I wasn’t kidding about the jack hammers. 8 a.m. sharp. The windows are wide open, the day glares in, and I bolt out of the little bed instantly awake—and, for some reason, laughing. The day is ridiculously loud. I am relieved that the girls are sharing a room toward the back of the house, although we all agreed to start the day early. So, early it is. Early it will be. Today…..PARIS!

Irene took us after breakfast to the little train station in the village, Rive Droite, and with a single ride ticket in our pockets we were off to Paris with the rest of the commuters who were running late. Viroflay is a “village” of about 6000 people and is the stop just before Versailles on the RER. We arrived at Gare St. Lazare and, with the moving mass, made the transfer from train to metro as if we had always been doing it that way. That was the memory I was counting on—perfectly serviceable, 100% reliable. I had come back to that station so many times in a previous life. So, so many times and set out from there on metro or foot, and so it was sort of a fixing point for me. A few new potted plants near Arrivals/Departures board, but otherwise the train station looked just like the one in my memory.

I decided that Musee D’Orsay would be a good pick for our museum this first morning. From everything I had read and considered, the Louvre is huge, packed, and inaccessible without some sort of prior arrangement. We had the “couple ligne” passes in our pockets, but I reasoned that gallery after gallery of broken ancient pottery shards and Napoleon’s 19^th century ideas of what constitutes a good souvenir was not high on the girls’ sightseeing list (I’ll bet he didn’t have a “Waters of the World” collection). Sure, there was Mona and David …. THE most visited exhibits in the world, but as Sophie reassured me, we could see those already on every postcard, plaque, mug, print and snow globe the souvenir shops were hawking. I wanted to guard our time for other things.

Orsay was just opened in 1986 as I was leaving the country the first time, the place on everyone’s lips. It was a re-purposed building (LOVE that!) like the Science Museum of VA—a railways station going begging and actually slated to be demolished in the 1970s. Then some Minister of Cultural Affairs gets the brainy idea to convert it into a museum (Where was he when the beautiful mansions in Laurent’s village came vacant??) which would bridge the gap between the Louvre and the National Museum of Modern Art at Centre George Pompidou. So here we were in an old train station and “new” museum, with a tall glass roof and enormous bays of scalloped windows through which streamed the morning sun. Making a liar of many of my guidebooks which warned of crowds, we were able to see as many galleries as we liked–some famous impressionist and post-impressionist works. A visiting exhibit on painted statuary. A little display on the construction (and reception) of Le Tour Eiffel in 1889. And It wasn’t long before we found our way to the roof and a nice resting spot that overlooked the Seine and the Tuileries. No surprise, Sophie was enthralled with the pigeons, a fine diversion. We snacked on weird French chocolate biscuit-crackers Irene had tucked in my daypack and took a hundred photos before gathering our tired wits for the rest of the day.

After Orsay we headed on foot up the left bank of the river to the Ile de la Cite and Notre Dame, where the lines and blazing heat on the pavement made visiting the huge cathedral impossible at midday, so we scrapped that idea and began one of two “Mom’s historic walking tours,” which is my absolute favorite way to visit a city and probably the girls’ least. So we walked around Ile de la Cite and Ile St Louis, finding lunch in a crowded but cool café near the cathedral. I don’t want to admit it was called “Le Quasimodo,” but that would not be true. Oh well. At least we didn’t buy any plastic Eiffel towers there. Sophie, traveler extraordinaire, ordered her first “Croque Madame” and visibly seemed to relax and revel in utter contentment with the arrival of the drink I ordered for her: un Orangina. After that, she and the lightly carbonated orange juice were fast friends at every meal. What’s 4 Euros to secure your sidekick photographer’s agreeability? Even a shoestring budget bends for some things.

After a nice lunch and a little rest we resumed our walking tour, this time near the Boulevard Saint Michel, where we came upon the insanely crowded Shakespeare and Co. I remember that place! There were almost more people than books packed into the little house, a maze of rooms and bookshelves. I once set my coat on fire in that store. It was December, and I was wearing a long wool coat to keep out the Paris (and, as I recall, London) cold. Backed into a corner of the little shop, which was crowded even then, I smelled something burning. Looking down, I discovered it was the hem of my coat pressed up against an oil heater and now smoldering where a big round patch had been scorched by the heater. Today, it is also smoldering inside the little maze of bookshelves and multiple floors, so I go out on the sidewalk where Sophie has found a reasonable sitting spot and people are refilling their water bottles at an historic fountain. In a tiny house crammed with books and—if you look carefully on the window sills or top bookshelf—sleeping cats, it goes without saying that we may never see Ellie again.

