British Isle Cruise--Day 18

August 12, 2015—Day 18, Paris (Le Harve), France

The weather report said it would be in the 70s in France with rain showers.  Since it was going to be warmer, we didn’t have to dress in quite as many layers as we had been, but with rain projected, we weren’t sure, so to be safe, we did wear a couple of layers.  We were booked on a ship’s excursion this time, “Paris on Your Own.”  A Princess bus would drive us from where our ship was docked in Le Harve, France to Paris, drop us off, then pick us up for the drive back.  We would have about 4 hours in Paris on our own to do and see whatever we wanted.

We met our tour group, disembarked the ship together, and walked to our bus—a very nice double-decker bus.  The drive to Paris was about 2-1/2 to 3 hours depending on traffic.  Our tour guide, Claudia, pointed out some of the sights along the way, and also went around to each person to see if we had questions or to offer suggestions on what to see, or how to get to the different places.  I had already done the research on what we wanted to see and how to get there, so I didn’t have any questions until Claudia suggested that we might want to take a Seine River cruise for a good overall view of Paris.  I asked her where to catch the river cruise and how long it would take in case we decided to do that.

My parents and I had discussed what to do and see in Paris well before the cruise (after all, we’d been planning this trip for almost a year), and there were two things on our list:  the Eiffel Tower (of course), and a small monument called Vel’ d Hiv.  We had planned to take a taxi instead of trying to navigate the bus or underground subway system, and I had actually printed Google maps of the places we needed to go and also where we would meet the bus when it was time to return, and had the question, “Can you take us here?” written in French (with the help of one of the folks at work who speaks French) printed on the maps in case we had any problems.  Turns out they came in very handy to get us where we needed to go.

Our bus let us off near the Grand Palace and the Petit Palace.  The weather was hot!  It was not in the 70s, but more like in the 90s with high humidity—a huge change from the previous weeks.  We shed some of the layers we had on and were told we could leave our jackets, sweaters, and umbrellas on the bus since it would remain parked there (thank goodness since otherwise we would be sweltering or would have to lug them around with us).

We caught a taxi to an intersection near the Vel’ d Hiv monument and asked the driver to follow the route I had on the printed Google map.  We drove up the Champs-Elysee (the famous shopping street in Paris) then around the Arc de Triomphe (taking pictures as we circled) and finally to the intersection I had indicated on the map. 

The monument is not a well-known monument, and is kind of hidden.  It is a monument to the Jewish families who were all rousted out of their homes one night during WWII.  There were over 13,000 people arrested that night including 4,000 children.  The reason we wanted to see the monument was primarily because we had read about this night in a book called Sarah’s Key.  In the book, Sarah describes what happens on this night from her perspective as a very young child.  The monument honors all those children and families who had been a victim of antisemitism during those dark days.  The monument itself is at the end of a wide path with flowers on each side, and consists of bronze cast children huddled together with parents.  The words underneath read:

“La Republique Francaise

en Hommage aux Victimes des Persecutions

Racistes et Antisemites et *es Crimes

Contre L’Humanite Commis Sous L’Autorite de Fait Dite

Gouvernement de L’Etat Francais   1940 – 1944

N’Oublions Jamais”

(* not sure if a letter was rubbed out here)

This monument certainly isn’t common knowledge based on the research we did on it (we were actually looking for anything to do with the book Sarah’s Key when my dad came across the reference to this monument).  While we were there, we didn’t see anyone visiting (except one lone runner going by).  Since this monument is only a couple of blocks from the Eiffel Tower it was also a great place to take pictures of the tower (difficult to take a picture right in front of it since it’s so tall). 

We had planned to walked to the tower and have lunch, but instead walked along the banks of the Seine River instead of at the street level.  We then found a place to have lunch sitting outside.  Service was very slow and the food was just OK, but that was probably due to the fact that we were just under the Eiffel Tower and hence a high tourist area (no need to provide either great service or food, just look like a quaint sidewalk cafe to draw the tourists in who no doubt pay higher prices than the locals). 

Afterward, we decided go ahead and take the Seine River tour.  The boat trip lasted an hour, leaving the Eiffel Tower past the Louvre Museum and Notre Dame Cathedral before turning around and heading back.  Our guide was right that the trip did allow us to see more of Paris including all the different bridges as we cruised under them.

We had to meet the bus at 3:00pm, and got off the river cruise at 2:30, so we had only 30 minutes to get there.  I knew the taxi ride should only take about 5 minutes and that there was a taxi stand just up the stairs under the Eiffel Tower (and I had another printed Google map I could show to the taxi driver so we would get to the right place), so we had no problem getting to the bus on time.  Our tour guide had given us all her phone number in case there were any problems, and apparently a taxi driver had called her at 3:00 saying that he had someone in his taxi wanting to go to our bus, but didn’t know where the bus was.  Lucky for that person that Claudia had provided us her number!  We ended up waiting until 3:30 until that person arrived, saying she was sorry she got lost. 

We made the 3-hour drive back to the ship uneventfully after another 1/2-hour delay at a rest stop when a family of four decided they needed to buy something in the gift shop at the rest area instead of just using the toilet (this is one of the reasons a private tour was so much better than being on a bus with 50 others).

We were finally back on board at 6:30pm after a very long 11-hour day.  We had a quick dinner in the buffet, then headed to the cabin to finish packing and setting out our luggage in the hall for pickup, leaving our carry-ons for the next day when we would be disembarking the ship and making our way home.