Paris

Paris

We came to Paris with a mission- to reclaim “The City of Love.” Our previous visit wasn’t our best city exploration experience and we vowed for a great re-do. We exceeded expectations…

               When we arrived by train, we were astonished by the main Paris train station. It is beautiful, with ornate windows and big skylights. But that was only a prelude to what we would experience in this great city.  We took the Paris metro to get to our hotel… we love taking local transit when visiting a new city, it’s a great way to experience the place like locals do and get a close-up feel for a city.  As we emerged from the metro, on the way to our hotel, we passed right by the Arc de Triomphe. Last time we were here, we just drove past it quickly, but up close, right in person, it is something else. It’s super large and it’s also very ornate and has these carvings all over that would take me years to do a fractional of. When we got to the InterContinental, our hotel, we were hungry, so we mapped to a good crepe place. Last time in Paris, we didn’t even try a crepe, even though crepes are a fabulously “French” street food. We love them so much that we make them frequently at home and it’s hard to imagine that we made it through a visit to Paris and missed them.  Not this time! The crepe place we went to, Le Chalet, 8eme was great. I split a savory egg and bacon crepe as well as a chocolate banana crepe with my brother. They were both yummy, but I liked the savory crepe better. The sweet crepe was a bit too sweet for me. When we had eaten crepes to our hearts’ content, we headed over to Parc Monceau. Parc Monceau is a park that was built by the Duke of Orléans/ Chartres to be an astonishing public park. It was eventually called the Folly of the Duke of Chartres because it was a fluke in it’s day. In a way, years later, the park has ultimately accomplished its purpose, though. Although the park used to have camels on its grounds and was crazy with mismatched splendors from around the globe, the romantic decay of the park today is astonishing, and while it might not be astonishing in the way the Duke originally intended, today it is a sight well-worth experiencing. There is a miniature pyramid, a few Roman columns and even a grotto! It’s pretty amazing. Already, we were having a great start to Paris!

               The next morning, we rose early to see Sainte Chapelle. The outside wasn’t that interesting and I wasn’t that excited, but boy was I wrong! We had a pre-ordered ticket, and we went right when it opened, so there wasn’t a line for us, but there was quite a long one for tickets at as early as 9:30! The small chappel when you enter is pretty enough, with a few stained glass windows and painted ceilings. But the real attention should be on the upper floor. A feast of stained glass everywhere you look. Such intricacy, such beauty, such color. Each panel tells a story. It’s just amazing. The ceiling is painted with gold flowers and castles. With the light shining, the alter looks perfect. It was built to house the crown of thorns that, according to the bible, Jesus wore when he was crucified, but now the crown of thorns (or the artifact that believers call the crown of thorns) resides in Notre Dame. Even though the crown of thorns isn’t here, this old church could not have been more worthy. When we walked out of Sainte Chapelle, our first stop was the Conciergerie. The Conciergerie is  an old prison where the revolutionaries kept prisoners before they were sent off to the gallows. It’s where Marie Antoinette spent her last days, before being separated from her head. They’ve put together a nice museum there and you can see what some of the cells looked like way back when. We breezed through it and on the way out, we caught a peek at Notre Dame. Because of the fire that nearly destroyed it, the whole place is under construction, and we could only see the outside, but it was still very crowded, and it made me feel sad to see the charred skeleton of the church and imagine how it looked before the fire and how it will look when it’s finally restored. We then headed onto a bridge to our tour at the Palais Royal. We grabbed a quick bite at My Bio Delicious, which is pretty much a Whole Foods of Paris. When we got to the Palais Royal, we explored the park a bit and saw a mini cannon that fires every Wednesday at noon. People used to set their clocks by it. It’s powered by the sun, so at noon, the rays are strongest. In the old days, they  put out a magnifying glass and it lit the wick because of the strong rays, which was pretty impressive technology back then… and if you check the time of the blast, your clock can never be wrong! We had found this in a Mission Paris book, which is really fun and informative. When it was time to meet up for our tour, we stepped out of the park and found our tour guide from the Paris Muse Tours. Unexpectedly… there had been a murder! (For those of you holding your breath, please don’t. It was part of the tour and it had happened a few hundred years ago, during the terror of the French revolution.) I won’t explain much more so as not to spoil it, but the murder-mystery history was really fun. We learned a lot about the French revolution while exploring the Palais Royal, Saint-Germain, and other sites. We carefully investigated each suspect and found one guilty at the end. My lips are sealed! After the tour, we walked to Saint-Sulpice. We had read The Da Vinci Code before going to Paris and we wanted to see all of the sites from the book. No spoilers, but it is a really great book and good to read before going to Paris. There’s also a movie of it, but it can get a bit bloody and there is some nudity, so the book is a more PG option. But seeing sites from the book is pretty cool. Also, the organ at Saint-Sulpice is pretty, ornate and beautiful. After seeing Saint-Sulpice, we headed down an alleyway that we had passed on our tour and found Le Relais Odéon, where we sat down to order dinner. The food there was delicious and we got to eat in a classic, old style French street with a beautiful view, just a few blocks from where the famous Dr. Guillotine invented the guillotine, which – interestingly – we had learned on our tour was invented to make execution more humane.  Back in those days if you were convicted of a crime, you were executed by hanging, which usually meant a slow strangulation, or you were drawn and quartered, so this new invention, the guillotine, was supposed to be a “nicer” way. I suppose that a fast death is better than a long, painful one. I ordered the chicken and it was not only delicious, but I got to sit there with my family, thinking back on our day and all of the beauty and history that we saw- and I felt pretty happy, as I ate my delicious chicken, that I could visit near Dr. Guillotine’s home so many years later and just eat a nice peaceful dinner! A little bit later, we were headed to the hotel to go back to bed.

