The good: Locaiton. On the Seine between Louvre (on one side) Muse D' Orsay on the other. next to Jardin de Toularies. Everything save Montmart is in walking distance. It has 3 queen sized beds which is impossible to find 3 bedrooms in Paris. nice kitchen, incredible view, deck with chairs on top and fascinating to watch the Traffic. Also very cheap 2,400 Euros for a week
The bad: It is a barge. Frenchmen 90 years ago must have been 5'4" and excelled in Trench Warfare (see WWI). Okay not exactly excelling against the Germans but held there own anyway until the Yanks showed up.
I am 6'2". I have hit my head soooo many times my bumps have bumps. the stairs leading up to the deck are boat stairs and hard to navigate with a sleeping child in your arms and we all have bruises on our shins as well. Both Maggie and Lawton have fallen down the stairs once.
It is also a little hot in the summer and humid (consider no ventilation sun and large tin can). We do have an AC unit and that runs continuously and keeps it just in the comfort level.
Okay, the UGLY: You may ask about the bathroom? Well we are in Europe and I am pretty sure the sit down toilet was not standard issue on a 100 year old steel workers barge that cruized the river Seine. I think males peed over the side otherwise used a bucket.
Well we have a toilet. It is not manual with a pump handle but it is the model just above that. We are constantly afraid of the toilet choking (I am searching for the correct French verb here) on more than 3 squares of toilet paper (warning signs with Euro 1,000 penalty everywhere). So far, no distasters but some close calls.
But the other thing is that when sitting on the toilet and shutting the door, your knees run into the door or actually the doors slams into your knees. So you must sit obliqued or at an angle on the toilet. This makes this a bit interesting.
Okay so I got that out of the way.
Yesterday it was the boys turn to pick a Museum. Excellent choice Jordan! We went to the Army Museum or Muse' d' Armee. Very, very cool but Jordan was upset that I did not get any video from the many machine guns (they counted 63).
In a way this Museum was very fascinating because it painted the L' Guerre du Mondo the war of the world in a much different light.
There was lots of information about WWI and WWII prior to the US involvement. Lots of information about what it was like to live in a city where nightly bombing raids were the norm. It would have been sheer terror to hear the air raid sirens or bells.
Also information about the French Resistance and also about the French General Foch and how great he was liberating paris of the Germans. hmmmmm.
But what struck me most was how BRUTAL world war I was. War up to this point was calvary, horses, Armies squared off against each other and charged. Loses were always huge and terrible but two things changed essentially after the civil war: Machine guns and also heavy artillery aka the Big Bertha or Bunker Buster.
Big Bertha was a very large (as big as a house) motar that was mobile. It would destroy any fortification (mud, concrete, cave) even from long distance away.
the role of the aircraft was starting to emerge mostly for reconnosaince and nerve gas showed up later.
The pictures all show the same. The country was completely annihlated of all vegetation and it was muddy. Things were looking bleak for the allies until:
The british sent folks from the commonwealth (Australia, new Zealand, South AFrica and canada). All of these countries basically vowed to never fight again because it was so BRUTAL and the losses were terrible against the machine guns and motars.
The Germans basically had won this war until the Americans showed up and then it was quickly over basically because everyone had spent everything on this stupid war and the Americans came in hard and heavy.
The total number of casualties in World War I, both military and civilian, were about 37 million: 16 million deaths and 21 million wounded. The total number of deaths includes 9.7 million military personnel and about 6.8 million civilians. The Entente Powers (also known as the Allies) lost about 5.7 million soldiers while the Central Powers lost about 4 million.
The total dead for civilian and military for EACH of the countries of France, Germany and Russia was 4million people. Each country lost 4 million people!
World war II exhibit was also interesting but about 40% was on the French Resistance. Blowing up trains with bombs hidden in dead rats, etc. Felt a little bit like the Taliban had taken a page.
Anyway, we left there and walked next door to this Giant Cathedral that was next door.
Except this was no cathedral. Wholly smokes this is cool. A giant tombe that looks like a church (no pews and the TOMBE is GIANT and suck down a floor. Very impressive.
Napolean was from Corsica and short and hot tempered. It is a little confusing how he came to power in France. He fought some wars in Corsica and switched sides a couple of times and all of the sudden he was Emperor of France. Fought against the Russians (lost everything) and was sent to Elba.
Snuck back into france, was emporer again for 92 days, lost to the Brits (his Waterloo) and was held Prisoner on what island ? it is not Elba.... He died there after 6 years.
He abdicated the throne to his son, Napolean II (or junior). He died at age 21 shortly there after (in Austria of TB).
We walked around, hung out and went and had an incredible dinner and then went back to Tour Eiffel. It was expensive and I thought pretty interesting. I keep looking for the engineering guide in English.
My mom got Vertigo on the Second level and decided to descend back to the ground.
Her fear of heights was replaced by fear of people pedaling statues of Eiffel tour. What was fascinating is that we all felt a drop of rain and a second later the Gypsies that were pedaling the statues of Eiffel tours all of the sudden started thrusting umbrellas in our faces.
Below is one of our Daily visits by the French River police. They use the Risico as a jump off vehicle and don't seem very interested in coming for coffee.
the answer to the question of where Napolean died and was prisoner for 6 years, St. Helena
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