Day 2: The Blue Line

We're on the east side of Bercy Gardens.  On the west side is Bercy Stadium.  Our bus stop is on the west side of Bercy Stadium.  Sounds simple, right?  We started walking, and found a market and came upon the garden.  We walked alongside at first, in a cobblestoned alley.  Not nice tight cobblestones, but stones with lots of space around them.  We found an entrance to the garden, where there were sidewalks, and decided to walk there.  It had an unlocked gate with a sign saying No Dogs. 

The garden was nice.  It had a grove of orange trees, a vineyard area, and pretty flowers.  And people walking dogs.  We exited to the west, and there was a big open area with a carousel, skate park, and tons of dogs!  To the south was a giant - and I do mean giant - staircase.  Think 50 feet across and several stories high. 

We tried to walk west, but the stadium had construction barriers up.  We saw a dirt path with joggers to the south, so we followed it.  It wound uphill a bit, then ended at a stair way and steep ramp, with a confused guy in a suit.  We went up the ramp.  And up.  We finally found ourselves at the top of the garden in another "garden" area with sculptures.  And there was no way to go west. 

We started east.  Which is where we realized we were at the top of the huge stair, and the confused suit was just reaching the top.  He was joined by 2 more suits, also confused.  Frankly, so were we.  We could see the road on the south side of the stadium, but we couldn't get to it.  There was a giant pedestrian bridge over the river, and a sign about the French library.  Another bus stop was there, so we headed over.

The bridge was springy, because it was made of long, thin pieces of wood.  As we started over, the suits found an elevator, but it was out of order.  They kept walking.  Apparently the bridge was set up so that you walked on the sides, and then a center spot opened up that led to the street.  They went that way.

We continued on and crossed the Seine.  Then we had the choice of taking a large center section up high to the top of the library steps (the library was surrounded by more giant stairs) or coming out on the street by the river.  We took the street route, found a cross walk, and our bus stop was right there!  Then we just had to wait almost 30 minutes for a bus.

We finally caught our bus, and we were off!  We found the stadium stop and saw some sights, but we were mainly wanting to get near Notre Dame, so we could see it and catch the next bus we needed.  We finally got there, stepped of the bus, and voila - there's an Indian restaurant.  Mom said "We should eat lunch here."