Paris by Night (Boat Tour)

That is the Paris I expected last time. That is the Paris I got when I went on a boat tour along the Seine River at dusk. Yes, sir. I’m starting to understand just why everyone is so enthralled with this city. Let me assure you, it is not because the Parisians are nice or friendly or welcoming or even decent people. Nope. Those Parisians are as cold as the ice they don’t serve in carbonated beverages.

I want to warn you in advance that there are a lot of politically, architecturally, aesthetically, historically, religiously, economically, artistically, and intellectually important buildings, bridges, monuments, landmarks, streets, tunnels, signs, parks, cafés, museums, old train stations, museums in old train stations, etc. along the Seine River. Below is only a taste of it. I don’t remember the names of all or even most of the buildings or bridges or whatnot, but they are pretty and important. So that should be good enough for you. If not, then you go to Paris, take a boat tour, and get of my back.

The tour starts at the feet of the Eiffel Tower. Heading east, we pass under the Pont Alexander III.

An engineering marvel of a bridge, it was built in the late 19th Century after the Franco-Russian Alliance (let’s all just pretend we know what that is and move on, shall we). The son of Tsar Alexander III went to Paris to lay the first brick and, I’d imagine, that was the most manual labor he did in his entire life.

Next up, the Musée d’Orsay.

The giant clocks on the outside (and one pretty cool one inside) hint at the buildings history as a train station. The French will turn anything into an art museum. This one happens to hold a lot of 19th Century French artwork including an entire wing of impressionists (Monet and company). (Sorry for the bad quality. I was inside for half of the tour.)

L’Institut de France.

This is where the Academie Française meets. More ceremonious than anything, the Academie Francaise is a group of forty “immortals” (mostly men) who sit in a room and preserve the purity of the French language by voting on new French words. It’s a party under that dome.

Fast forwarding a bit, we reach the eastern most point of our journey. Looking back west is a pretty romantic view of Notre Dame and the Ile de la Cité.

This is the romantic Paris I came looking for.

How about some apartments on the Ile St-Louis?

I wouldn’t mind living there one day.

A view along the river.

As pretty as a picture.

On the north side of the city, the Louvre.

One of the biggest museums in the world, we’ll visit it some other time. The actual building was a fortress turned castle turned office turned museum turned partial setting of The Da Vinci Code.

And look what’s coming up in the distance.

It's nicer lit up.

Pont Concorde.

This bridge was built with bricks from the Bastille (political prison destroyed by revolutionaries etc.), so its kind of a big deal.

And now we've come full circle. On the way back to the hotel, we saw some monuments at night, but none of my pictures came out. Some of the highlights: bridge/tunnel in which Princess Diana died, Les Champs-Élysées, Ritz Hotel (in which Princess Diana spent her last night and Coco Chanel had an apartment), Les Invalides (military hospital turned museum), and others.

Conclusion: Paris is pretty at night. Romantic, even. Boat tours are fun. This song is the best.