July 15, 2007
Grand Paris
By car is definitely the most exciting way to enter Paris, especially when you see the Arc de Triomphe starting to loom before you… 12 or some crazy number of streets converge on that roundabout. Our GPS steered us out of the area, just in time. Phew! Eric did a great job navigating the streets, even though it seemed overwhelming and a little scary.
Paris also, was chilly and rainy, but we did stay fairly close to the Eiffel Tower, which helped brighten the spirits. It also wasn´t bad waking up and having a chocolate croissant for breakfast! We are finding it not as easy to blog if there isn´t Internet in the hotel we are staying at, I guess we´d rather be seeing the sights.
One tip, if you ever go to Paris, and plan on visiting a few museums, make sure you pick up a Paris museum Pass, well worth the money, especially since you get to shortcut quite a few lines. Tourists definitely abound in Paris and it seemed like every site was crazy busy.
The first day we arrived we visited Saint Chappelle, a church with magnificent stained glass, quite beautiful. We also managed a visit to Notre dame, amazing flying buttresses, and visited the Deportation Memorial, celebrating the lives of the French interned during WWII by the Nazis. It was extremely moving. We took a trip up the Eiffel Tower and managed to stay up there until the sun went down. What a great way to get a perspective on the city!
Now that I am thinking about it the rest of the Paris is a little blurry, it felt sort of like a whirlwind, a good whirlwind. The Musee d´Orsay had fabulous art and I loved the Rodin Museum and seeing the real “The Thinker”. I never realized how intense and time consuming creating sculptures is… it was fascinating as they had on display different stages and castings of some of his art. Sacre Coeur is a looming church on a hill overlooking the city. I thought is was a great idea to climb to the top. After losing count to the number of stairs and feeling the burn we made it into the open to a fabulous view and a rainbow!
The next day we took the train out to Versailles. Right now I am reading a biography about Marie Antoinette so I was anxious to verify the images in my head. It is quite massive although, so were the crowds, so much so, that it was a little distracting. I think the Hall of Mirrors was my favorite in the main palace. The grounds were beautiful and we made it out to the Grand and Petit Trianon, which were basically where the nobility went to get away from the crowds, but only a 30 min walk! It was fascinating seeing Marie Antoinette´s Hamlet and the area where she spent a considerable amount of time. Definitely a highlight! We made it back to town in time to visit the Pantheon, by then I was feeling quite weary. Here, one of Eric´s highlights was seeing Foucalt´s Pendulum. Boy the earth moves slowly!
Our last day in Paris, we left for visiting the Louvre, strolling the Champs Elysees and climbing the Arc de Triomphe. The Louvre as you can imagine was crazy busy and I think half the people there were crowded around La Jaconde (the Mona Lisa). Unlike when Eric visited back in 2001, it is now behind glass and surrounded by ropes, attempting to consolidate the crowd. We really couldn´t get a good look at it, but admired from afar. Some other highlights were some of Botticelli´s works, the real painting of the crowning of Napoleon´s wife Josephine that we saw at Versailles, Venus di Milo, other da Vinci works, the code of Hammurabi, and somehow we ended up seeing the Winged Victory about 5 times due to our walking strategy or lack there of. The shops lining the walk to the Arc de Triomphe are much like the ones you see lining 5th Avenue in New York or the Magnificent Mile in Chicago, basically, I can´t afford anything there. We had another “feel the burn” walk up a tiny spiral staircase to get to the top of the Arc de Triomphe. The view was a great way to remind us of all we had seen in Paris and how much more there is to see!
Beret Count= 14
Highest Price Paid for a Soda= 3 euros
Best Dinner= Le Bosquet
Best Dessert= Ulysses en Gaul - Banana and Nutella Crepe
Update: view photos of Paris.
Filed by LeAnn at 9:36 am under Europe 2007