Oh, I would walk 500 miles. . .

But maybe not.  Today, Ted and I set a record for walking:  18.25 miles.  After that, my pedometer broke.  Really.

We started the day with an omelette (French food in France) for lunch and then headed for Notre Dame.  On the way, we passed some green box-like things along the sidewalk and thought they were dumpsters for nearby apartments.  We were so-o-o-o wrong!

Top left: The boxes had legs that allowed them to fit over the concrete abutment along the sidewalk. Top right: From the front, they looked like dumpsters, but the front edge and top were constructed to be lifted to form . . . voilà! . . . (lower center) little sidewalk shops.

Because of the recent fire at Notre Dame, visitors cannot enter the cathedral, but there was still a crowd all the way around it on the sidewalks.  It was a sad sight, and the crowd was more somber than exuberant.

Here’s the classic view of the front of Notre Dame. The cathedral is located on an island in the Seine River.
The two rear towers and most of the roof were completely destroyed by the fire.

Our next stop was the Pantheon.  It must be one of the highest points in Paris, because we walked uphill all the way from Notre Dame.  There were pretty views of the Eiffel Tower and of Notre Dame from the Pantheon. 

The Pantheon was built in 1744 because King Louis XV wanted to dedicate a prestigious building to Geneviève, the patron saint of Paris. In 1791, the monument was turned into the national Pantheon. Its crypt enshrines great men and women of France, including Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Émile Zola, Jean Moulin, and Marie Curie.

The Pantheon is in the Latin Quarter of Paris, so we walked around the neighborhood for a little while.  Since it was still early, we headed downhill and across the Seine to the Bastille.  We found the site, in spite of extensive road construction in the area, and were surprised to see that not even a remnant of the Bastille exists.  It felt like the Fourth of July without the Liberty Bell to visit.  The Bastille prison was pretty much destroyed after the French Revolution (no one felt warm and fuzzy about preserving it), and the site is now the home of an opera house.

The ultramodern building in the center is the opera house on the site of the former Bastille. There is no Bastille to be seen, although many streets and buildings in the neighborhood have “Bastille” in their names.

Time was passing, and our feet were getting tired, so we headed back to the hotel.  The sky became increasingly overcast and looked more and more like rain.  It took us a long time to cover the distance (or maybe it just seemed like a long time because we’d walked for so long), but we made it to about 30 feet from the hotel door before it started to sprinkle.  The shower didn’t last long, so we rested our legs and feet and went out later to feast on beouf bourguignon for dinner.  Yummy! (“Beef stew” sounds so much better in French.)

Again:  18.25 miles of walking in one afternoon!  Whew!

Note:  We’ve ordered vanilla ice cream twice in France.  Although it was called “vanilla,” it was French vanilla both times.  But of course, n’cest pas?