Perched on a hill overlooking Paris, it's a beautiful structure with snippity guards who thankfully don't speak Spanish. :D Lesson: When told not to do something in Paris, pretend to not speak English or French, and only mutter in Spanish. This enabled me to keep most of my pictures of the Sacre Coeur's interior.
After the Sacre Coeur, which left you with a feeling a reverence, we went for a complete change in atmosphere and headed for the Moulin Rouge. Appropriately situated in the red light of Paris, the Moulin Rouge was a bit of a disappointment.
While there was a windmill, it wasn't THAT big and all in all, I wasn't impressed. What did impress me were the banana and nutella crepes that we bought from a stand next to the Moulin Rouge. Absolutely amazing. If you go to Paris, go buy crepes from the stand on the street corner to the right of the Moulin Rouge.
After we finished our scrumptious crepes, we headed down through the streets in the general direction of the Louvre. In route we saw some cool churchs, a theatre, and the Opera Garnier. This building is cool enough that we didn't realize that we were entering through the back until a guard told us to exit and go around the building.
After taking pictures in front, we went inside to see if we could purchase entrance tickets. We could have, but as there was a rehearsal taking place, we wouldn't have been able to go in the main auditorium, just the lobbies, and hallways. That didn't make it worth it for me to buy tickets so we went on our merry little way. In case you didn't know, the Opera Garnier is the opera house where the story of the Phantom of the Opera was set.
Before we arrived at the Louvre, we passed through the ritzy, brand-name shopping district with its 5-star hotels and such. We also passed Godiva Chocolatiers and I would have stopped to buy chocolate except it was croweded at the time and also, I'm going to Belgium later. Why buy it in Paris when I'll be in Brussels itself?
Once we arrived at the Louvre, we weren't actually at the Louvre itself. Instead we were at the other end of the Tuileries Gardens where you can find two other smaller museums. One is the L'Orangerie (or something like that) with Monet's water lilies collections and I don't remember the other. As it was Tuesday, the museum was closed. Although we didn't go inside, I did have a narrow escape with a lion outside.
From the gardens, we continued down past the huge busy square with an Egyptian obelisk. This square also happened to be the same square that housed the infamous guillotine. Our chosen direction took us up the Champs-Élysées. After wandering past all the pretty boutiques and expensive brand-name stores, we arrived at the Arc de Triomphe.
Situated in the Place de Charles de Gaulle, cars zoom past in a 5/6-"lane" roundabout. I put lane in quotations because while 5 to 6 lanes would fit, and they most certainly drove that way, there are no lines painted. The only access to the Arc is through a pedestrian tunnel, unless of course you would like to risk your life trying to cross the roundabout. Located underneath the Arc is the French Tomb of the Unknown Soldier with a perpetually burning flame.
After grabbing some lunch on the Champs-Élysées, we hopped a train for Versailles. Unknowingly, we only purchased an in-city metro ticket in order to get out to Versailles because the commuter train system of Paris runs through the same stations as the metro. So we caught a metro to a connection with the train and then rode it out to Versailles. As we weren't using the right tickets, when we attempted to leave the station, the turnstiles wouldn't let us out. Considering that the station inside the city don't make you use your tickets to exit, we didn't know what to do. Not wanting to pay a fine for not buying the right ticket, we ducked under the turnstile and made our way on to the Versailles. We were lucky that time that no one caught us. After I left Ally in Paris (she wanted to stay an extra day to go to Disneyland Paris), she got caught in the same situation and had to pay a 25€ fine. Ouch.
The gardens at Versailles are free and were pretty although I really want to go back and see them in spring, just like the rest of the parks and gardens in Europe that I've seen so far.
The only downside to the gardens in winter is that many of the statues are all winterized with canvas coverings, which while amusing to look at, don't give you an authentic feel for the place.
