Paree!
Friday in Edinburgh, we went to the Scottish museum, which had plenty of historic artifacts and history, and tended to remind one of the nasty politics back a few hundred years (Mary Queen of Scots, etc.). This was further helped by going to John Knox' house and the Peoples Museum, on the Royal Mile. We then dragged ourselves back up to the Deacon Brodie's pub for a pint before going out to dinner with Ann and her friend Leslie at a local Italian bistro. Leslie was quite friendly and helpful with suggestions for Paris. She's an avid cyclist, too, with bikes stored in several European cities awaiting her visit.
We then went to another concert at St Giles, this time of acappella Scottish and Latin sacred music, including a contratenor and soprano solos. It was sublime, and the Gothic space was perfect for it. The next morning after yet another scrumptious breakfast, Ann took us to the airport for our flight to Paris. It turned out to be on a wing-over plane with limited carryon space. Unlike EZJet, AirFrance didn't charge us for sticking our bags in the hold.
Our train/Metro trip to the apartment reminded us of the one with Urs in Yokohama, except we didn't have Urs to guide us. The ticket kiosk at the airport didn't take our non-smart credit card, so we had to qeue up to buy tickets. The crowd in the Chatelet-Les Halles station where we transferred trains was intense, and we had to drag our bags a ways between lines. But, we made it in time to have a nice stroll around the busy neighborhood and sit at a local cafe for vin rouge et dessert. Susan managed a few words of Francais in paying the bill and buying a few necessities on the way home.
Today we had a nice omelette and cappucino breakfast (they put a lot less milk in their capps than in Scotland and Ireland), then headed up to the Rue Mouffetard market. It was classic, with lots of vendors plus a music/partner dance performance. We wandered thru the streets from there to the Cathedrale Notre-Dame: an hour in line to climb a whole lotta steps for the views from the bell tower, then a stroll around the inside with a wall-to-wall mass of picture-snapping people. The couple standing in front of us in line were from Yakima, and were the least interested in talking we'd met all day.
We had a late lunch between there and the Jardin du Luxembourg, sitting on the sidewalk watching the other tourists go by, then spent a couple of hours with the families in the Jardin who were sailing boats, riding ponies, and just enjoying the sunshine. We got to see "Mounties in Paris", a group from Canada play and sing, including the theme from Dr Who, on the bandstand. Then, it was back to the apartment via the local store to crash.