THE BATOBUS

When I am in Paris I love to ride the Batobus. While it sounds

like some funky invention for the latest Bat Man movie, it isn’t. It is a flat

bottom, glass domed boat that travels in a big loop up and down the Seine,

picking up and dropping off tourists.

It’s a marvelous way to get around. You see the sites, get to rest weary feet in relative comfort and for my husband and me, resolved our endless debate: subway versus taxi.

My husband likes subways. “Inexpensive and fast,” he says. I don’t because they are underground (no natural light) and tend to smell bad. As a result, we walk lot

which is good for the waistline. And we get to see interesting stuff.  You never know what you’ll see in Paris.

But sometimes the distances are too great and public transportation is required.

So, we take the Batobus if we can. I love seeing Paris from the water and watching the other tourists as we make our way from one end of Paris to the other.

One day as we rounded the spot in front of the Latin Quarter where the Batobus turns to go back up the River to make its stops at places like the Louvre, Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, I noticed a large group of people in what looked like lab coats gathered by one of the open air spaces near the Seine.

Since it was late in the day I thought that maybe they were celebrating the end of class or an exam or something since we weren’t far from the Sorbonne.  Well, as we got closer a whole line of young ladies lifted their shirts to reveal a variety of colors and sizes of bras and boobs.

Before I could say, “Zut Alors,” they collapsed in giggles and another row

of folks appeared, then turned around and mooned us. They all laughed and as our boat glided down the Seine I could only imagine their comments, “We mooned the tourists.”

Very funny. It all happened so fast I couldn’t grab my camera and we were too far away but I’ll always carry the memory of this hilarious and unexpected moment in Paris—a city where anything is possible.