Observations on Paris - the end; Taxis and the WSJ.

This column from the Wall Street Journal Weekend Edition reminded me that I did not post my final comment on Paris.

If you will be in need of a taxi in Paris in the morning – rush hour time – be sure and order it the night before. Otherwise you will be out of luck. We awoke early, hoping to get to the Montparnasse station early for breakfast before our mid-morning departure to St. Emilion.

When we asked the front desk to call us a taxi, the look on the woman’s face clued us in that we made a tactical error. In all of our reading and research, no one mentioned that everyone in Paris ordered a morning cab the night before. You would not guess it, but it seems there are not enough cabs to go around.

View from out taxi of a taxi.  Get it?

Our only option was our first metro ride. And we had our luggage to carry, during rush hour no less. To prove my point that the French have an unwarranted bad reputation, allow me to explain otherwise. The night desk person was just leaving, and going on vacation to Cyprus. He volunteered to walk us to the Metro station, and then he spoke to the attendant for us so we could speed through paying the fare. It was a very generous act of kindness, and although we thanked him profusely, I never got his name.

Thanks to him we made it to the train station with enough time for coffee and a shared baguette. I hope he had as good a vacation as we did.