Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Tuesday, September 5
Up around 8 to enjoy our breakfast of french press coffee, baguettes, and pastry from the nearby boulangerie. We left our apartment around 9:30 and caught the city bus over to Champs de Mars to meet our Segway tour guides at the base of the Eiffel Tower.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Segway, it's sort of like a battery powered scooter that you stand on. You lean forward to go forward, lean backwards to go backwards, and twist a handle on the left handlebar to go left or right. Once you get the feel of it, it's really easy, a lot of fun and a great way to see a city like a walker would, but at a faster pace:
Up around 8 to enjoy our breakfast of french press coffee, baguettes, and pastry from the nearby boulangerie. We left our apartment around 9:30 and caught the city bus over to Champs de Mars to meet our Segway tour guides at the base of the Eiffel Tower.
For those of you who are not familiar with the Segway, it's sort of like a battery powered scooter that you stand on. You lean forward to go forward, lean backwards to go backwards, and twist a handle on the left handlebar to go left or right. Once you get the feel of it, it's really easy, a lot of fun and a great way to see a city like a walker would, but at a faster pace:
Michael Gets His Segway Orientation From Our Tour Leader, Stacy
Stacy Doing The Tour Highlights - I'm The Dork in the Green Shirt
We're Having Fun and Looking Dorky
Our Lunch Stop at the TuileriesWe had a great group - everybody was really fun and had no major problems with the Segway. Our tour took nearly 4 hours (including our stop for lunch at Tuileries) and it was probably the most fun we've had in Paris. I'm even more excited now for our Segway tour coming up in Amsterdam!After the rush of the Segway tour, we stopped for a quick bite at a nearby cafe, and then headed back towards the Eiffel Tower to pick up the L'Open Tour bus. Our legs were killing us from standing on the Segway all morning and so a sit-down activity seemed like the perfect thing to do. On our way there, we walked through Champs-de-Mars and watched some groups of men playing boules.
I also snapped this great shot of the Eiffel as I approached it's base:
We stayed on the bus for over an hour which took us along the Seine and down to Bastille. We hopped off the bus and took the Metro back home, where we cleaned up and took the Metro over to Le Marais for dinner at Les Vins de Pyrenees - a small restaurant specializing in wines bought from small producers throughout France. We split a bottle of Domaine Les Demoiselles Rose' from Provence, and it wasn't terrible. Neither Michael nor I really get the whole wine thing, and it's a struggle to choke it down sometimes, so we feel we're doing well when we can actually drink it without gagging. Anyway, the rose' was actually pretty good and it complemented my salmon and his chicken cassoulet. After dinner, we decided to walk home instead of taking the Metro, and took in the Seine at night with a brief stop at Pont Neuf - a popular place for those young and young at heart. We made it home around 11:30pm and I went to sleep as soon as my head hit the pillow. ¶ 2:02 PM
