Yeah, I know you can’t exactly blow someone a french kiss, but it is a pretty good metaphor for spitting on someone. Which isn’t to say we’d ever spit on France. Not only did we enjoy our second visit immensely, but we didn’t run into nearly as many rude or arrogant Parisians as we did during our first visit. They’re either getting a little less rude, or our “rudar” is functioning at max capacity and we were able to stay out of their way.
But I wonder, why is it, despite their legendary rudeness, that the French get credited with so many interesting things? For example, in addition to french kisses, we give them credit for french beans, french beds, french bread, french braids, french cuffs, french cut underwear (ooh la la!), french dip sandwiches, french doors, french dressing, french fries, french harps, french heels, french hens (30 of them given all told in the Twelve Days of Christmas– that’s a lot of french poop!), french horns, french knots, french letters (which is, literally, an English condom… go figure), french maids, french manicures, french mustard, french pancakes (i.e. crepes), french pastries, french 
poodles, french press, french rolls, french roofs, french saddles, french telephones, french twists, french vanilla, french windows, and hot damn, that’s just a partial list! Oops, pardon my French.
Anyway, even though we stayed on the outskirts of central Paris, we did take the rental car into the city to see a few more things, including the teeny tiny Eiffel Tower as pictured above. I don’t know why people make such a big deal over something so small.
If you drive around Paris, you might find yourself in the longest urban motorway tunnel in the world. We entered it not knowing we were participating in an actual Guinness world record, but when the tunnel kept going and going and going, we decided to look it up. It kept going for so long that Carolyn was able to read me the entire world history of tunnels as well as most of the history of Tunisia before we saw the light of day again.
It’s also interesting because it’s limited to a height of two meters, or 6′ 7″, which means my very tall grandson would scrape his head just to walk into it. It’s so low that the only commercial vehicles that can go inside can only be found in the movies. For instance, I can just picture a scene in a Christmas season action flick where the hero sheers off the top half of a semi truck just to keep the five priceless golden rings from the bad guys, leaving it blocking the entrance while its load of geese, swans, and french hens are chased around by a bunch of lords and ladies to the sound of bagpipes and drums.
Another challenge of driving in Paris is that French people take all their frustrations at everyone who has ever mocked them by driving in the city like the Portuguese do on their freeways.
Contrarily, on the freeways in France we noticed that French drivers actually obeyed the speed limit and were mostly polite… but we’re thinking that may have something to do with the plethora of police cameras. However, in the city they pretty much let it all hang out… blocking intersections, honking with their French horns, while spitting and cursing, “Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries!” to anyone who gets in their way.
Perhaps my proudest moment was navigating through a seven or eight lane roundabout (we didn’t really have time to count) without hardly killing anyone. We didn’t get any photos, because I was busy avoiding Renaults, Peugeots, and Citroens driven by spittle-mouthed French people while Carolyn was busy embedding her fingers up to the first knuckle in the dashboard.
As evidenced by the picture above we took from our car while approaching the Arc De Triomphe, we did actually drive through that roundabout, but we also drove through another one that I thought was even scarier. After surviving it unscathed, I decided that in order to successfully navigate a multi-lane roundabout you just need to know the Only Rule for Multi-lane Roundabouts: Don’t hit anyone.
As long as everyone follows that rule, everyone survives.
But the nice thing about roundabouts is if you miss your exit because, for example, there are nine irritated French drivers between you and your exit, you can just go around again… and sometimes eight times as you whittle away at the lanes, one car at a time.
Actually there is a another rule… stay on the road, otherwise you might end up looking like a 737 Max.
I became so experienced with French roundabouts (that’s probably another term, meaning “Roundabouts with spittle-mouthed French people”), that I decided to show ’em what Yankees can do when it comes to these kinds of things, complete with the Dukes of Hazzard rental car we were able to score for just another ten euros a day. Of course I had to circle around again just to pick up Carolyn who was filming the whole thing. Either that or I just found this gif on the internet, but I like my story better.
Getting back to our own photos, after parking the car by doing a 360 into a spot reserved for a moped, we strolled over a bridge in Paris, and noticed this sightseeing boat, which surely holds some sort of Guinness Record for the largest length-to-width ratio by a boat. The design is probably called a “French boat,” but it looks more like a long pier that broke loose.
We also saw Washington DC’s capitol building, which was apparently on loan to Paris, maybe for the 75th Normandy landing celebration.
It’s pretty big. The building I mean.
The charm of France is exemplified by these charming French umbrellas. Meanwhile, Carolyn makes fun of bulimic women.
We followed up with some gelado just to show the statue what she’s missing.
We have to admit that our estimation of French intelligence took a nosedive when we saw how poorly thought out their security systems for bridges are.
The most massive, ginormous Door of Day we’ve ever posted.
Truth be told, we’re pretty thrifty travelers when it comes to food. Sure, we eat out plenty when we’re on the road, but we try and balance that with, shall we say, more economical selections, like these delectable French dishes purchased at the grocery store around the corner from our hotel. You just can’t beat quality French cuisine! (As long as you have a microwave.)
