Welcome to Tortuous Tours

The newest subsidiary of the Pathetic Travel Group is Tortuous Tours, "If you can still walk, we haven't done our job".

After the "Bataan Death March" tour of the Marais and Left Bank, it was time for the "Trail of Tears" guide to 'all the rest of the major landmarks in Paris". So after breakfast we headed out taking a train into central Paris. We walked across the Ile de la Cite, then headed along the Left Bank to see the the full profile of the Louvre. Unfortunately they are doing some major renovation to it so it looks like a factory with a big crane!.

Past the Pont Neuf and down the river and back again to the Right Bank where we came into the courtyard of the Louvre and saw the I.M Pei glass pyramid on one hand and the small Arc de Triomphe on the other. It is hard to imagine the massive size and scope of the Louvre unless you see it.

Through the Tuillerie Gardens and up to the Place de Vendome. Here we see where Napoleon was wed to Maria Theresa. In fact you see all sorts of stuff related to Napoleon all over the city. Now it's close to lunch and we are fully in the chi-chi high rent district of Paris. I'm worried that lunch is going to be really expensive. But we find a small bar-brasserie that has fresh made sandwiches to go for a reasonable price. It's a real small whole in the wall. Looking at the menu and prices, I suspect this is where all the hotel and shop workers go for their meals. As with so many of my experiences, the guy serving us is friendly and very tolerant of my halting French.

We went to the end of the Tuillerie overlooking the Place de la Concorde. Of historical note, the Place de la Concorde has a major building where Louis the XIV signed the treaty with Benjamin Franklin while just a few meters away is the spot where a number of years later his head was chopped off during the French Revolution.

We moved on after lunch up the Champs Eylisee from the Grand Palace to the great Arc du Triomphe. We take some side roads to get the full breath of the high end neighborhood experience (lots of very fancy shops with virtually no inventory and fewer customers - lot's of restaurants packed to the gills with very, very well dressed men and women).

Then we head back toward the river to the Trocodero and on to the Eiffel Tower where we are accosted by more African and Middle Eastern vendors of schlocky tower models than one can imagine. Finally done and we take the Metro back to the hotel.

In order to get this all done there is no time for cafe breaks. We were gone from 10 AM to 4 PM. I'm not sure how far it is though I guess it is somewhere around 10 miles.

But at least 1A got to see all the name sights of Paris.