Paris Monday

This blog is helping jog the memories as it is all becoming past tense. It is daylight here until well after 10pm so there is little evening left to do this. It is great for tourist as it seems OK to wander around late at night. Last night was too tired to write. We have found the French so polite and helpful. People often give their seats to Roger who has been using his stick because of the uneven ground. We have often been assisted with directions and strangers have offered us the benefits of their local knowledge. We have not experienced any situations of rudeness - quite the contrary. The other contradiction to popular opinion is that you don't hear anything about Australia when OS. Was gob - smacked to learn of our new Prime Minister - there were some slight rumblings before we left but it seemed to me to be a media build up. Also learned the Aussies didn't make the World Cup. The game is very prominent here. The Portugese went mad after their mammoth win and there were flag waving and much tooting on the Champs Elysee. I didn't recognize the flag but soon found out.
Monday and Tuesday we travelled on the Open Tour hop on hop off bus to orient us to Paris. The first day was cold but the views of Paris distracted us. We mostly stayed on the bus though had time to visit St Germain-des-Pres and Notre Dame with its magnificent rose windows. We lunched at a little spot near Invalides before changing buses. There are four different routes and we completed three on the first day. It was so exciting to see it all again. My memories of thirty years ago are very hazy. We ended up at Opera Garnier expecting a free Berlioz concert - in retrospect realized it must have been at the New Opera theatre at Bastille. We managed to get home by a local bus but probably walked for about a half an hour down the main street to Anvers passed the red light district and Moulin Rouge. Decided to picnic for tea and I started an impression of the magnificent court yard garden. Tuesday we
started early, taking the Metro instead of waiting for the Open tour bus. Arrived at The Musee d'Orsay early but still had a long queue to negotiate though it moved relatively quickly. There were still queues but they did not rival Canberra's. Sorry am falling asleep - to be continued