We flew in Wednesday afternoon, dropped all of our stuff at Michelle's apartment and went out for "Turks." It was basically a gyro but they're literally on every corner of every street, delicious of course. After dinner we walked by le Moulin Rouge and the ever so amusing sex district which was nothing but bright neon lights with propositions everywhere. Moulin Rouge had a huge line and looked SO cool. Just judging by the outside I think next time I'm in France and am loaded (heyyy public health sector, I hear it’s on the up and up! that and combating le swine flu) it would be so cool to pay the $150 per plate for a show. We continued down the busy street and entered Montmarte. This was the artistic quarter where all the old poets, writers and artists used to hang out. There were plaques on the wall saying van Gogh, Matisse, Langston Hughes, Picasso, Sisley, Degas, Cezanne, Renoire, Manet... etc had all been there. I can absolutely see why they would go there, it was gorgeous and probably left them with great ideas and inspirations.
After that we got a bottle of wine and took it up to Sacre Coure. This gorgeous church was built as a gesture of expiation of the "crimes of the communards" of France and in honor of those who died in the Franco-Prussian war. The church sits high up on the outskirts of Paris and overlooks the city, the view was absolutely gorgeous. We hung out on the stairs for a while, enjoying our wine and the view as we were entertained by some very friendly local French drunkards. We had a few groups of guys come up to us, they loved that Michelle spoke French, but also wanted to practice their English on us. It was hilarious, they kept saying that France is their home and they absolutely love it, and they were so so happy we decided to come visit. Once we were thoroughly chilled from being at the top of the mountain and entertained-out, we headed back down to Michelle’s to get some sleep.
Thursday morning Michelle made us eggs, bacon (which I’m finding is different in every country) and a fresh croissant from the bakery next door. It was delicious and nutritious and we were ready to start our sightseeing. We walked around town taking it all in. The city is such a combination of old and new. The buildings looked old but then you walked down underneath them to a bright and modern metro. We took the metro to Versailles and did an audio tour. I had no idea how HUGE and how absolutely gorgeous it was. There were bright gold gates leading in, rooms decorated beyond belief and beautiful gardens, probably the biggest I have ever seen. Of course, though, my favorite room was the hall of mirrors. Between the full length windows and the elaborate chandeliers reflecting in the mirrors, the room was incredible.
We went back to Michele’s where she made us dinner, authentic Creole roasted chicken and potatoes, it was delicious. After dinner we headed over to the D’Orsay which houses the “rejects” of the Lourve. You know, the rejects (think impressionists) Monet, Manet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas, Renoir. It is an old converted train station which added to the funkiness of it and honestly, I enjoyed the art in here more so than the "older fashioned" art in the Louvre.
Around 9pm we were kicked out of the D'Orsay and headed over to the Eiffle Tower. Walking up to/under it I realized it was way bigger than I was expecting. Quite a massive structure for something that was only supposed to be temporary. The tower was originally built as a World's Fair exhibition and was to be torn down 20 years later. It proved to be a valuable communication hub and the government said it could stay. Fancy that. We were there at night and it looked so beautiful lit up. Now you're all thinking that the next thing I did was climb the Eiffle Tower. You are in fact correct, but I'm not sure you have the correct definition of "climb." I CLIMBED it, as in, all 43 stories, 686 steps. It was so cool and I'm so glad I did it...as were my legs the next morning. We had to take an elevator to the tippy tippy top, which we did, and the view was incredible. Everything looked so different (but gorgeous) lit up at night, especially along the Seine (river). While we were at the top it started to sparkle (it does so every hour on the hour) and it scared us to death when it first began. I thought it was pretty lit, but when it sparkled it was unbelievable. So we climbed back down and ran to this Tower overlook in time to catch it sparkling again. We got crepes (blueberry and nutella, the guy told me it was like vodka-going to knock me off my feet...he was right) and sat up on the ledge to see the Tower glimmer. I know it's just a tower, but it really is beautiful, makes me laugh when I think about how the Parisians hated it, calling it an "eyesore" when it was first built. There was even this novelist Guy de Maupassant who claimed to eat inside the tower everyday and when asked why he told everyone that it was the only place he couldn't see the wretched thing. Haha! Back to Michelle's to sleep and prepare for day 3...
Friday Morgan and I got up early while Michelle went to a job interview and headed over to the Catacombs. Going there I knew I was going to see quite a few bones, but I never knew the history of it. Apparently as Paris began to grow and these new inhabitants began to die, the cemeteries quickly became overrun with...dead bodies. The city became stricken with, um, disease, as open mass graves with improper burials and other shady business was occurring, so something had to be done. The police chief came up with the idea to move all of the corpses to the hollowed out mines under the city. I cannot describe to you in words how many thousands of bones there were in these massive piles, you have to see a picture.
Next we went to St. Michael’s fountain to regroup on our way to Notre Dame, I recognized it as soon as I could see it from all the pictures I’ve seen (and the Disney movie). We went inside, which was of course beautiful and saw the famous stain glass. The size is very deceiving, I was not expecting there to be as much as there was inside. Along with the many smaller chapels inside, I really liked the biblical scenes carved out of wood on many of the walls. Morgan went to catholic school and knew many of them, so she was a great little tour guide.
