Failed Atlas Obscura Wanderings

Jeff spent the morning at the pool viewing the women’s 10 meter synchro finals; he was not selected to judge as there were competitors from the US. I set off from the hotel intending to hit a bunch of Atlas Obscura sites. I got to my first target - The Flame of Liberty, which also functions as a memorial to Princess Diana because she died near there - easily.
https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/flame-of-li…

Unfortunately, this was the extent of my Atlas Obscura success for the day. Looking around the Flame of Liberty, I saw that many of the roads in the vicinity were closed. I then realized that the men's triathlon had been postponed to Wednesday, and that the women's triathlon would also take place today. I tried in vain to get to my next target - a Jeff Koons sculpture - but I was thwarted at every turn. The silver lining, however, was that I got to witness a bit of the cycling leg of the men's triathlon, which was reminiscent of our Tour de France experience in Nice. I also got to explore some of the area along the banks of the Seine.

As I wandered around, I saw that my phone was not connected to the data network. I rebooted the phone twice, turned the eSim on and off several times, and tried unsuccessfully to manually select a data provider. I then came to the conclusion that I had run out of data, which I thought was unlikely. I needed to tell Jeff where to meet me, so I looked around in vain for a public wifi to connect to. After some searching, I gave up and concluded I needed to return to the hotel. I ducked to the nearest Metro station and took an indirect route back. I didn't try to find a more convenient Metro station because I didn't know if I could get to it.

Back at the hotel, I logged on to wifi to discover I had plenty of data left! Eventually, I was connected to the data network again; I guess the problem must have been with the eSIM. In the meantime, Jeff had contacted me and we decided where to meet, so I set off again. As it turns out, Jeff had the same issue with his eSIM but he managed to manually select a provider that didn't have connection issues.

I met Jeff and Barb at the former site of the Bastille, which now houses a monument. Jeff was hoping to find some remnants of the Bastille there, but we learned that those have been long removed. After that, we went to the Carnavalet Museum.Read more