It has been a very wet day, although really just showers - more-or-less continuous showers, with a few breaks in between! And, of course, it is Monday, so all the museums and many restaurants are closed.
However, we did not let this deter us too much, and set off about 10:30 to visit the European Parliament. We bought ourselves 72-hour tickets, which are excellent value for money, and will do us until we leave on Thursday (and if we end up in Kehl, which we might, we can always buy another 24-hour ticket, should we need to). I wished - as I did all day - that I had put a sweatshirt on under my jacket, as I was totally not warm enough! And I was wearing my mid-season jacket, too, not my light one!
There is a bus stop just outside the campsite, and we caught the second bus that came along - a no 2, as it happens - because its route goes more through the city centre than the other bus, the C1, does. We eventually changed on to a tram, which took us out to the European Parliament.
I don't think we'd really planned what we'd do when we got there, but we found out that one could visit the building, so of course we did. It is free to visit, but there is strict security. You start off by showing your passport at the entrance, and then you are directed downstairs where there is an airport-style conveyor belt and metal detector. Then you scan your passport and the machine issues you a badge, which you show at the entrance to the main area, and wear attached to your person for the rest of the visit.
The visit takes you past all sorts of exhibitions about the main movers and shakers of the European Union (the historical ones, I mean), and at the heart of it all you enter the main debating chamber. Parliament was not in session, so we were able to take photographs. There may have been a tear or two on my part at the thought that my stupid country voluntarily took itself out of all this. Photospam on Facebook.
Anyway, the visitor trail - clearly signed, and you couldn't wander off the beaten track - took us back down and past more exhibitions (one on Simone Veil) and so out of the site. You had to remove the plastic clip from your badge and return it to a container designed for the purpose, and then scan the badge itself before you could get out.
There was a tram back to the city centre, and we decided to lunch at the restaurant we first went to in 2018, and at least once later on. But, alas, as is the way of restaurants, it is no longer there, and had been replaced by a Lebanese one, which we could go to at home. So we walked down to the Cathedral, and ended up in a random restaurant where the SW ordered a Flammekeuchen, which he had been longing for. I got put off them in Lübeck when we had one and the taste lingered all afternoon! So I had a "Salade de jarret de porc", which was pulled pork knuckle on a bed of lettuce and potato salad, with a hard-boiled egg and tomato. Very delicious, but I don't eat much these days and could barely manage half of it!
We then walked down to L'Etoile and caught a C1 back to the campsite, where I threw on more clothes, and even the SW put on a sweater. We spent what was left of the afternoon reading - and it has to be said, dozing - on the bed, while the rain hammered on the roof (incidentally cleaning much of the owl poo off the skylight!) and now we are about to have soup and bread and cheese for supper!
No comments:
Post a Comment