This longest day of walking was marked by several unexpected diversions that even in our leftover state of jet lag we were able to appreciate as the gifts that they were. I had come to Paris a cynic, thinking everything too crowded or too expensive or too changed for me and my little travelling band. Maybe so. Like I’m saying, about that enormous glass pyramid. But instead, as this day unfolded we found many small, unexpected delights that I hadn’t read about or planned for or prepaid. So those are the things I will take from this day. The first was the exhibit on painted statuary. Call me crazy, but that was just cool, because they had some of the teaching plaques written in English and I could read them and take it in….Not to mention the statues were cool.

The second was the “love locks” bridge which we literally stumbled upon leaving Orsay. It is not THE love-locks bridge (Le Pont des Beaux-Arts). That one is just up the river—we saw it and it has, indeed, been stripped of its locks which were sinking the bridge. This was a new bridge, a footbridge called the Passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor and built between 1997 and 1999—apparently, the old one had been weakened significantly from barges crashing into it. So here is another new-to-me architectural entity that simply wasn’t there when I was. Never mind that an entire trend which is now an international practice—the securing of one’s affection by means of a dime-store padlock (you can get one from one or two sellers who with their blanket-displayed merch are ready to beat feet at the next approaching police officer)—has evolved since I was a student here. No wonder so many of my loves are gone. Never locked ‘em.

Then there was our unexpected ability to sail through the security lines at St. Chapelle, the “jewel” of the Ile de la Cite. Indeed, I had not planned to visit this church without heroic effort—ripping the girls from a breakfast at crack of dawn and waiting in lines of selfie-snappers. I was warned by a chorus of guidebooks that it was the least accessible, on account of being housed inside a functioning city police station and courts system. And yet here it was, waiting just a few doors and gates away. I could see the barriers, guards, signage—all the trappings of an over-touristed site and yet, no tourists! Walls of gorgeous glass and gold everywhere, just everywhere—every inch and centimeter a colored contribution to a radiant whole. The chapel was built in six quick years in the 13^th century (can we say six unheard of years??!) to house the passion relics Louis IX of France had purchased from Constantinople – among them the crown of thorns worn by Christ. Hmmmmm…. Hey Louis, I think you could buy one of those cheaper from the souvenir shop out back!

Directly outside and to your left is another monument I suggested since I had not recalled seeing it back in the day: The Conciergerie. Here is the large, restored, mostly empty former prison of the French Revolution.  The coolest thing, literally, about this structure is it was a little more under the ground (and therefore cooler), plus some visionary artist had set up a water exhibit there. YES! I was intrigued, being a connoisseur of water myself, and the girls were enthralled. Did they see the ancient and the modern the way I did, or did they think these things just went together–massive stone piers 10 m around dating from the 12th C and a modern wooden conduit containing river water?  It was such a delightful setting (and one of the few seen without a couple hundred other tourist buddies) – the scrubbed white stone walls of centuries ago, the vaulted ceiling where shadows lurk, and this plain hewn wood troth winding an angular way through the empty chambers and culminating in an indoor waterfall. Not to mention the accompanying sound of gently running water, which soothed the outside noise of a really loud city and a really hot day. It was quite an effect. In Sophie’s portfolio of 798 photos, many feature this unusual exhibit.

Perhaps our most memorable diversion of the day involves an Americanism almost too shameful to admit. First of all, I have shared with you the hot-ness and the on-foot-ness of our day. I am carrying about three pounds of water with us everywhere in a daypack, and it is still, let’s consider, approximately 9 or 10 at night for us jet-lagged travelers. So back pain competes with foot-ache which is swathed in an all-over fatigue here, at 3 o’clock in the afternoon. Have I also shared with you the jarring reality that we are, for all intents and purposes, unplugged during the day? It is Wi-fi only travel for this little troupe. Not wanting to activate (and thus pay for) our international calling plan, we are Wi-fi junkies, slinking down the streets on the far inside of the sidewalk, shoulder to shoulder with the shop fronts and stores we pass, Sophie discretely checking her bars of connection as she goes. Perhaps no monument or site will be quite as climactic as stumbling upon an open network.