Right next to the Quality Suites where we stayed is a little shack called Château de Maisons-Laffitte. Perhaps motivated by the proximity to such grandiosity, the Quality Suites was far better than any of the Quality Suites I’ve seen in the states. It was actually a very nice hotel with what is, to date, the best free breakfast buffet we’ve ever had in our travels. Of course, it was there that I learned that crepes stuffed in your pockets don’t travel well.
Since we had a little time to kill, we visited the chateau and forked over the eight euro entrance fee. Designed and built from 1630 to 1651, it was a residence and vacation home for a series of French royalty and aristocrats. Its design is notable in the annals of French architecture, and it was definitely interesting, but they haven’t kept it up all that well and we thought the eight euros was a little pricey for what you got. At least we didn’t have any transportation costs to get there!
On our way back from Normandy, I saw signs for Caen (which we found out is pronounced kind of like “Kong,” as in “King Kong,” but with a drawn-out “o” and just a slight hint of the “g”). The city piqued my interest because it has some degree of notoriety from World War II, since it was the sight of some of the most intense battles of the war in France. Much of the city was destroyed, so most of the old buildings like this church had to be rebuilt from the destroyed stone.
In many places it’s actually a very pretty city. They did a good job of blending the new with the rebuilt-old. Unlike cities like Dresden, which was beholden to the ugly block style of the Soviet overlords, the French actually used architecture pleasing to the eye.
There is a Mémorial de Caen –a museum and war memorial– somewhere in the city, but since we were just cruising through we didn’t see it.
There are these small reminders here and there, however, like this one showing how this particular square looked before and after the bombing.
We did have a kind of crappy, er– crepe-y dinner while there. It was a small restaurant that specializes in crepes, but we weren’t all that impressed. Give us our fresh Portuguese fish any day!
But the city was absolutely charming, and we were glad to have seen it, even if just briefly. Oh, well, you do what you Caen do.
Perhaps my favorite building was this free public toilet. It took us a while to figure out, but what happens is once you do your business and after you leave, the door automatically locks and the entire room is flushed like one gigantic toilet. Now that’s sophisticated sanitation!
After we made our way back to Paris, we decided to visit one of the largest art museums in Europe, the famous Musée d’Orsay.
It is so-named because it is housed in a former railway station which was named Gare d’Orsay. We mainly took pictures of the art we recognized, which meant that it was probably famous and something to be admired. That’s pretty much the extent of our historical painting expertise.
Some of the recognition comes from a board game I played when I was a kid, called “Masterpiece.” I guess there are many ways to learn about culture. I’m pretty sure I bid, oh, about one million on the above piece at some time or another.
The museum holds mainly French art, including paintings like this demonstrating what happens when you give a woman too much liquor, as well as a bunch more from artistic luminaries like Van Gogh, Renoir, Monet, Manet, Cézanne, Seurat, Sisley, Gauguin, Jim Carrey, and Degas. I listed the second to last name there just to see if you were paying attention. Actually, he is actually a pretty good artist in his own right, he just doesn’t have anything mounted in the Musée d’Orsay, as far as I know.
The nudes were often my favorite. Not because they’re of naked women, for heaven’s sake! Get your mind out of the gutter! But mostly because of the, um, the uh, well, the boobies. Okay, you got me.
Like most men, I guess I like pretty women, although in Carolyn’s case that’s just a side benefit of her warm, kind, and loving personality. Honey, can I come back in the house now?
This is the back of a giant clock, which means we were experiencing time moving backwards. I wondered if we stood there long enough that we might end up back in World War II.
This is the top of the Musée d’Orsay, something I doubt you’ve ever seen before. You can’t say we don’t offer unique experiences in this blog!
You can certainly tell what it used to be, if you have a trained eye, that is. Get it? Trained eye? It was a train station? Oh, the hell with you.
On the drive down to Normandy I noticed the French had installed some kinda cool road signs. So I thought it would be good for Carolyn to take a few shots to use as intro shots for whatever place we might visit. Turns out, that was a great way to keep her occupied… she just kept shooting and shooting and shooting. The below slide show shows her Top Twenty, there were plenty more. Which made me realize this might be a great way to keep kids busy on a long trip! Give ’em a digital camera and tell them to take pictures of whatever item might appear semi-regularly! Of course, someone looking through your digital photo albums might wonder why there are so many pictures of cows taken from the freeway, but at least the kids won’t ask “are we there yet?” fifty times.
I also couldn’t help but document one of her many eating accidents. She’s a self-acknowledged food klutz. She told me of this when we first started dating, and then went and proved it by spilling drinks all over the table during two of our next three dates. It’s just part of her charm. Plus she’s pretty good about cleaning up.
While I know our the quality of our photography can be breath-taking, that’s only because we only show the ones that could win some sort of award if only a person who hands out awards for whatever we’ve done ever looked at them. So we humbly offer up a bunch of photos that just barely missed out on the high level of expertise we expect from our near-professional-quality photographic skills.
So au revoir France and your tiny little Eiffel Tower! We enjoyed you even more the second time around!
And that closes the chapter on our Athens-Crete-Accidentally Paris trip across Europe.
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