               The next morning, we woke up early to get to the Eiffel Tower – without a line! Way in advance, we had purchased tickets for the top of the tower- credit to my mother! There was no wait at all, fortunately. When we got to the top, we were greeted with amazing views of Paris, but none of them were truly iconic because you couldn’t see the Eiffel Tower since we were on it! There was also a tiny window where you could see a study with wax figures (eek!) of Gustave Eiffel and Thomas Edison, recreating a meeting they actually had in Eiffel’s apartment right there at that location: when he built the tower for the World Fair, Eiffel took an area at the top for his own little apartment, which he used to entertain guests.  Pretty cool to see! As we descended, we got more good views. We pointed out the Louvre and the Arc de Triomphe. On one of the lower levels, there was a transparent floor that you could walk on. It was scary and cool at the same time. We took the stairs down and when we left, we were headed to the Seine, the main river of Paris. We saw a hop on-hop off boat and hopped on! My brother really wanted to do this and it was a nice way to get around. We got off at Notre Dame and saw the Memorial des Martyrs de la Deportation, a memorial to the French Jews who were deported and died during the Nazi occupation in World War II. It was very moving. After this, we headed to the Louvre to meet our tour guide. Thanks to Paris Muse Tours, and with the help of the guide, we completely skipped the line, which was amazing. Last time we came to Paris, we did a horrible job with skipping the line at the Louvre. This time, with the help of Paris Muse, we followed a treasure hunt (Again, don’t hold your breath. It was part of the tour.) to the many areas of the Louvre. We saw the Code of Hammurabi, carved into a massive piece of stone, which was amazing. I hadn’t learned about it yet, so the history was really interesting. The Code of Hammurabi was the first set of laws, which included “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” We also saw a sphinx and learned why the noses were broken off. The Ancient Egyptians believed that the nose is where the curses came from, so by breaking off the nose, the sphinx can no longer keep you from stealing by “blowing” a curse at you through his nose! I suppose that that was the first way that people recognised how germs were bad, in the form of an all-knowing king-cat. Of course, we didn’t miss the statue, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which was my favorite. It looks very majestic on its boat, above the staircase. When they found this amazing statue it had been smashed into so many pieces that it took museum experts years to put it back together, like a giant

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

jigsaw puzzle… amazing to see it restored and towering over the stairs so beautifully, as if she’s looking down on all the visitors at the museum. The most popular piece of art on our tour / treasure hunt was the Mona Lisa… which is also, as everyone knows, the most popular piece of art in The Louvre – and probably in the world! When our tour guide heard that we were The Da Vinci Code fans, she also showed us an Arago Medallion and the Inverted Pyramid. They have importance in the book, but don’t worry, I won’t spoil it! After the tour, it was time for dinner, so we ventured through the Tuileries Garden to L’Alsace on the Champs- Elysées, the big shopping street of Paris. The food was pretty good. I got the French onion soup. After that, we headed back to our hotel and went to sleep.

When we woke up the next morning, we headed to the train for Versailles. The last time that we went there was magical. When we arrived for this visit, we met our tour and went inside the palace. With our tour of behind the scenes areas in Versailles, we went into all of the secret rooms. In one quiet royal room, we opened a door… and on the other side of the door was a throng of tourists. It was pretty cool to realize that we were truly seeing a side of Versailles that many don’t get to see. We saw the Opera house, the private chapel, and a library. After that, we joined the crowds and walked through the hall of mirrors out to the gardens on our own. We strolled around and found a lunch place. After getting a bite to eat, we took a boat out on the grand canal. It’s pretty fun and also scary because the boat doesn’t exactly feel stable (not to say that it isn’t). When we were done, we got some ice cream and ate it in the shade, listening to Rick Steves giving some historical background on a downloadable audio app. After that, we walked around the grounds to Marie Antoinette’s Hamlet. On the way, we stopped at the Grand Trianon. When we got to the Hamlet, we were once again blown away by its beauty, as we had been the time we visited before. Marie Antoinette’s Hamlet was

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

what made Versailles magical for us on that first visit to Versailles and we were excited to be back here taking it in again. The Hamlet is where Marie Antoinette paraded around as a commoner with her servants pretending to be villagers and the sheep perfumed so she wouldn’t have to endure an actual farm smell. While she was having the “play time,” the people of France were starving in the streets. On top of the interesting history, the hamlet is just a pretty cool and fun place to explore. There are still cattle and the cutest bunnies that you will ever see, along with quaint buildings. It’s kind of amazing and also weird that this is all still here, when you consider that they lead such a lavish lifestyle… until a crowd of angry French people marched to Versailles from Paris in revolt, and brought the king and queen back to have their heads chopped off. After our visit to the hamlet, we headed back to the main palace. We exited there and took the train back. It was a long day, and a super-fun day, and I must say, a great way to end our trip to Paris.  It did feel like we had truly reclaimed the city…

STAY TUNED FOR MY NEXT STOP, HEIDELBERG!

About the Author

Dora