A Tiny Bit More of Paris

As we were packing up our suitcases, the maid came in to clean us out of our apartment. Good thing we were almost ready. Checkout was 10 am and she was about 10 minutes early.

We dragged our luggage downstairs and took the metro to the train station to store our luggage, since our train didn't leave until around 5 pm. That would give us a few more hours in Paris with just our backpacks.

Andrea wanted to show us the remains of a Roman arena and a mosque. We also found a botanic garden in that area.


This is the Lutrece Arena. Dave is staring into the grilled areas where the lions were kept? You can see these two release cages on the lower left of the photo next that photo. We assumed that the gladiators came from the entrance at the upper right in the larger photo. It felt strange to walk around in this arena.

The peaceful area around the arena seemed to contradict the history of arena sports in this location.

These Roman gardens are just in front of the arena. The picture below is another example of the mixture of time periods and that I mentioned in my previous posting.

The mosque was only a street or two over from these Roman structures.
It was closed but we could see the exterior. And across the street were some modern day balcony gardens.


Since it was the right kind of day for strolling in gardens, we walked back to where we'd seen the Jardin des Plants and took a leisurely walk. We saw some that large leaf mint that Dave had in his salad at Laduree the night before.

There were children everywhere, eating lunch on the benches, on the grass, and even taking naps under a tree.

The red hats and green hats must have been on a botanical tour. But some folks were just enjoying some quiet time on a shady bench.

We finally had to leave to pick up our luggage and wait to board our train back to Germany. We had a three hour ride to Andrea's apartment in Mannheim.

As the train moved towards Germany the sun disappeared and it began to rain.



Goodbye Paris.