2013 Oct: Running in Paris – Part 2 (Rive Droite)

This 2nd installment of our Running-in-Paris runrep will cover our run along the rive Droite (right bank) of the river Seine. We’d ran for about 6 KM from the Eiffel Tower along the rive Gauche (left bank) before turning into the right bank on Pont Sully (see map below). You can read about the 1st installment of this runrep here.

Waiyan (below) catching a breather next to a signboard highlighting the tourist attractions along the banks of river Seine.

A notable difference between the two side of the river banks is that it’s much more quieter – tourist traffic wise – on this right bank. Without having to weave thru so much human traffic, we got better running tempo here and could actually keep to a steady cadence for a good run. There’s also less “distractions” over this side of the river for us to pause & browse or take pictures.

Above: Ah… what a lovely sight. An elderly couple taking a leisurely stroll along the Seine. It’s great to be able to grow old together and still get to enjoy an active lifestyle. Waiyan? 😉

Spotted this furry guy. Think he belongs to the kid-riding-bicycle’s family as he was trailing them docilely even though he’s quite huge! Has characteristics of a German Shepherd (but seems too fat to be one). His body resembles what they called the Shiloh Shepherd. If anyone know, do update me. 🙂

More les bouquinistes on the right bank but as you can see there’s much less traffic on this compared to the left bank. There were a lot more further down this road (which I didn’t take any pics) and there were more customers browsing at that stretch.

View of some of the buildings on the left bank from across the rive Droite.

Here’s another view of the Pont au Double from the right bank of the Seine. You can see the top end of the Notre Dame spire in the background.

Here’s the view of Pont Neuf from the northen side of the river (ie right bank). You can see the dome of the national library (Bibliotheque Mazarine) and Eiffel in the background.

I wonder where these figures are headed?

We have reached Pont des Arts (above) so the Louvre would be close by.

We entered into the Tuileries Palace through the arched gateway (below) of the public square Place du Carrousel.

Once you get past the arched gateway, the Louvre is on your right and the Tuileries Garden on your left.

Ah.. the iconic Glass Pyramid of the Louvre. It’s wonderful to ran almost 9 KM to reach this spot and be able to soak in the history behind this place. There’s always a crowd lining up to get into the Louvre. Strangely for us, while we did pen this down as a May-Visit for this trip, there were simply too many other Must-Visit places we’d wanted to cover in the short few days we’ve in Paris before we hop over to Essen for Spiel 2013. And most of the places we wanted to visit are not necessarily “main tourist attractions”.

Thankfully I’ve a wife who shared the same thoughts as myself when it comes to traveling (ie we prefer to follow our own path and walk-the-ground instead of hopping from one postcard spot to the next) else it’ll be horrible if I’ve to do the usual 5-day 7-cities tour of Europe!

We certainly plan to do the Louvre but when that happens, we’ll likely be spending like days inside the museum instead of doing a quick 2-hr afternoon sweep like most tourists. I honestly don’t think we can cover 1/10 of the Louvre even in a single day. Then again, the Louvre – or Paris – is not a place you visit once and never comes back.

Wait… photo session first before moving on. 😛

It’s way past our lunch hour and all’s that left was to finish the last leg from the Louvre across the Tuileries Garden to the Obelisque. We plan to take a short lunch break before starting on the last leg towards Montmarte.

The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel (note: this is NOT the more famous Arc de Triomphe landmark). You can easily differentiate between these two as the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel has the chariot at the top (and this arc is much smaller).

The Garden of Tuileries. It’s autumn now in Paris. And freaking cold! 😛

I’d expected a greener Jardines. This is the social hub for Parisians. Not too crowdy. Can easily do a good run all the way from the Louvre towards the Obelisque / Champs-Elysees.

Ah.. The imposing LUXOR OBELISQUE. With that, we completed the (first) 10 KM leg of our Running-in-Paris gig – in time to search for lunch to re-fuel ourselves.

Apparently there’s not much choice for lunch! Only crepe & burger stands. No cafes in sight. I guess if we went all the way thru Champs-Elysees, we could find some cafes over the other end – but would likely be paying tourist price for average food. So we decided to just grab some crepe + hotdogs and most importantly a hot cup of coffee!

You don’t feel the cold weather when you were on the move, running. But as soon as you settled down… it started getting chilly. So hot coffee’s good. 🙂

The park in the Tuileries Garden where we took our short lunch break.

How did we do timewise? We took about 1 hr 47 min to get from Eiffel Tower to here. Covered a distance of 9.9 KM and ran past most of the key attractions along both banks of the river Seine. We ran past 13+ bridges of the Seine but given there are 37 bridges along La Seine, you can figure out how long this river is.

An 1 hr & 47 min to do 10 KM? That has to be my personal worst!! LOL. But it’s probably the most enjoyable 10 KM I’ve ever done!!

NEXT: THE HILLS OF MONTMARTE
A short break before we move to the 3rd (and final) installment of our Running-in-Paris runrep where I’ll write about our run up the hills of Montmarte to pay a visit to the Basilica of the Sacré Coeur at its summit.

Related reads

• 2013 Oct: Running in Paris – Part 1 (Rive Gauche)
• 2013 Oct: Running in Paris – Part 2 (Rive Droite)
• 2013 Oct: Running in Paris – Part 3 (Montmarte)
• 2013 Oct: Montmarte Village & Basilica of the Sacré Coeur