WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2012, LA HARVE (port for) PARIS, FRANCE - The Constellation was scheduled to arrive at the port of La Harve, France at 7:30 a.m. on this morning.  Shortly after 8 a.m. Sylvia and I, along with our friends, Bill & Marie Herrmann and Paul & Carol Melton departed from the ship and located an 8 passenger cab that we engaged to take us to the train station.  Approximately 90 days before this event, the on-line Eurorail system had made the tickets available for purchase.  Bill & Marie had obtained the tickets for the group with all of us reimbursing them for our share.  The cost was $49 USD each way per person.  The trip took about 2 hours on the train.  We arrived at the very busy train station and once inside we stayed very alert trying to make certain that we understood the changes of schedules and the location where our train would be boarded.  At shortly after 9:30 a.m. we boarded and settled in for the ride with no changes and very few short stops until, at about 12:15 p.m. we reached the train station, Gare Saint Lazare in Paris.  When we had begun researching our options for this trip from Le Harve to Paris, we had found that the most economical and dependable mode of transport was this high-speed Eurorail train.  There were various trains departing this very morning, most with a more leisurely scheduled but this specific schedule was the only one with the "fast" arrival in Paris.

I jumped ahead in the sequence of events to capture these pictures so the reader could put names with faces:
Bill & Marie Herrmann of Buffalo, NY and Florida:

Paul & Carol Melton of Danville, Virginia:

And, to prove we were also there, Sylvia and I stand in front of the world famous tower:

Note:  both the Herrmanns and the Meltons are professional photographers and their picture composition skills (even using my simple, cheap camera) show in the above photo of Sylvia & me versus my composition in the photos of the two other couples.

Back to the trip narrative...We were met at the train station by a car transfer and driver, Paris City Line Transport (that I had pre-arranged) and were taken to our respective hotels.  Paul & Carol stayed at a large chain hotel that they frequently used in other cities.  Bill & Marie and Sylvia & I had booked and guaranteed by credit card ourselves into a small "boutique" hotel, Hotel Amelie, that came highly recommended by a friend of the Herrmanns.  At the hotel we had very little time to store our luggage and then walk to a nearby bakery for lunch before we were picked up by the driver for our afternoon tour.  The Viator tour, "Paris City Tour by Minivan & Montmarte" was a private tour for just the 6 of us.  Everything went as planned.  The tour van driver picked up Paul & Carol and then proceeded to stop for the four of us at the Hotel Amelie.

We traveled across this beautiful city sometimes stopping for a few minutes for pictures (such as those , shown above, at the Eiffel Tower) and others just pausing for the time it took to snap a picture or two.

 

 

 

 

 

And, finally arriving at Montmartre, a hill in the north of Paris.

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

Montmartre gives its name to the surrounding district.  It is in the 18th arrondissement, a part of the Right Bank.  Montmartre is primarily known for the white-domed Basilica of the Sacre Coeur on its summit and as a nightclub district.

     

   

 

 

 

In front of the steps of the basilica, Marie (on left with camera taking a picture), Sylvia, and Carol.

 

Many artists such as  Salvador Dali, Claude Monet, Pablo Picasso, and Vincent van Gogh had studios or worked around the community of Montmartre .

 

 

 

 

Below, the National Academy of Music aka The Paris Opera House.

 

 

And, now we're very near The Louve.

 

Near The Louve is the Carousel Triumphal Arch,  the smallest of the three arches on the Triumphal Way.  The Carousel Triumphal Arch was commissioned by Emperor Napoleon in 1806 to commemorate his Austrian victories and honor his grand army.  The design of the triumphal arch was based on the Arch of Constantine in Rome.  The arch has three archways; the largest, central one is  21 ft. high. The whole structure is 63 ft, high and 75 ft. wide.  On top of the arch were four gilded bronze horses taken by Napoleon from St. Mark's Square in Venice.  The statues were returned to Venice after Napoleon's downfall at Waterloo.

In 1828 a bronze replica of the quadriga - created by François Joseph Bosio - was installed as a replacement.

 

We departed from that area, crossed the Seine and travel toward the Notre-Dame Cathedral.

The Seine is a 482 mile-long river and an important commercial waterway within the Paris Basin. It rises in northeastern France flowing through Paris and into the English Channel at Le Harve.
There are 37 bridges within Paris and dozens more spanning the river outside the city.

 

 

 

 

Notre -Cathedral is a historic Roman Catholic cathedral in Paris.  Widely considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture and among the largest and most well-known churches  in the world, Notre-Dame is the cathedral of the Catholic Archdiocese of Paris; that is, it is the church that contains the official chair of the Archbishop of Paris.

 

 

Leaving Notre-Dame we traveled back across the Seine to these beautiful neighborhoods.

 

 

 

These white faced buildings are the "huts" used for the Christmas village sales.

 

 

 

The beautiful Seine. 

Note the roof top sculpture on the buildings located on the Avenue des Champs Elysees.

The Left column of Pont Alexandre III

and its location near the river Seine.

 

And, finally we arrived at the Eiffel Tower and spend some time making pictures of everyone with the tower in the background.  (Remember the early pictures of each couple?)

That's Marie Herrmann on the right front.

Back in the van, it's late afternoon.  The store windows glow...

We take notice of the Louis Vuitton store.

 

The car lights begin to show in the pictures.  Note this scene seems to typical of Paris traffic.  There appear to be very few marked lanes that are observed by drivers.  Everyone drives where they wish and hope its not where someone else wishes!!!!

 

The golden obelisk, Cleopatra's Needle.

 

Our Paris City tour ends near The Louve where we still have the time to locate a place to have dinner before our evening tour of The Louve begins.

We met our guide at the Carousel Triumphal Arch, lighted by night  and proceeded inside The Louve.

The next photos were all taken inside of The Louve.

 

These are just a sampling of what we viewed.  The tour ended 9:30-10 p.m. and we proceeded back to our hotels using taxis.