Thursday, June 4

Paris- the City of Lights and Love








So when I last left off, we were boarding a night train to Paris. The train definitely wasn't the best night's sleep I've gotten... we opted for seats in the normal train car (sitting instead of laying) to save money. As the guy in our compartment pointed out, "cheap tickets mean cheap seats". But we survived and arrived in Paris bright and early at 9:30 the next morning. This was definitely the farthest out of my element I have yet been language wise. I mean, it was a fight just to figure out how to find the English option on the metro ticket machines. Thank goodness Steve still remembers enough French that we were able to get by. Prague had been a completely different language too, but something about throwing the huge bustling city in the mix makes it all the more complicated.
Anyway, we managed to make our way to the hostel and drop our bags off before heading down to the departure point of our free tour. It was leaving at 11 and we managed to get there with plenty of time. Unfortunately the weather wasn't gorgeous... it was warm enough, but very overcast, though luckily it never did rain. The tour started at St. Michel's Fountain right across the river from the Notre Dame and Sainte Chappelle. We then headed across the river, saw the Louvre, the old royal palace, some statues of famous people (kings and Joan of Arc), the French Academy where they make sure the French language stays "pure", the Jardin du Tuileries (gardens), the obelisk that Napoleon decided Egypt wanted to give him, l'Hotel des Invalides, where Napoleon is burried, Arc de Triomphe (from a distance), and, of course, the Eiffel Tower. The tour let out within walking distance of the tower, so we made that our next stop. The line for the elevator stretched from the ticket counter at one of the legs to pretty much the middle of the base. We made it to the front of the line for the stairs in about 10 minutes. And then we climbed. It wasn't really that bad. Mostly becasue you can only walk up to the second level and then you have to take an elevator to the top anyway (but no line for that ticket!). The view from the top was amazing. We got down around 5 and subwayed up to Montmartre where we got to climb stairs again to get to the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur at the top. Another great view, but interestingly enough you can't see the Eiffel Tower from the Basilica. We walked through the church then grabbed our first Paris crepes (yummy!!!) for dinner and wandered through the Montmarte district. Unfortunately we couldn't find Picasso's studio... the street wasn't on our map. We did see the Le Chat Noir cafe and Moulin Rouge, though! We grabbed a meter long Baguette for dessert and since it was 9:00 pm but still quite light outside, took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe. We'd had enough climbing for the day by that point and opted not to go up it. Instead we observed the completely insane roundabout surrounding it ("it would be suicide, not attempted suicide, but suicide, to try to cross that road" our tour guy told us). I'm surprised their aren't accidents every minute. There are no painted lines, no directions, just a really huge circle with 12 streets feeding into it. We were impressed. We opted on the pedestrian tunnel to the monument tried to get the entire arc in the picture from the middle of the roundabout. It didn't get dark till after 10, (Yay for travelling in summer! Your day gets extended by like 5 hours!) There was supposedly a light show at the Eiffel Tower for 5 minutes on the hour after nightfall, so we made our way back and sat down in the grass with a perfect view to wait. Indeed, at 11:00 the lit up tower started sparkling. So cool! Actually, I was hoping for colors, but it was still pretty neat. After the show we went back to the hostel and crashed.
The next morning there was free breakfast at the hostel (croissants!!!) and then we headed straight to the Louvre to get in right when it opened. I had read that there were multiple entrances, such that one didn't have to wait several hours in the famous glass pyramid entrance. Unfortunatley, we had quite the time trying to find these other entrances. One "entrance" we walked into led us to two French security guys who very quickly responded to Steve's "Parlez-vous anglais?" with "Non". So then poor Steve had to try to explain to the guy that I wanted another entrance (he directed us to the pyramid) and wasn't leaving till I found it. Finally we got directions. They took us down to where the pyramid also leads... but without the line! Perfect! And, it turns out, I get into the Louvre for free because I study at an EU University! Also pretty nice! So then we did a lightning tour of the Louvre. First stops were the Nike and Venus statues, and then of course, the Mona Lisa. Turns out it's actually not that crowded right when the museum opens! We waltzed right up to the front as the group in front left. We also checked out the Egypt area and then stopped by Hammurabi's Code. I think Steve and I were both equally impressed by the museum itself as much as the artwork. It used to be a castle and is just gorgeous. The foundations are another "exhibit" in themselves in the basement. Anyway, having seen the Louvre in an hour and a half, we crossed the river to Sainte Chappelle, the famous stained glass church of Paris. That one we had to wait for. It was only a 15 minute wait though, and mostly becasue you have to go through airport security (yup, X-Ray machine, metal dector and guy ready to search you) to get in. Not really sure why... it apparently used to hold "a piece of the cross Jesus was crucified on" and "a thorn from the crown" but when we got inside we found out that those were actually moved... the stained glass is pretty amazing though. It's actually a double church. There's a very impressive chapel on the bottom for the king's servants, etc. And then on top is the famous huge stained glass windows for the king himself. The windows are pretty much the entire walls of the church and tell the story from Genesis to Jesus. Very pretty. We walked straight from that church across the street to Notre Dame. Another very impressive church. Granted, big churches are slowly getting lost on me as I've seen my share, but still quite impressive. Especially the flying buttresses in the back. Those were neat. Following Notre Dame we headed off to Versailles for the afternoon. It's a 40 minute train ride and then a 5 minute walk. The palace is huge. Well, obviously, but still. And very extensively decorated. The funny part was that we had just been to Herrencheimsee a week before, which is the copy of Versailles. So we kept seeing things we recognized (fountains/rooms, etc.). That was cool. After walking through the palace, we explored the gardens for a bit. Unbelievably large. I can't even imagine how much the upkeep takes! Eventually we caught the train back to Paris and made some quick stops to the things we hadn't yet seen. Specifically the Pantheon (which has the bodies of Voltaire, Curie, Braille, Pasteur among others), which had closed minutes before we arrived. Oops. Then we grabbed dinner and I left Steve in the subway while I ran up at the Bastille stop... turns out the Bastille is an opera house now. That's fun, too! From there we stopped by the hostel to grab our bags and headed up to the train station for our 10:00 pm train to Brussels.

And with that, I'll end this post with a few pictures and pick up from Brussels in the next few days.

Pictures:
In front of the Eiffel Tower
The light show at night
Arc de Triomphe
The Louvre (from inside)
the stained glass windows of Sainte Chappelle
Notre Dame
The flying buttresses of Notre Dame
Hanging out in Versailles

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

WOW! I'm so glad you got to St. Chapelle!