Row, Row, Row Your Boat...

Paris has two very large parks, the Bois du Boulogne on the western edge and the Parc de Vincennes in the east. It was a beautifully sunny day today, so Mom decided to go to the Parc de Vincennes, because she had read that it was one park that permitted dogs.  She pushed the poussette to the Seine and across the Petit Pont, past the Notre Dame Cathedral, over Pont d'Arcole to the Metro in front of the Hotel de Ville (which isn't a hotel at all, it's the city hall).  The metro ride was an easy one, but very long, maybe a half an hour.  When we arrived at the end of the line, we had to walk about half a mile to get to the entrance of the Parc Floral, one part of this immense park.  We had no sooner come through the gates when we were pinched by the park police - again.  We were told that no dogs could be in this part of the park (the most beautifully landscaped, of course) and that we would have to leave and go to one of two other wooded areas.  We chose the nearest one which turned out to be a very long hot walk down a dis-used road until we got to a trail that turned off, promising to lead us to the lake area where we wanted to go.  This path went through the woods and was much cooler.  Mom let me out of the poussette to walk.  She thought this would be very pleasant if we only knew where we were going to end up.  Finally, we came to an area where there was a snack stand beside a lake with people sitting around enjoying themselves or bicycling on the trails or rowing boats.  Now Mom has always enjoyed being out on the water in a rowboat, so after a bit of sustenance from the snack stand, she and Aunt Connie rented a boat and I went for my very first ride in a rowboat.  It was a pretty strange sensation - sort of rocking but without the bumping of the poussette.  I didn't like the way it moved away from me when I tried to get in and out, and when we were out on the water, I preferred sitting in one spot to trying to walk around.  I soon got used to it, though, and accepted it with my usual aplomb.

















We rowed around a couple of small islands in the lake and tried to stay in the shade of the overhanging branches.  There were a lot of ducks and some funny looking birds Mom thought were grebes.  One of the ducks had eight downy ducklings who were all swimming in different directions.  We wondered if the mom was close to a nervous breakdown trying to keep everyone together.  There were piles of floating branches and debris that the grebes were using for nests, and the ducks liked to line up on partially sunken branches.  We went by a swan family and decided to stay our distance so we wouldn't harass the parents, but apparently we were a little too close for their comfort, because one of the parents started swimming meaningfully toward us, voicing some concern.

After we took the boat back, we weren't sure how to get back home, but a short walk took us to a bus stop where we took the bus to the end of the Metro line where we had arrived earlier in the day.  It was easy-schmeasy.  The only hard part of the day was walking from the part of the park we weren't allowed be in to where we could be.

This is a public toilet.  They are found all over Paris.  They're free and all you have to do is push the button and the door will open.  When you go inside, the door closes automatically and you will hear instructions.  After you follow the instructions, you can push the button with the "open" arrows, like an elevator, the door will open and after you come out, the sanitization process will begin.  The entire room will be automatically cleaned and sanitized, while different colored buttons on the outside apprise anyone waiting how far along in this process it is.  Very convenient for people - don't happen to need one myself.