Walking the streets of Paris…Five miles/eight kilometers of blissful sightseeing with aching feet and never ending smiles…Lots of photos!

It was exciting to walk along the banks of the River Seine for over an hour on our long walk through the city.

The most romantic city in the world, Paris obviously inspired a romantic person to have this signposted, “Will you marry me, Diane?” We hope she said yes!

With multiple events, we’ve booked through Viator occurring over the next few weeks, the reputable online booking agency with customer reviews, we feel confident that we’ll have covered the main sights in Paris. The rest we’ll visit on our own either on foot, by bus or train.

Many houseboats are used as permanent homes docked along the shores of the River Seine.

This huge boat was filled with tourists on a tour of the River Seine.

The events range from as little as US $56, EU $42 per person, upwards to hundreds of dollars/euros per event.  With our budget in mind and the high cost of dining in Paris, we’ll attempt to see the other sights on our own.

Surely, our readers will tire of photos of the Eiffel Tower but we aren’t quite done with them yet. It’s quite a sight. We spotted several merry-go-rounds along the walk.

If our future walks are at all comparable to yesterday’s we probably won’t miss much. We walked over five miles/eight kilometers by the time we returned to our hotel. I think that the last time we walked that far was when we did Petra in Jordan in May 2013, although the hills in Paris are at a minimum.

To the right in this photo is the City of Architecture and Heritage. On the left is the Palais de Chaillot.

Beautiful sculptures in the City of Architecture and Heritage.

Surprisingly, neither of us is any worse for the wear and we’re off again today in another direction. We have no doubt that we’ll have seen quite of bit of the city streets of Paris, as per our intentions in our remaining two weeks. 

Tom took this photo from the steps of the City of Architecture and Heritage. Tom on the steps of the City of Architecture and Heritage.

At the end of the day, we were decided to walk to a nearby restaurant for 8:00 pm dinner rather than dress up and take a cab. The less cab fare we pay, the more we can pay for venues when cab fare is no bargain in Paris as has been the case in many other places we’ve visited. 

Another photo of the museum at the City of Architecture and Heritage. The massive buildings drew a considerable crowd. However, through our entire walk, we never felt overcrowded.

As for dining going forward, we’ve begun to book restaurants on TripAdvisor highest rated list. Next Wednesday, we’ve booked t#2 on the list of 12,500 restaurants when the #1 highest rated restaurants show a cost of no less than US $400, EU $298 per person for dinner. We’ll pass on that one.

This building reminded me of an area in Minneapolis, Minnesota called “The Wedge.” We stumbled upon the famous Peninsula Hotel where the basic room is US $1500 per night, EU $1117.

That type of expenditure doesn’t fit into our budget nor do we feel disappointed we can’t try it. We’ve had our share of fine dining and aren’t disappointed to try midrange restaurants. 

Security was tight outside the Peninsula Hotel where dignitaries had gathered for a conference. Later, their motorcade drove past us as we continued on our walk. Our walk down the road as we approached the Arc de Triomphe.

Other highly rated restaurants will suffice as we work our way down the list. Of course, most of the highly rated restaurants require a taxi ride when the city is 40.7 square miles, 105 kilometers. 

The Arc de Triomphe was a busy location filled with cars and tourists. The Arc de Triomphe is located in the center of a roundabout. The traffic zips around so quickly that multiple underground walkways were installed to allow tourist access to the monument.

As for yesterday, we decided to try the walk to the Arc de Triomphe which was over 2 miles, 3.22 km one way from our hotel. Sidetracking considerably on the return walk to avoid retracing our steps, we had no doubt we walked the over five miles/eight km when all was said and done.

This building was at the corner of Place Charles de Gaulle which is the meeting point of 12 straight avenues. Midway through our walk, we stopped for beverages. Tom had a non-specialty beer and I had bottled water. Total cost EU $14, US $18.80

From our vantage point, we couldn’t see the name of this church but we were fascinated with its architecture. Please comment if you know the name and we’ll post it. The Flame of Liberty we passed on our walk. Behind it is the tunnel in which Princess Diana was killed on August 30, 1997.

We took photos of the names of restaurants we’ll return to after checking their prices, menus, and reviews online. Some are casual brasseries and others were more upscale dining establishments. Dining in Paris is one of the major attractions.

The Eiffel Tower as we approached from the opposite side from Thursday night. A center view looking up from below the Eiffel Tower.

As for the Arc de Triomphe, it was exciting to see and to take photos. As a high school student, some 50 years ago (ugh) I studied French for four years, all of which lay dormant in my brain all these years.

As we neared our hotel, I shot this photo looking up of the Eiffel Tower.

Having learned during those four years about many of the historical sights to see, finally being here is refreshing. Oddly, I’ve been able to remember much of the language which I learned so long ago which serves us well as we make or way around, reading signs, menus, and in light conversation. For me, this proves that what we learned as young students may serve us well later in life.

The receipt from last night’s dinner in Euros totaled US $50.35. Notice the cost of the food and drinks was EU $25.90, US $34.78, the remainder was VAT and city taxes and service charge. It’s obvious that taxes greatly contribute to the high cost of meals in Paris.

As always , we take a photo of a pharmacy wherever we travel.

Each day we’ll take more photos than we can possibly post but, we’ll share the highlights and links of everywhere we’ve visited including sightseeing, dining, and general points of interest.

Many delis and bakeries line the boulevards. Bins of delectable appearing treats in a Middle Eastern candy shop.

Right now, we’re sitting in the hotel lobby once again as we write today’s post. The ceiling in our bathroom is leaking for the second day in a row which was supposedly repaired while we were out yesterday. 

We always chuckle when we see these tiny cars throughout the world able to park in the tiniest of spaces.

During the night, I heard the “drip drip” once again. This morning I hurriedly showered in the slippery-floored shower, anxious to get dressed and out of the tiny room. Tom did the same. 

Flowers growing at the base of the Eiffel Tower.

Hopefully, the dripping will be repaired by the time we return late in the day. It’s a nice hotel, rated a four-star, so we didn’t expect this type of issue. We shall see how this turns out.

After dinner, we visited a local market to purchase nuts for snacking.

See you tomorrow with many more photos of Paris! Thank you to all of our loyal readers for sharing our world travels with us. It means the world to us!

Photo from one year ago today, August 2, 2013:

A year ago, we posted a story about the maintenance of our teeth while traveling by using these excellent interdental toothpicks. For details from that date, please click here.