Night Boat Ride on the Seine

Leaving the Louvre, we walked down Quai Francois Mitterrand along the Right Bank of the Seine, then continued to follow it as it became Voie Georges Pompidou, still hugging the Seine, and found a nice restaurant where we enjoyed a delicious and leisurely meal served by a friendly and helpful waiter.

I should mention here that thus far, we have not seen hide nor hair of the legendary "rude Frenchman" that all Americans are warned about. In fact, we have met several friendly, helpful and courteous French citizens. When we step onto a subway car and there are no empty seats, someone will invariably stand up and offer Cindy's mom their seat (and yes, I know there are instructions to do so on the subway car maps, but that doesn't mean people will do so). In dealing with businesses, our experience has been that if we make the effort to try to speak French, they will almost always then speak English to you, probably just to stop you from mangling their native tongue like I do when I say "Bone Jore", lol.

One day we were standing at a busy subway tunnel crossroad and I was looking at the route map in my hand trying to make sure we were heading to the right platform when a woman just sort of materialized out of the mass of humanity streaming past us and asked if she could help us find our way. She looked at where we were going and pointed out that we wanted the opposite platform. We thanked her and she wished us a good day and melted back into the herd of people stampeding through the tunnel crossroad. Viva la France!

After enjoying our meal (and some tasty sorbet for dessert) we walked on down to Pont Neuf Bridge to cross over for our Night Cruise on the Seine to see the lights of the city and the Eiffel Tower. However, we had to stop midway across the bridge to admire the sunset on the Seine:

And we couldn't stop there. So I took this picture of Cindy and her mom:

And Cindy's mom took this photo of Cindy and I:

Then it was time to board the boat for our Night Cruise. I bought a bottle of white wine and some plastic cups at the dock so we could sip wine and enjoy the lights of the City of Lights on our one hour cruise, which started at 9:30pm.

Here's some of the video Cindy took while we cruised through the darkness up the Seine:

Here is one of about 400 shots I took of the Eiffel Tower lit up:

And a picture of Cindy and her mom on the boat. Yes, it was cold!

Ok, ok you twisted my arm, here's one more of about 400 shots I took of the Eiffel Tower lit up:

I have to tell you that this was something I really wanted to do while in Paris, but during the day I kept thinking it was selfish of me to keep Cindy and her mom out late in the cold. However, every time I broached the idea of skipping this boat ride they both insisted we go on it. I'm so glad they did as it was a beautiful sight and they both assured me that they too enjoyed the ride and the lights.