The Bus 69 tour

We had been planning this trip for a year, and the plans always started with the Louvre, to which Karen felt mysteriously drawn. “I want to spend three days at the Louvre,” she would say. But when we got up Monday morning, we decided to do the Bus 69 tour instead.

It wasn’t a tour, exactly. The 69 bus follows a regular route through Paris, but the route takes it from the Bastille in the east, down the Rue de Rivoli past the Louvre, then across the river and past the Musee d’Orsay, through the Rue Cler shopping and market district, past the Invalides to the Eiffel Tower. In other words, an ordinary Paris city bus, for a one-Euro ticket, could give you the same sights you’d pay a tour company 25 Euros for.

We learned this from our main guidebook, published by an American, Rick Steves, from which we also learned about museum passes and the Carte Orange. Five-day museum passes were good at most Paris museums, including the Louvre, for a fraction of individual ticket prices. The pass also let you bypass long single-ticket entry lines. The Carte Orange was a six-day Metro pass that paid for itself in 15 rides. But there was a catch: to buy a Carte Orange, you needed to present a passport-sized photo, which we didn’t have. So that first morning out, we descended the stairs into the Metro station two blocks from our flat and bought a “carnet” of 10 tickets at a 10-percent discount from the single-ticket price of Euro 1.40. (A Euro during our trip was about $1.33 American.)

We had a late start. Both of us were awake at 1 a.m., because in our heads, it was still 4 p.m. the previous day in San Diego. Then we woke up late, because at 8 a.m. the flat was still pitch-black. I went down to a boulangerie on the corner and from the vivacious blonde proprietress bought a baguette, two croissants, and an apricot-stuffed croissant. We had learned to count to 10 in French, and I knew what “bonjour” meant, and “s’il vous plait” and “oui,” and “merci,” so I was empowered to buy baguettes and croissants without too much fuss, except the smallest change I had was a 10-Euro bill, and I kept saying “Si” instead of “Oui.”

It was almost 11 before we were out the door. Karen carried her camera, a digital Nikon D50, and I had the camera bag slung across my shoulder. Our first Metro ride took us to the Chatelet stop, a square between Rue de Rivoli and the Seine. Up at the street, we looked for the Bus 69 stop and had to walk a couple of busy blocks to find it. As we waited on the bus stop bench, a young woman walked up and looked at the route map, above Karen, who looked up, smiled, and asked, “Parlez-vous Anglais?” The woman looked at Karen and smiled back. It is almost impossible to look at Karen smiling, and not smile back. In our stay, only one French person, a waiter, was able to pull it off.

“A little,” the woman said. There followed a five-minute chat between the two in which we obtained priceless information about Paris, all because Karen, in this huge, strange, intoxicating city, was willing to look up, smile, and engage. Our bus arrived and we got on, waving good-bye. I am sure that the woman, as she approaches that bus stop on the Rue de Rivoli, will sometimes remember Karen and smile. Our bus moved forward in the heavy traffic, then took a sweeping left-hand turn, squeezed through one of a series of arched portals, and entered a large plaza flanked by a huge building on the left. We cleared the corner of the building and into view came the distinctive glass pyramid entryway into the Louvre. I hate to say that the first image that came into my head was not the Mona Lisa, but Tom Hanks, but it was true. Karen swung her camera around and took picture after picture.

In the back of our bus was a group of 20 kids, school children, ages 10-12, talking and laughing loudly, taking no notice of the Louvre, which for them was another home-town attraction. We continued across the Louvre plaza, crossed the Seine and turned right, and at the Musee d’Orsay stop, the kids, and a couple of teachers, got off. So today the kids, being circled into formation on the sidewalk just like kids back home, were going to learn about Van Gogh, Monet, Renoir, and Degas, from the originals. It was a very interesting thing to see.