Three of us will call home here a 3 bedroom apartment in St. Germain des Pres on the Rive Gauche. It is on a quiet side street, opposite a mission (read, church bells!) and steps from a metro station. Our fourth travel mate has rented a room in the apartment of a French couple overlooking Boulevard St. Germain, half a mile away. She stays in Paris only six days and then travels to Italy.
We are walking distance to the Eiffel Tower, the Seine and the Champs-Elysee and Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and Tuileries, Notre Dame, Les Jardin du Luxembourg, Musee d'Orsay and Musee de l'Orangerie with Monet's waterlilies works, along with many other impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, and everything on Boulevard St. Germain, such as The Lost Generation's Les Deux Magots and Cafe de Flore.
Linda and I arrived to find Ruth already here and Sharron checked into her accommodations on the Boulevard St. Germain, the two of them having spent a few days in London while we were in Mainz. Our first mishap occurred here.
After using the code to enter the lobby of the apartment, we buzzed Ruth and she came down to open the security door rather than pressing the phone code to let us enter. A touch of panic ensued when she couldn't figure out how to open the door outward. No handle, no lock, seemingly just a flat glass door. She feared being forever locked in, and we out! Our Paris rep returned our frenzied call within twenty minutes and we found the small, flat silver button he instructed us to push to unlock the inner doors. Who knew something that appeared to be part of the construction of the door was an operable lock?
But when at last solved, these are the glitches that flavor the experience!
(Click to enlarge)
After Ruth returned to the apartment to buzz open the door, we propped it open and didn't dare close it again until we learned how it unlocked from downstairs.
Linda in the one-person elevator.
