Notre Dame Cathedral - 5 minutes walk from
our hostel along the Seine River
on top of Notre Dame...
Quartier Latin - thee view down to "our" suburb
Gargoyles watching over the city..
Jason gets the water going...
Basilica Sacre Coeur in Mon Martre
... the incredible Ilo Toyur
Sunday – 5th September
Vive La France, vive la Revolutione, vive la Greve Nationale.......(National Strike)
…..France is calling for National Strikes on coming Tuesday, our travel day to Spain!
No buses, no metros, no trains and no planes and no way we get to Barcelona!
But first things first:
at 9:30 am we line up to climb the tower of Notre Dame in search for Quasimodo. What we find are heaps of gargoyls and great views across the city. Inside the girls light a candle and its small light is swallowed by the surrounding darkness. In the height of the gothic ceiling some hope appears in forms of colourful rays sent directly from the heavens through the enormous lead light windows. For 200 years generations of stone masons worked on this cathedral to give the humble congregation the experience of their own insignificance.
12:00 – we are back at the hostel for lunch and I am busy negotiating the various options for Tuesday.
2:00 – we head off to Mon Martre using the now very familiar metro and the kids start leading us through the endless maze of tunnels and exits.
2:45 – we step out into a different world: the scenerie is dominated by Africans from France’s former colonies in North-West-Africa. The sophisticated stylish ambiente of our quartier at Latin is gone and we feel like walking through the…’hood’.
3:30 – what was a scare a minute ago, turns into cheers and an avalanche of flash lights pointing at Ilo Toyur, a black free style soccer player, basking and juggling his soccer ball with incredible skills in front of the Basilica of Sacre Couer, as if, it is part of his body.
6:00 – our flight to Barcelona which was canceled by Easyjet, because of the Air Traffic Controller Strike is now transferred to Wednesday (….from 8 am the metro will run with 20 trains per hour again and not with “maybe one”) and it looks we are on track again – one day extra in Paris (Great!), one day less in Barcelona (Pitty!).
Stayed tuned,
Stefan
Vive La France, vive la Revolutione, vive la Greve Nationale.......(National Strike)
…..France is calling for National Strikes on coming Tuesday, our travel day to Spain!
No buses, no metros, no trains and no planes and no way we get to Barcelona!
But first things first:
at 9:30 am we line up to climb the tower of Notre Dame in search for Quasimodo. What we find are heaps of gargoyls and great views across the city. Inside the girls light a candle and its small light is swallowed by the surrounding darkness. In the height of the gothic ceiling some hope appears in forms of colourful rays sent directly from the heavens through the enormous lead light windows. For 200 years generations of stone masons worked on this cathedral to give the humble congregation the experience of their own insignificance.
12:00 – we are back at the hostel for lunch and I am busy negotiating the various options for Tuesday.
2:00 – we head off to Mon Martre using the now very familiar metro and the kids start leading us through the endless maze of tunnels and exits.
2:45 – we step out into a different world: the scenerie is dominated by Africans from France’s former colonies in North-West-Africa. The sophisticated stylish ambiente of our quartier at Latin is gone and we feel like walking through the…’hood’.
3:30 – what was a scare a minute ago, turns into cheers and an avalanche of flash lights pointing at Ilo Toyur, a black free style soccer player, basking and juggling his soccer ball with incredible skills in front of the Basilica of Sacre Couer, as if, it is part of his body.
6:00 – our flight to Barcelona which was canceled by Easyjet, because of the Air Traffic Controller Strike is now transferred to Wednesday (….from 8 am the metro will run with 20 trains per hour again and not with “maybe one”) and it looks we are on track again – one day extra in Paris (Great!), one day less in Barcelona (Pitty!).
Stayed tuned,
Stefan
No comments:
Post a Comment