徒步慢游 – Paris Walking Tour

6月30日 星期六 – Saturday,  June 30th

PJG和我今天决定进行自己的巴黎徒步慢游，四处看看巴黎的大街小巷。虽然今天天气很热，我俩还是斗志昂扬 💪

We decided to do a walking tour today to leisurely look around the streets in Paris. Although it is very hot today, we are filled with excitement.

第一个值得记录的地方是卢森堡公园，离我俩的住处走路大概15分钟。这里有宫殿，草坪，树荫，喷泉，儿童游乐场，雕塑，和在这里休息，阅读，锻炼，野餐，玩帆船等等的人们。这个公园最初由法国国王亨利四世的遗孀建于1612年，作为她的新的居住地。现在由法国政府参议院拥有。可以看出来这个公园已经成为巴黎人休闲聚会的好场所。

The first stop is The Luxembourg Park, about 15 minutes walk from our apartment. There are palaces, lawns, shades, fountains, children’s playgrounds, sculptures in the park; and people are here to rest, read, exercise, picnic and playing with sails boats in the pond and so on. The park was originally built by the widow of King Henri IV in 1612 as her new place of residence. Now owned by the French Senate the park has become a popular place for Parisian casual gatherings.

卢森堡宫殿前的喷泉池塘里有很多人在玩小帆船，男孩女孩大人都玩得聚精会神，用木棍推帆船下水，帆船就顺风漂游。4欧元可以玩30分钟，可惜所有的船都下水了，我俩决定不等了，就继续步行离开了。

In the Fountain Pond in front of the Luxembourg Palace,  there are many people playing with small sail boats. Boys, girls and adults play attentively, pushing the boats with a wooden stick, then watching them sail  in the wind. The price for a boats is 4 Euros for 30 minutes. But unfortunately all the boats were in the water, so we decided not to wait and continued on our walking tour.

在去下一站的时候，偶然邂逅了一个陶瓷艺术市场，里面有很多卖独特的艺术品的摊位。加州每年5到6月份的时候，都有艺术和红酒节去各个城市循环两天，每年似乎都是相同的摊位参展，卖的东西可以算是艺术品，但没觉得有什么特别之处。相比之下，这个市场里的东西都非常有设计感，可惜我俩要继续旅行，不然就会淘回家一件。

On the way to our next stop, we stumbled across a ceramic art market with many stalls selling unique artwork. In the US, every May to June,  there are Art and Wine Festivals going on in many cities to sell artwork. But every year we’ve been all of the stuff seems to be the same and most of the artwork can’t really be regarded as art. In contrast, the artwork here seem very unique and artistic. If we did not have to continue to travel with our luggage, we would have bought one piece from here for sure.

接下里，我俩到了史蒂文最喜欢的巴黎的一条街 Rue Cler。史蒂文是美国的一位旅游作者，出过书和记录旅游的纪录片，在这次旅游前，我俩看过很多他的“史蒂文带你游欧洲”里的很多片子，在讲巴黎的片子里，他提到Rue Cler是他最喜欢的一条街。我俩慕名而来，结果不能说是失望，也没有什么惊喜，因为这里和其它很多街巷都很类似。

We then went to Rue Cler which was mentioned by Rick Steves as his favorite street in Paris. He is a travel writer in the US and he produced many books and travel videos. Before our trip, we saw many episodes of the “Rick Steves’ Europe” travel series.  In the one about Paris, he mentioned that Rue Cler is his favorite street. So we came here, and we can’t say we are disappointed, but we are not very pleased either, because it is like many other streets in Paris although very touristy – but we prefer Montmartre.

下面到了著名的凯旋门。它位于巴黎戴高乐广场中心，是1806年拿破仑下令修建以纪念击败俄奥联军，是象征着胜利的纪念碑。在凯旋门的门墩的墙面上，刻有4组表现战争的大型浮雕：“出征”、“胜利”、“和平” 和 “抵抗”。

We reached the famous Arc de Triomphe which is located in the center of Place Charles de Gaulle. It was ordered to be built by Napoleon in 1806, to commemorate those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars; it is a symbol of Victories. On the walls, there are four large sculptures depicting the war period: “On the March”, “Victory”, “Peace” and “Resistance”.

圆形的戴高乐广场连接着12条路，各个方向的车开到这里真的是一片混乱，前天我俩从巴黎郊外回来，开车经过这里，意外的发现这里的交通状况很糟糕，有点像我老家，车多，失去了秩序, 谁能抢到路谁走，非常混乱。我拍了一段视频以做记录。 😅

There are 12 roads leading to the center of the square and the traffic from all directions of can be really bad and messy. The day before yesterday we came back from outside of Paris, driving through here, and we experienced a very messy situation. Its a bit like in my hometown in China, whoever gets the road first, goes. so many times, cars are stuck from different directions – gridlock!. It was really brutal. I took a video of it to commemorate it for the time when someone complains about Chinese driving.  😅

在大太阳下步行了快4个小时！我俩精疲力尽了。和伦敦很相似，一路上看到了很多应该有百年或是几百年历史的建筑，这些建筑今天都作为了普通巴黎人的生活和居住的地方。而且这些建筑都是用大块的坚硬的石头建成，看起来坚固牢靠，如果没有大型地震的话，它们还能再毅力几百年没问题。PJG我俩步行的途中去了几处他父亲曾经呆过的地方，他会再写一篇关于那些地方的记录。

Walking for almost 4 hours in the hot sun! We’re exhausted. Similar to London, there are a number of buildings that are hundreds of years old, and these buildings are where the ordinary Parisians live. These buildings are built of big, hard stone, and they look solid and strong, there is no doubt that they will stand here for another hundreds years. We also visited a few places where his father had been, and he will write about that in another note about those places. (assuming he can finish all the translating!!!!!!)

回到住处后，我俩去了公共洗衣店洗衣服。这个民宿没有洗衣机，洗衣店很近，就在马路对面，4.7欧元可以洗7公斤的衣服，每8分钟1.2欧元的烘干，1欧元洗衣粉，在买洗衣粉的时候，那个机器还白白吃了我0.5欧元的硬币！这次一共花了8.6欧元洗衣服。

After returning to our place, we went to a public laundry across street because our place has no washer. 4.7 euros can wash 7 kg of clothes, and every 8 minutes of drying costs 1.2 euros, with 1 euro for the washing powder. When buying the detergent, the machine ate my 50 cent euro coin! So it cost us 8.6 euros to wash our clothes here in Paris, not bad!

在吃晚饭的地方，和邻桌的一个小伙子聊天，他是黎巴嫩人，在上研究生，是做政治漫画的，来巴黎进行10天的学习。他可以说流利的法语和英语，而且非常吃惊一个18岁的学生对美国政治非常了解，具体关于政治的聊天细节就不在这里记录了 😉

While we were having dinner, we chatted with a young fellow at the next table. He is from Lebanon, and a graduate student who studies political comics, and he is here for a 10-day workshop. He can speak French and English fluently, as well as Arabic.

We were surprised to learn that a 18-year-old student was very knowledgeable about American politics! I think I will skip the details about our conversation. 😉  However, we were all on the same page about the you-know-who Monkey.