Wednesday, June 11, 2014

Elvis is in Paris too!

A Magnolia Tree

The storefront where we picked up our Paris Pass.

We slept late after getting to our hotel well past midnight.  Then we made our way to Paris.  We chose our hotel off the internet and the site claimed to be within walking distance of several landmarks in Paris.  It was not.  The hotel was fine and the people were helpful and welcoming but the location was a bit of a challenge.  In fact, if it had not been for the kindness of a bus driver the night before I am not sure how we would have made it to our hotel.  Our hotel was within walking distance of a the E line of a suburban train called the RER.  We took the RER E from the airport to the station, and we looked for the appropriate bus, but we arrived after the normal bus routs were done for the day.  There was limited service after hours and a driver waiting for his next route told us to get on his bus and took us close to our hotel and pointed out the rest of our walk.  He would not take bus tickets or a tip.  The next morning, close to noon we headed to the station intending to hop on the RER E but line E of the RER was on strike.  So we hopped on a bus that took us to the station where we could hop on the RER A.  We rode that to Paris and then took a metro until we ended up in the general vicinity of the storefront where we were to pick up our Paris Passes.  These passes were well worth it, they came with free admission to museums, bus tour and boat tour and free metro vouchers.  I will look in to them when we travel to other cities as well.