At the moment, however, aspersions on hold, we are all hoping she can connect so as to enable Google maps to lead us to the nearest Starbucks. I know, I know…Sacre Bleu! They sure as Sorbonne didn’t have THAT when I was here. At last, with her back turned to a picture-perfect corner café, she looks up at Ellie and me beaming and points to a little side street where, sure enough, the universal green awning quietly invites reprieve. I, for one, am unashamed. I am SO unashamed that paying $6 USD apiece for an iced coffee which I will drink in a calm, quiet, uncrowded and air-conditioned environment with free Wi-fi seems like we have absolutely won some lottery of luxury. A Caramel macchiato? What the heck is that? Okay, sure. Make that two. We sit. We drink. The sweating abates, the hum in my ears and throbbing head, they calm a little. I write postcards. The girls connect. It is the best overpriced coffee I have ever tasted.

After the refuel, there is no stopping us. We not on foot, we are on fire. We decide for one more try on Notre Dame, which was, after all, stop NUMBER ONE on my historic walking tour commenced hours ago and now shot full of holes and diversions. It is 6:40 in the evening and I recall from reading the guidebook that though the towers and crypts and all kinds of wonderful tours I failed to procure will go until 11 pm, the sanctuary itself will close at 6:45 pm. Hmmmmm. Could we? We are walking, single file hoofing it along the sidewalk approaching the enormous wide pavilion over which soars the cathedral. C’est possible? From this distance, it looks like all the large portals and all the gates in front of the portals are still open. I don’t want to stop and dig out the guidebook, but I am pretty sure it said 18:45. 6:45 pm. So I just keep powering ahead, Sophie close on my heels, Ellie far behind, pushing, powering forward even as I see a uniformed guard of sorts step forward and start to swing the gate on the far right closed. We are running now, storming the cathedral, with a small flood of a dozen or so tourists who also get what is happening, and I catch sight of Ellie who sees my frantic waving over the heads of the hurrying and is now at an all-out run (not every day you see that!) and with a little push and a rush we three are breathed and squeezed through the gate at the very last minute.

Into a service of Vespers. The church air is significantly cooler. It smells of stone, and old incense. I am almost certain I can smell the centuries themselves, all nine of them. The service is ending, the chanting lifts my spirit and provides an unexpected sense of earthly belonging. I am not a misplaced 20-year-old student you can chase out of here. I am not a tourist seeking a cheap glimpse, a selfie and a cool respite. I am a returning pilgrim come to thank her God, stealing a scrap of time to pray, to give thanks, and to enjoy this holiest of places. When they come for us I try very hard to be the last out of the building.

Coming out of Notre Dame with an evening on our hands, I decide that the walking tour will graduate to a bus tour. But not those showy London double-decker hop on/hop off jobbies – no, for us shoe-stringers it will be bus #69—a goldmine of a find that makes stops at every major museum and monument from Place de la Bastille all the way out to the Eiffel Tower – for the cost of a metro ticket. Now the cost of a metro ticket is 1 E 49, so I do not take this lightly (It’s practically another coffee!) but it is a welcome idea to get off our feet. As luck will not have it, we will not be going up Gustave’s giant needle this trip. The tickets, pre-paid, bought up from home weeks ago, they are no good. The Eiffel Tower went on strike yesterday—I got the “flash text” warning me of “Les Greves” (Will modern marvels never cease?!!) and they will not be done striking today. So the most visited monument in the world (close to 7 million people in 2017) is closed, and even though it will open tomorrow or maybe the next day, online tickets sell out 30 days in advance and are not something I can fight for on a dinky cell phone with spotty Wi-fi. Coffee, yes. Eiffel Tower, no.

