May 25, 2026

Dateline: Paris, France

Last night in Paris tonight. Up in the morning for a leisurely breakfast, packing and then off to the Gare de Lyon to catch a TGV (Tres Grand Vitesse) train to Milan. I think it’s about six hours. I spend the night and the next morning/early afternoon in Milan and then another train (Italian rail so I won’t expect Tres Grand Vitesse) to Rome to arrive around dinner time on Wednesday. I then meet my last traveling companion of the trip on Thursday and get to hang out in Italy for a few days before heading back to the USA. With the traveling, I have no idea if I’ll have the abilities or the energy to do a daily update. Stay tuned. I noticed I forgot to do a photo dump yesterday. Sorry. I put up yesterday and today earlier this evening.

I had a very long and restful sleep last night and felt back in fighting form this morning. After hotel breakfast (the hot bar still looks suspicious), I headed for Montmartre, everyone’s favorite Parisian neighborhood. It was still relatively early and the sun was not yet a blazing as I wandered up some side streets to the top of the hill. Montmartre these days seems to be a mix of old residential, souvenir shops stuffed with identical merchandise straight from China, tourist restaurants, and an occasional landmark from when it was the Artists’ quarter. I didn’t buy anything. I have my share of cheap souvenirs often bought as jokes but now I tend to buy inexpensive but original art… and socks. Albus Dumbledore and I have that in common. Most of the cities I have lived in have had a tourist district and they’re the same the world over. Seattle – Pike Place Market. Sacramento – Old Sacramento (the Gold Rush part of town). Birmingham – well it really doesn’t have one and as far as I am concerned that’s just as well.

I climbed the steps to the top of the hill to the Basilica de Sacre Coeur for the view but I did not go in. I have been in it before and I don’t recall it being something I needed to revisit and the line was quite long. And so I continued to wander, past the Maison Rose, the Lapin Agile, the Moulin Rouge, and the bust of Dalida which invites inappropriate contact. I had a drink at a sidewalk cafe and contemplated what to do with the afternoon. I decided, with the weather getting hotter by the minute, that something indoors was in order. I thought through the various museums and decided upon a visit to the military museums at Les Invalides and so I headed back across the Seine.

Les Invalides, originally intended when founded by Louis XIV as a rest home for wounded veterans, is now a large complex of museums including a large domed church which is the resting place of Napoleon Bonaparte. I spent a number of hours refreshing myself on French history (from the military perspective in exhibits from the middle ages to the modern day. I’m particularly fond of 19th century French history when they kept throwing out their government, going through three forms of monarchy, two imperial governments, and three different republics in roughly a century. Lots of artifacts, historical paintings, those crazy 19th century European dress uniforms and the like. Up on the top floor is my favorite gallery. Dozens of intricately crafted scale models of French fortifications and armored towns made in the 17th and 18th centuries. The painstaking hours that craftsmen must have spent building these pieces. And the galleries were air conditioned and practically empty. I finished up by paying my respects to Napoleon. His tomb is cleverly designed so that you have to bow your head to look at it, being below the viewing gallery. Some have compared our current president to Napoleon. It’s the wrong comparison. Napoleon was a military genius who one more battles than any other commander over his career by a wide margin. He also had a head for organization. Trump is Louis XIV. Louis never saw a public space that he didn’t want to rebuild with gold leaf and baroque embellishments, was addicted to having his portrait painted in grand costumes, and made absolutely terrible political, military and financial decisions throughout his reign that set up all that trouble for his family in later years.

I picked a restaurant around the corner from Les Invalides for dinner. As I was sitting down and ordering (duck breast, mashed potatoes and baba au rhum), a very long parade started down the boulevard past the restaurant. It appeared to consist of every boy and girl scout troop in France, all behind their city banners. I don’t know what the occasion was but rather than joyful brass band music, it was an amplified tenor singing some French dirge that seemed to have about forty verses. It was a different dining experience. Finished up, went back to the hotel for a post prandial snooze and got my second wind about 8 pm.

Paris is a bit north of Seattle (latitude 49 vs 47) so I was quite aware that the sun wasn’t going to go down until about 9:30 PM so there was plenty of time for one last stroll along the Seine in golden hour light. Of course ABBA’s ‘Our Last Summer’ was playing in my head. Shouldn’t have watched both Mamma Mia movies on the plane coming over. I suppose it could have been worse and it might have been Pierce Brosnan’s rendition of SOS providing the soundtrack. This hotel has A/C in the lobby but not in the rooms so it’s a bit warm tonight. Going to take a cool shower before crawling into bed. Next stop, Italia.