Goodbye Paris

   We started off Wednesday with a subway ride to the Musee D'Orsay, it's the home to rooms full of Impressionist paintings as well as other late 19th century art. The building was converted from a train station and has great natural lighting through a huge glass roof.  The weather couldn't have been better this week and afterward we decided to take the open air bus for a tour of the city high lights.

   Later in the day we hopped off the bus near the Notre Dame cathedral and walked to the Sainte Chapelle, built for King Louis IX with all the wall space made of 50 ft high panels of stained glass. It was an amazing place to stand inside of, but I couldn't help but wonder how walls of leaded glass could support the weight of a church roof. I guess the designers had it all figured out since the building has been standing since 1248.

   On Thursday we took the Metro to the Trocadero stop and went to the large Maritime Museum. There's a great collection of ships' models and memorabilia from the middle ages up to modern days. Afterward we had lunch at a cafe in the square outside and hopped back on the open air bus for a ride near the Place De La Concorde where we did a little window shopping  and enjoyed the cool breeze and warm afternoon sun on our last day in Paris.

   Mary & I had a great trip and tomorrow we start toward home, with an overnight stop in Dublin; Saturday morning we catch the return leg on our round trip flight across the Atlantic. We both enjoyed Ireland as much as our trip a couple of years ago. Barcelona and Paris are both delightful cities with much to see. We found them both to be comfortable, clean, surprisingly green and great places to walk day or night. People in both cities were friendly and polite to English only speaking tourists like us; public facilities were easy to use and comfortable. We were especially impressed with the subway in Paris; the coffee also tasted really good, much better than my memories from the early 1970's.

   It's happily back at home next week, where I'm anxious to get back to summertime projects. Thanks to all who followed along with our trip and it was nice to hear your comments from home; the travel blog was fun for me to do.

   John