So our visit will be all on our feet at the base of hers. But oh, she has big feet, sunk 22 meters into the ground and built stage by stage as an entryway to the 1889 World’s Fair.  Approaching the tower from the south pier, where we followed a small group of Italian students who begged and badgered a guard to let them in, we flash our defunct tickets and are also waved through the barriers. All the while I am thinking, are we actually going to gain access to this thing while 6.9 million other unlucky folks put their feet up and pout in their hotel rooms?? But no, it is closed. There are a few hundred folks here anyway, elevators quiet and stilled for the night, people milling about, snapping selfies, taking their first look or enjoying their 50.^th A guard standing directly underneath the tower informs me of the strike—and listens politely to my rambling about being here thirty years ago. After I am done conversing with him I look over at Ellie and Sophie—and I am suddenly glad we came anyway. They are in full tourist mode—posing and dancing for the camera, twirling, grinning, laughing. They are standing awestruck in the gravel with heads and shoulders thrown back, just staring straight up into the iron beams, which climb 324 meters into the sky and, at this time of day at these angles seem to keep right on climbing. Tired as we are, our tiny-ness and her immensity breaks through our tourist stupor. Sophie shoots off several dozen architectural artsy-type photos that are going to save me beaucoup on postcards, and we make our way up the Champs de Mars, a grand field well-trammeled and now enjoyed by picnickers, couples, tour groups, and families spread about on blankets on the grass. Now we are crossing the bustling Place de Troccadero, and perhaps the evening will finally descend, and the relentless sun will concede the day.

Since our day has been much, much about water, it will end this way, too. Watching other families enjoy the cooling fountains of Troccadero, and restless where Ellie is content to sit and write and I am fried, Sophie moves closer and closer to the long, spraying fountains, snapping pictures but also moving as if by quiet invitation and curiosity. Can you? Can you really? Can I? Men and boys stripped down to their underwear, a couple of giggly young women (clothed)—they are wading and playing in the water. Apparently, the fountains are not off limits. Can that be true? Before long, there is my long-legged beauty stripped of only her camera (memoir writer on the banks now playing the photographer), laughing and splashing in the fountains with the Eiffel tower as her backdrop and the panorama of the Champs des Mars, Les invalides and the rest of the city quietly settling itself behind her. I do not need a camera for this one. The memory is forever seared into my heart.

It is now well after nine and I am aware, as a tour guide and middle-aged mom ought to be aware, that we have MILES to go before we sleep. Literally. Miles. We are in the 7th Arrondissment, having lost our senses cavorting in fountain water. Our beds are in the sleepy little town of Viroflay—a walk, a metro trip and an intercity train ride out of here. I know the trains don’t stop running until one in the morning, I checked that of course, but Lawd a Mercy, it’s late! And my host family will be going to bed. I feel frivolous and rude as I hustle the swimmer and writer back into walking mode and away from this place which hasn’t even begun to retire. I wanted to show them the Eiffel Tower lit at night but there is no night to be found anywhere. Daylight persists. So we depart. Sidewalk pounding, we pass the Pont D’Alma where Princess Diana was killed a decade after I came home. We pause for homage and then we keep going. Now it is 10. A long ride to St. Lazare. Do I have a ticket? No, I do not. Do I know when the next train is? Do I know how frequent they are at this time of night? No, and—er, no. More importantly, do I know how to get from the train station at Viroflay to the little house we’re staying in? Big no. No Wi-fi, remember? The language barrier is quadrupled by this little old-school reality. And so we walk. Just keep moving. Just keep moving. In this Dory-Does-Paris approach to sight-seeing, we do not give time to acknowledge our predicament. The predicament is rather part of the journey.

At last we make the train station, secure a ticket, and decipher which train will carry us home. It is not for another 20 minutes (just missed the previous one) and it is delayed at that, causing the panic I might have enjoyed back at the Eiffel Tower to really kick in. Which causes me to realize we haven’t eaten dinner. We can’t possibly show up their house at 11 o’clock at night hungry. Somebody find us a dinner and fire the tour guide, will you? So, it’s a Monoprix night for us. Little French convenience store right near the platforms selling ham and cheese baguettes for 3 Euros apiece. Perfect! That and a box of cookies and, you guessed it—a can of Orangina—and we have a feast for kings. We melt into the clean, comfy cushions of the RER train (Is that air conditioning I feel????) and unwrap our sandwiches. It will be a lovely ride home.

And how did we get from the train station all the way through the village and along the silent sidewalks to the house we came from, you ask? Again, it was Sophie and her Wi-fi! We managed to connect at the Gare St Lazare in Paris, search it up at Google maps, screen snap it and then use it when we got to Viroflay so as to return without diversion. Do I travel with the right people, or what?!

Formidable!