picture of this but it is inked in my memory. The arch is built in the middle of a traffic circle – Pl Charles de Gaulle – where eleven roads come together – one of which is the Champs-Elysées. Traffic is crazy. We watched a man in a motorized wheelchair, wearing a helmet drive slowly through the traffic seemingly without regard to the cars. Brave man! Also on that trip our hotel was on one of the smaller streets intersecting the circle. Arriving from the airport, our taxi driver circled the arch at least three times before he could make it to the outside of the circle and deliver us.
Next Post: Versailles