Notre Dame is right near the Latin Quarter so we walked around there afterwards. We stopped for some “Paris' most famous” ice cream, and, well, yeah, I guess it was really good. How exactly can something be “Paris-best” or “World’s-best” anyway? Supposively there is a list some group assembled rating many of the world’s largest cities’ best ice creams and this made the top ten. I got French vanilla and caffe, mmm.
We hopped on the subway and headed over to Père Lachaise Cemetery. I have never seen so many graves in one place. There were no typical American headstones here, all of them were big, elaborate…things. The thing is there were so many of them that there was probably only up to 6 inches between some of them! It kind of looked like lego graves from far away. Anyway, while we were there we figured it would behoove of us to pay our respects to Mr. James Morrisson, and so we did. His grave was not nearly as elaborate as the rest, but he had quite the crowd around him. There were cigarettes and roses all over, as well as love poems addressed “To Jimmy.” Next stop was Oscar Wilde’s, yes I did kiss it with red lipstick. I had a little hesitation, had to put that Rutgers Public Health knowledge aside for a moment after seeing the mass amount of red lips on it, but when in Paris… There were some really interesting things around his grave, let’s just say people left some notes in red lipstick on the grave. The last famous grave we paid our respects to, yes, that is in fact what we were doing? Anyway, it was Bach. It was really cool to see his grave, I had another one of those “study abroad” moments. I never thought I’d be able to say I saw the grave of one of the most influential musicians in history. One other thing I noticed about European graves was that there are always fresh flowers. They seem to respect…worship? their dead more so there, to the point where there are actually pictures in frames on top of many…
On Friday nights after 6pm the Lourve is free to students so we took full advantage of that. We had a scenic walk through the Tulieries, which used to be the gardens surrounding Catherine Medici’s (viva Italia! Even in Par-ee) palace…before the palace was burned down. Now it’s just a pretty area leading up to the Lourve. Walking up to the museum was incredible, not only is it gianormous, but seeing the glass triangle in person was surreal. While we were waiting in line even looking up through it was incredible. Keep in mind by this point we were already exhausted, so walking around the Lourve was done at a much slower pace and accompanied by the occasional groan from our poor little feet. So main sights that we did see was the Hammurabi code, dear God I have no idea how anyone was able to read that! It’s a big rock covered from top to bottom in an organized mess of columns of hieroglyphics. We hung with Mona for a while, she’s actually quite a bit smaller than I was expecting. The crowd around her was huge and to be honest, her eyes really are creepy. We experimented; they do actually follow you as you walk around the room. Mission accomplished Davinci. We saw the Venus, which made me laugh because it was the Italians who destroyed her, the tiny gnome/snail and Napolean’s crown/sword. We saw tons of other things, but next time I would love to devote a whole day in there and just roam around for hours.
By this point we were even more exhausted and now starving. We headed back to the Latin Quarter for one of the famous “meal deals” where you get a 3 course meal for cheap. Of course I tried the escargot (I liked! That is, after I figured out how to use the funny looking “snail holder”) for my meal Beef Bourgione and a traditional apple tart for dessert. It was delicious and I enjoyed my meal next to the restaurant’s cat. Yeah, that wouldn’t fly in the Stati Uniti, but it certainly added to the Parisian ambiance.
After dinner we stopped at Michelle’s favorite piano bar. The three of us shared a “fish bowl” (any Stuff Yer Facers?) which of course made us laugh. It came out with sparklers and between that and the awesome outdoor atmosphere we really enjoyed ourselves. Good music, good drinks, good people. By then we were spent so we headed back to Michelle’s to pass out.
Saturday was another early morning as it was our last day in Paris, but we awoke like broken-backed grandmas hobbling to the shower. We had the traditional pan de chocolat (chocolate croissante, so good) for breakfast and went to check out the Opera house. This was Michelle’s favorite building in Paris, it really was absolutely gorgeous. We wanted to tour the inside but it came down to doing that or the Arc de Troimphe and we opted from the latter. So we walked from the opera house to the Arc and for those of you who know Paris that is REALLY FAR. It was nice though, we really got a taste for the different neighborhoods in Paris. So we saw the Arc, it was weird seeing traffic going through such a famous historical landmark! While there we walked down the famous Champs de Elyse and drooled over all the pretty things we couldn’t afford. It started to rain which was fine because we had to get going back to Florence anyway, we were just happy we had such great weather for our other days.
After packing up everything at Michelle's we headed out for a last hurrah of Parisian food and attempted to try a Thai/Asian/Creole infusion. I imagine that food is delicious, unfortunately we did not pick the best of places to get a good taste. Next began our journey back home to Via Ghibbellina by metro, bus, airplane and then another bus. We returned home, exhausted, around 11pm.
I am SO glad I got to go to Paris, it may be my favorite new city. Thinking about it now, having someone who lives there and knows the area so well provided us with such a first hand experience, without having to fight with the French language, the metro and having to make any major decisions on what to see and what to skip. I think I could have spent another week, or month, whatever, visiting the city. We packed in so much in those few days we were there, definitely my best spring break ever!
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| 09-04-15 Paris |
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