July 14th

Today is the French version of our July 4th, celebrated to commemorate the revolution of 1789.  It was a quiet day for us.   We watched the national parade down the Champs Elysee on television and that was interesting.   The parade had elements of all the French armed forces, including the Sapiers and Pompiers (the firemen) who are de facto members of the army.  Part of the festivities feature air force flyovers and it was interesting to look out from our deck and see some of the planes flying along before disappearing behind Sacre Coeur. We then watched the next stage of the Tour de France, an obsession of mine although Deb is pretty interested as well.   In the evening we went for dinner at another of the restaurants that were featured when the Parc de la Villette was a major slaughter house.   Deb pronounced the flank steak as the best she's eaten to date.