Paris Floods + Cats + Romance... Oh My!
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Bonjour France! After spending a week traveling through the adorably quaint Bavarian villages along the Romantic Road (post coming soon), we were craving a bit of city buzz and excitement. With just 2 days to spare before catching our flights out of CDG for my cousin’s wedding (!!!) we decided to GO BIG and bike into the heart of Paris for a night, rounding off our week of romance in the best way possible.
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As we approached La Rive Gauche, Notre Dame’s pointed peaks began to rise into view and, as expected, the sea of tourists followed suit, but something was different. No one was looking up. Everyone was on the bridge peering over the edge, looking at the Siene. Topless sunbathers perhaps? Curios, we locked up our bikes, took out our camera and decided to see what might possibly be going on down below. What we saw was beyond anything we could have ever imagined.
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No sunbathers, no cafes, no houseboats, no music… JUST WATER and a lot of it.
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We knew Europe had been getting quite a bit of rain lately, but we had no idea it had gotten so bad! #VanLife limits us to word-of-mouth news + our CNN app + onsite discoveries, which this moment had now become. The Siene River was rising and Paris was preparing for a flood, something that had devastated the city over 80 years ago:
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As we continued to journey along the Siene we began to realize how serious of a situation this had become. Bridges were closed, quayside cafes engulfed, houseboats docked to one another unable to move, scared of being sucked under and destroyed by the raging current that was just barely clearing the tired arches.
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Not only that, but the Louvre (the largest museum in the world) and Musée d’Orsay had to close in order to move the art to higher ground + a number of Metro lines were closed due to the fact that they were underwater!
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Interesting Fact: The Pont de l’Alma bridge serves as a measuring instrument for water levels in times of flooding on the Seine. Access to the footpaths along the river closes when the Seine’s level reaches the feet of the “Zouave,” the statue seen in the photos below, and when the water hits his thighs, the river is unnavigable. During The Great Flood of 1910, the level reached his shoulders and on June 4th, 2016 (the day we were there), the 3rd highest level in history was reached at 6.1 meters.
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We even found the church where my grandma (“Nanie”), was baptized and my grandparents got married back in 1958:
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AND we happened to find THE BEST cafe in Paris… filled with adorable, snuggly, happy, fuzzy CATS!!
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Cats + cookies + cappuccinos + my babe + Parisian window view = heaven.
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Oh Paris comme nous t’adorons. Next time we visit, because we will always return, we will stroll along the banks of the Siene and remember what we saw. #weloveyouparis
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Be sure to read about our epic adventure biking from Paris to Versailles two years ago!
