After escaping from the internet disconnection trouble, it was finally the morning to go out to the Louvre Museum within walking distance, which is the biggest advantage of choosing an apartment hotel with a daringly heavy front door and a riddle hidden door. I got to know a little more about the situation of restaurants around the hotel and took a morning set at a cafe that was open rather early in the morning.
However, I think the price of a croissant and espresso alone, at 6.9 euros (about 920 yen), is still expensive, even in these days of a weak Yen.
The weather in Paris is a balmy 14 degrees on a clear morning, and daytime highs are cooler, not reaching 20 degrees.
The glass pyramid, which is now a symbol of the Louvre, has been under intense criticism and controversy since its construction more than 30 years ago, when the building plan was announced. But It was extremely impressive.
However, I arrived just in time for the 9:00 a.m. opening, but there was already a long, long line in front of the entrance by the pyramid. It took almost an hour to get in.
When I finally entered the museum, I was at a loss as to where to start due to the sheer scale of the museum. For the time being, I started from the place that seemed to be the course of appreciation, but it seemed to start from Ancient Egypt, and if it continues to Ancient Greece, Roman era, European Middle Ages, Renaissance, and so on, the course of appreciation of a huge number of works seems to continue endlessly.
And, after all, this period is not very colorful and somber. Therefore, I decided to start by visiting the three works in the guidebook that are essential to see the Louvre.
Although the number of tourists seemed to have decreased considerably due to the global Corona disaster, the crowds were still exceptionally large only in front of the Mona Lisa.
Even so, it was almost noon by the time I finished looking at these three major works of art. After a quick lunch at the museum’s cafeteria, I spent the rest of the afternoon looking around the gorgeous paintings from the Renaissance to the modern era and the realistic marble sculptures that looked as if they were about to come to life.
Apart from these myriad works of art, I was also fascinated by the lavishly decorated rooms, which showed the origin of the Louvre as a former palace.
After that, I returned to the hotel early, thinking that after yesterday’s commotion, I should relax.
I had managed to clear up a number of problems and settled down for the remainder of my stay in Paris, and I now had the prospect of enjoying the remaining three days as a regular tourist.
I was eager to go to Geneva, my next destination, but I started to check the relationship between the hotel and Geneva station on the Internet, and then I thought about the flap between Brussels and Paris and wondered if I would have to repeat this process again, and suddenly my enthusiasm waned.
In fact, the day before, I had been slowly discussing this with an acquaintance who was also staying in the Netherlands by phone, and we had begun to consider a plan to cancel Geneva, Switzerland, and Lyon in the south of France after Paris, and return to The Hague, the Netherlands, where we had had a peaceful stay.
I checked the Thalys bullet train between Paris and The Hague, and found that I could get a late flight on Monday, so I decided to go back to The Hague.
However, this is where the turmoil began again. When I checked the schedule of the bullet train (Thalys) between Paris and Holland on the next day of my stay in Paris, I found that almost all the seats were sold out at this point, and only the last seats was available.
A friend of mine who is staying in Holland told me that there is a strike at the airport management company in Paris and that the flights have stopped and the passengers seem to be flowing to the Thales. If I could not get a ticket for Thalys, I would be stuck. I proceeded with the reservation procedure with some impatience, thinking that I had to get a ticket even if it was the last flight. However, at the final stage of the procedure, when I was trying to pay by credit card, suddenly an error occurred and I could not complete the reservation. I tried again and again, but it did not work. I thought that there might be a problem with my credit card, so I changed several credit cards, but the same error occurred at the final step.
As for the credit card, prior to the departure of this tour, I had taken the trouble to contact the credit card company, informing them of my travel destination and schedule, and reminding them to please make sure that there would be no problems with the payment. I had not experienced any problems with restaurant or store payments up to this point, but this kind of online reservation payment was somewhat unusual, and I wondered if unusual payment security was at work. However, there is no way to deal with this credit card payment-like problem. In the meantime, dinner time began to pass. However, in this state of limbo, I had no intention of going out to eat at a nearby restaurant. At any rate, I went to a nearby McDonald’s and bought some takeout. After taking a break from securing food, I tried again to make a reservation for the Shinkansen. For some reason, there were two flights available that were two hours earlier than the previous last flight. I tried to make a reservation for this flight, and as if the previous troubles were a lie, my credit card payment was completed easily and my reservation was completed.
I also started to book a hotel in The Hague, which I knew well from the first night of this tour. I had had enough of Booking.com, which had been giving me trouble for so long, and so I breathed a sigh of relief when I completed the process with Expedia, a booking site.
The series of troubles I experienced during this tour reminded me that although the Internet has become a means of critical importance in today’s society, its use is sometimes too vulnerable and can cause a lot of trouble.
