Day 2 & 3 - Paris L'Open Tour

The next couple of days were designed to maximize our exploration of Paris in the shortest time possible using L'Open Tour buses. These tours divide Paris into four main sections allowing customers "hop on- hop off" capability at any point. For people who have never been there before (like us) this is the best way to get started. Once you've been there a while the benefits of the Metro system (bus and subway) become immediately obvious but for beginners this is the way to go and there are several companies offering this service.

We were on: Paris L'Open Tour. The individual sections themselves, as you can see if you read the previous link, can take as much as two hours a piece. They give you little ear buds so you can plug into the audio system and listen to history (delivered in 8 different languages) about whichever area you happen to be riding through. When the history guide is not speaking they also play music but I wish they hadn't because it was some of the worst Euro-Pop I've ever heard.

Of course the biggest benefit for us was not only being able to pick out those areas we'd visit in the future such as Notre Dame, The Louvre and some of the other attractions near our hotel, but also to hop off at more distant sites like the Eiffel Tower. Eiffel gets it's very own post tomorrow. It was the one place in Paris I really didn't like.

For now suffice to say that we had a great couple of days wandering through all of Paris on the tour bus and getting a feel for the many different areas of the city. It really is something to see, especially the architecture. As I said prior, I'm no expert (or even a novice) but the buildings in Paris are unlike anything I've ever seen. I was very impressed with the city.

Gretchen was the first to point out the curious, but effective, way in which the Parisians trim some the city's trees, especially along major thoroughfares. Check this out:  Square Trees?

Tomorrow: The Eiffel Tower, Gorillas, Pickpockets, and Other Thieves