Paris Encore - Bus 86, Rue Cler, and finally La Tour Eiffel

We decided to follow the advice of the American we met in our neighborhood. She said, “Get on a bus, and get lost!” I don’t think we had offended her in any way. We were chatting about seeing the lesser known sights in Paris, and she recommended taking bus #86, which went from our stop at Place de la Nation, all the way across town. The Metro is great, but you don’t really know where you are. This way we’d see more of the city, above ground; but the bus can also get stuck in traffic. What do we care about that, though? We’re not driving! I told madame that the buses intimidate me because I don’t have a map to refer to 40 times during the course of a day. Well, maybe not 40 times, but lots. She said, just go, get lost, and you’ll love it.

Here’s the other thing, being a person who understands little French beyond, “Would you like another, coffee, wine, Aperol spritz, Madame?” sometimes they make announcements on the bus, after stopping in the middle of the block. Everyone gets off except us, because we have no clue what was just said. Remember the Transit Workers skit on Saturday Night Live? Whatever they said over the loudspeaker was unintelligible! Imagine that same scenario, only in French. You catch my drift. 

In spite of any misgivings, we boarded the bus to see where it might take us. And truly, it was fun to see more of the city, above ground. And yes, there were a few slowdowns because of traffic. We got off at a stop near Rue Cler, one of my favorite pedestrian streets, in the 7th. Rick Steves’ coverage of this street for the past several decades has ensured that there are always lots of American tourists eating and staying in the area. We stopped at a busy restaurant/bar for lunch, and enjoyed watching the people going by.

Rick is always easy to spot in a crowd, being the only person wearing a Hawaiian-print shirt. And, let me tell you, he gets many admiring looks from other men, and women, around town. If only we could find a scarf that would pair with his shirts. That would be truly French.

From there we walked over to the Eiffel Tower. It’s so grand! Sometimes, you walk around a corner on a tree-lined street, and there it is! Even though you’re expecting it, it’s surprising.

There is scaffolding, as you can see, covering part of the tower. It looks like they’re painting, which must be a continuous job. Not only that, but there are barricades up all around the tower. Only people wanting to go up the tower are allowed to enter (maybe they had to have tickets already). We weren’t planning to go up it, but it’s pretty impressive to stand right underneath it and look up. Not possible on this day.  There were crowds all around the barrier, even so.

In the area of any major attraction, there are several young men selling souvenirs. The price seems to be very fluid. In this area, there are Eiffel Tower key chains, jewelry and miniatures with and without flashing lights. I assured one persistent young man that our home is already filled with Eiffel Towers in miniature, on signs, on pillows and in snow globes. He was quite disappointed.

For dinner, we decided to try one of the many sushi places we’d seen in our area. Based on the few tables they had, we could tell most of their business was  ‘à emporter’ (take away). We had a nice dinner, and now we can say we’ve had Japanese food in Paris.