First full day in Paris:  19,378 steps.  So much for taking it easy here.  The day was made up of regrouping as rain and crowds change our plans constantly.  Still turn out to be a swell day and we still manage to have great experiences to take away with us.

We originally set out to visit the Catacombs.  We figured "it's raining, this is indoors; what could possibly go wrong."  Well, after about a 45 minute Metro ride, we emerged to find a HUGELY long line.  We asked a group with American accents if it was the line for the Catacombs and they informed us they had already been waiting 2 hours.  They were at least another hour from the front of the line and it was raining pretty darned hard.

They hadn't even gotten to here, which was around the corner from them:

The line started way way way behind the last person on the left and continued way way way ahead of the last visible person on the right.  We were way way enjoying our food when this photo was taken. 

Sherri (if you're reading this):  the patisserie we went to had their motto written on the wall above the display counters of wonderful stuff:  "Une maison san pain est une maison sans joie".  "A house without bread is a house without joy".  I thought of you when I read it.  How true!

Anyway, perhaps I’ve become cranky (okay, crankier) in my dottage.  Perhaps I fear wasting time because a 60-something  statistically has less time left than a 30-something.  Perhaps it just was the rain.  Whatever.  I only knew there was absolutely no way I was going to spend 3 hours standing on line just to see the Catacombs.  Now granted they looked pretty cool.  And I was looking forward to seeing them.  But I wasn’t looking 3-hours forward to seeing them.  In fact, there’s very little I would wait 3 hours for.  Seriously.

So it was a no-brainer decision for Gene & I to look at each other, go “we don't think so” and head to the nearest patisserie for some splendid quiche and an apple tart.  Oooh-la-la.  It was just the perfect solution so we could focus, regroup and see how we wanted to spend the rest of the day.

And so we headed off to the D’Orsay Museum, a fabulous place that used to be a railroad station.  So, like most Paris museums, even the building was wonderful to look at.  Of course, there was a line there as well – this must be what happens on Tuesdays, when the Louvre is closed, but the line moved along quite nicely and within a reasonable time we were inside.  The first thing you’re faced with inside is a smaller version of the Statue of Liberty.  And also this bust:

And I could help but look around for the companion busts of Moe & Curly (I mean really, doesn’t it look like Larry?).  But the Museum was having a great exhibit called “Suicide de la Societie”  where Van Gogh’s paintings were paired with the writings of one Antoine Artaud, who wrote a book expounding his theory that Van Gogh was driven to suicide by society.  Artaud also had deep psychological problems and was institutionalized for 9 years.  It was a fascinating theory and the paintings by Van Gogh were outstanding.  And this is how swell the main hall of this Museum looks:

 

 

After the Museum, we were rewarded with bighter skies & patches of blue peaking through.  The rain was gone for the day (and I think most of the rest of the week).  We got it into our heads that we should climb to the top of Notre Dame, which you are allowed to do for a fee. And so we walked along the Seine and down to Notre Dame, arriving 12 minutes after they closed the line for the day. But it has gone from being an impulse to being a mission, so stay tuned and let's see what happens tomorrow. 

As we walked to Notre Dame, we crossed over the Seine via the (in)famous Bridge of Love.  The one where everyone and his brother, sister, mother, father, second cousin twice removed, in the throes of passion put a lock on the bridge and threw the key into the Seine to symbolize that their love would never die -- the Seine, maybe from all the pollution caused by the disintegrating metal on the keys, but never the love these 2 humans had for each other. 

I don't know when this tradition got started.  I don't remember it 8 years ago when we were in Paris, but it has taken off with a passion (har har, I made a pun).  Here's what the bridge looks like today:

These locks extend on both sides clear to the other side of the bridge.  There are so many, you can not see through what used to be a chain link fence.  There are so many, one panel collapse recently and the city had to put up plywood to replace it, so the bridge would be safe to cross.

Here's a close-up of the locks.  As you can see, couples put locks upon locks upon locks, etc, wherever they can find a spot because there just isn't anymore room on the bridge.

This was never Paris' idea.  It got foisted on them by tourists.  But the Mayor doesn't want to stop people from doing it because she fears Paris' reputation as the "City of Love" will suffer.  And frankly, trying to remove all these locks is about the same level of impossibility as trying to send 11 million undocumented people back to their country of origin because some fool thinks they shouldn't be here -- it just can't be done.  The locks are there to stay.  The issue is to find a solution.  That's gonna be tough.  And will get tougher; we passed 3 vendors on the bridge who sell locks in case you haven't brought your own. 

I must admit I was curmudgeon about it all, but the sight of these locks is kind of sweet.  Gene & I even bought a lock:

But we plan to take it home to Phoenix with us and find a place in the house for it (unless we find a nice spot on a fence in Chase Field.  Hmmmmmmm.......)

It was getting late by this time and I was determine to do some shopping at the two biggest stores on Paris' answer to Rodeo drive, Haussmann Blvd. -- Galleries Lafayette & Printemps.  They are both almost as big as Harrods and as old;  Galleries Lafayette was founded in 1895  and Printemps began in 1865.

Galleries Lafayette is visually stunning:

That dome is what you see looking up from the main floor.  All the upper floors overlook the main floor.  It's jus a beautiful layout

Both stores have patios on the roof where you can sit and look out over Paris.  Time was getting short and we could only visit the one at Printemps, but the view did not disappoint:

Those gold domes are not churches or government buildings or anything important.  They're one of the Printemps stores.  There are at least two next to each other and maybe 3.  I started losing count.

My feet and body are telling me that I walked nearly 20,000 steps today.  Time to crash.