Now we are three - 5-17-15

Today was our first full day after Elizabeth, our niece, arrived.  She stayed up until 10:00 last night and was perky this morning.
Deb made up some sandwiches and packed it into my backpack and we headed off for the day. First stop was the market at Place de Fetes, which is one of our favorite markets to get some fruit which we added to the pack.   The markets are such a combination of things, one can get meat, fish, sausages, fruit, vegetables, clothing, shoes, key made, watch repairs, etc. almost you name it.  After our paseo of the market we jumped on the Metro and headed down to the Brocante Fair at Bastille and the Arsenal Basin.
Elizabeth is interested in looking for a piece of art that might give her a nice souvenir of Paris, so this was a good place to start looking.  This is a high-end fair and interesting pieces are usually priced accordingly, plus it seems when brocantes are involved it means older paintings and usually more muted colors, so we really didn't find anything that could not be left in place.   Since we had our lunch along with us we decided to eat it sitting next to the barges and yachts in the Arsenal basin, so we sat in the grass and enjoyed the sunshine.

After lunch we walked down to the Seine along the basin and across the locks to find the place where we could catch the Bat-o-Bus which is a hop-on, hop-off boat service with 8 stops all along the Seine between Gare d'Austerlitz and the Eiffel Tower.  We found the boarding stop, got our tickets and jumped on a boat.  Since we started at the eastern most stop our itinerary took us downstream and towards the Eiffel Tower,  This is a nice way to see Paris without having to worry about traffic or getting lost.  Since the weather was so nice there were multitudes of people out sunning themselves along the quais, virtually the entire distance across town.  



We got off the boat at the Eiffel Tower and walked over to introduce Elizabeth to it.  While there we sang a happy birthday song to our great-niece and Elizabeth's niece, Zoe, from under the Eiffel Tower.  She is our nephew Michael and his wife Simone's daughter and it was her sixth birthday.  Elizabeth will be seeing them in Germany next week for the wedding.  So after a bit of a wander and ponder we headed back to the boat for a return to where we wanted to get off  to see a bit of the Tuilleries and the outside of the Louvre, to which we'll return tomorrow.

 We caught our bus back to our neighborhood and walked back to the apartment.  An impromptu dinner on the deck, a bit of chat and then to bed.