Mar.17-18 Exciting & Very LONG Travel Day!

It was a treat to see Portland's new main entryway at the airport! Very Oregon-like!

We enjoyed the short line at security by using our newly acquired TSA KTN's!

The Wasatch mountains were brilliantly capped in snow as we arrived in Salt Lake.

The 10.5 hour flight to Paris was a long one.  Delta does a good job making you comfortable and treating you to a couple of meals and plenty of refreshments.

Jan captured a beautiful shot of sunrise over Ireland & Scotland.

Charles DeGaulle Airport requires a LOT of walking!  They do a good job of marshalling people through customs & border control.

We found our way to the train ticket office and purchased a couple of 15e tickets to ride the RER B train into Paris, hopping off at the St.Michel station on the left bank.  Jan had screen printed walking waypoints on Google Maps to help us navigate the streets and boulevards.   Here's a few pics along our walk :

Oh, by the way, brilliant sunshine, but ... VERY cold, .. in the high 30's!   We made it to our hotel and asked them to store our luggage as we ventured out for adventures!    Of course, we cannot go by a church or cathedral without visiting!

This first one is the .. Saint Nicolas du Chardonnet :

We continued walking towards Notre Dame but came across another gem, the Church of Saint Severin :

What a great start to the morning and long day!   As we were walking north we saw what we here for today .. Notre Dame !

We queued up along with thousands of others in the 'don't have a reservation' line and surprisingly were able to enter fairly soon!

Enjoy the following pics!  We were lucky at this noon time to hear the restored bells!  and .. sit for their midday service with the organ playing!  Wow!

After five hundred years of candles the interior used to be dark .. but the restoration after the fire really lightened it!

As we left we looked back at the new spire :

We walked back across the river looking for a cafe for lunch and noticed the Paris Metro iconic sign that indicates one of the 300 Metro stations is here!   We'll be using Metro tomorrow as we weave our way up to Montmartre and the Sacre-Coeur Basilica and back across the Seine to Saint Germaine des Pres.

What a LONG day and fun day!   We were pleasantly surprised how easy it was to get from the airport to downtown.   Students, both college and secondary school, were everywhere!   What a great start to our vacation!  Another day & a half exploring Paris before we get on our boat.   Take care, more pics tomorrow!