Paris: The End of the Story. Part Three

There are three photos in this installment; one is the view of Montmartre from the Eiffel Tower. We walked to the basilica from the North Paris train station and then over to the Eiffel Tower and then maybe a third of the distance back to Montmartre before the day was over. Definitely more than just a walk in the park!

The second picture is of us on the Eiffel Tower. Notice how the brim on the right side of my hat is folded upward. In the third picture, Valerie stands in front of what is the entrance to the Louvre. Notice how here hair is standing straight out to the left. Both these photos attest to the WIND that we were putting up with in Paris on two of the three expeditions we took there.



As I have said previously, the second motel we stayed in (the night before heading to the airport) had a bathroom and a shower. It was one of these self contained units just a little bigger that some Recreational Vehicles might have, and probably not as nice. But the motel served us well in that the trip to the airport was short, quick and easy. We would have stayed at a nicer hotel on the airport grounds, but there's apparently a trick to getting a room at a "reasonable" rate; reserve it much further out than just a week before you're scheduled to fly out! We expected to pay over $100 a night for a hotel room at the airport in a name Americans would recognise... but the "cheap" rooms were long gone, and the only rooms left were the more posh ones starting at about $350 a night and going for more than double that amount. Yet another reason we stayed at "El Schlocko".

Next door to this motel was a restaurant called the Hippopotamus Grill. (This is apparently a chain...) The morning we transferred over to the motel Valerie wanted a decent cup of coffee. Badly. So she wandered in to the Hippo to get one, and was rudely greeted and told they were closed. Okay... that was our mistake as we didn't catch the time that was on the door, seeing some other numeric designation and thinking that meant they opened at 7:00 AM.

She waited and then went back in when they were open, and tried to get some coffee and was refused again. Apparently they're too good to serve just coffee; it's a full meal or nothing. So she left in a huff and we started our journey into Paris.

After the day's adventure when we were back at the hotel, Valerie decided she needed a little dessert, and possible a coffee. So... stupidly... we tried the nearby Hippopotamus once again. They asked if we were there for dinner, and Valerie told them that she'd just like to have a dessert and coffee and they told her they could not do that. (Forget that I might have wanted a dinner for myself...) We both turned and left in a angry mood and have vowed never to return to this restaurant. (That shouldn't be a hard vow to keep, considering their location...)

In case anyone from the Hippopotamus Grill accidentally finds this blog and reads this, we had no trouble with ANY other food selling establishment on our trip except for YOURS. We have but a two word expression to express our sentiments to you, and the second word in that phrase is "you". Take a wild guess at the first word!

As for anyone who might be heading to France, our advice to you is find some other place to eat. The choices are numerous, and most businesses welcome the chance to sell anything to someone who wants to buy it. Except if you're a Hippo...

We walked the other direction and found little to choose from, and finally settle on a KFC where she found something to satisfy her sweet-tooth, and then promptly dropped it on the floor when the store manager bumped into her. Apologies were offered, another dessert was quickly given to her, and we walked back to the hotel to settle in for our final night in France.