Probably the most frustrating part of our entire time in Paris happened next. We thought that the Palace itself (with the King's and Queen's apartments and the Hall of Mirrors) closed at 6:30pm. So we left the gardens at 4:30 to go enter. We bought our tickets and then when we went to another desk to grab maps of the building, were told that the museum was actually closing at FIVE pm, and we would have only half an hour to view the apartments and the hall. We hurriedly walked through the light rain that began to fall to the entrance to the palace and fretted while standing in the security line. Once inside, we weren't sure which door to enter inspite of the maps we had and took a guess. Thankfully it was the right building. However, as we were speed-walking through the Prince's apartments, I asked a security guard for directions to the Hall of Mirrors. This is when we heard the dreaded words that it had already been closed and the section we were in was the only one open. Needless to say, we were angry and frustrated at the ticket office people for not warning about this (let's just say the tickets hadn't been cheap) and started enjoying the rooms we were walking through. Once we reached the end of them, we noticed a big grand staircase that people were coming down. Knowing that the Hall was upstairs, we disregarded the sign saying "Do Not Enter" and went up the stairs.
If people were coming down, why couldn't we go up since we'd paid our fair share? The worst that could happen would be if a guard came up to us and physically stopped us from going up. Which thankfully, no one did. Then it was like a fish against the current as we went through the Queen's apartments from the wrong direction. But we made it to the Hall of Mirrors in time to walk the entire length and take pictures in an uncrowed atmosphere, since most of the other visitors had already been herded in the direction of the exit.
After that, we went slowly back through the Queen's apartments, taking more pictures. After making it to the Hall and through the apartments, I understand why they close earlier in winter--the light from outside is of a crummy quality. So while I really don't have that great of pictures, at least I HAVE pictures and I have the memories, whether good (the Hall) or bad (the employees). Eh, sie la vive, or however those French say it.
After Versailles, we headed back to Paris (this time paying the actual price) and had kebabs for supper. During which this poor guy was embarrassed by his friends when, after confirming that we spoke English, they made him come up to us and try to start a conversation to practice his English. Unfortunately, the poor guy was so embarrassed he couldn't say anything. Ally and I didn't know what to say either beyond "hi" and "what's your name" since he wasn't carrying his own side of the conversation.
Wednesday dawned bright and early for us as we headed to the Eiffel Tower. We wanted to be there when it opened in an attempt to avoid the forecasted year-round crowds. We arrived 10 minutes before the ticket offices opened and ended up only waiting roughly 30 minutes before we were in an elevator headed to the top of the tower. I had thought that the early morning light would be excellent for views of the city, but apparently Paris is a hazy little place.
But no worries, I still enjoyed my time up at the top, took lots of pictures, found out that New York is 5849 km from the tower,
and mailed a postcard to my parents from the first level of the tower.
After descending the tower, we took more pictures out front of the tower, were accosted by the immigrants who believe all English-speakers are rich and want to donate to their cause, bought and ate lunch within sight of the tower, and relaxed before heading off for the next part of Paris.
On our way to Notre Dame, we stopped in the Luxembourg Gardens, beautiful even in winter,
Paris' version of the Pantheon, 
and the Latin Quarter. I was a little disappointed in the Latin Quarter as it seemed to me just like any other small shopping district, but whatever. Maybe there's more life in the summer.Notre Dame was not a disappointment.
The cathedral soars above you and makes you feel pretty insignificant. Also, the gargoyles are fascinating and reminded me of the TV show from oh-so-long-ago where they would come to life at night and go flying about the city doing I don't remember what.
Inside the cathedral is magnificent too, even to someone oversaturated with European cathedrals. One of the fun parts of traveling Europe at Christmas is seeing all the different Nativity Scenes that each church and cathedral put up.
After Notre Dame, we rested our little feetsies before walking to the square of the Bastille. On the way, I saw a cheese shop and took a picture, just for you, Jenne.
Unfortunately, the prison no longer stands and all there is to commemorate it is a pillar, but for the history factor, it was still worth the visit for me. From there we caught a metro down to the Eiffel Tower again so that we could see it at night. It's just as amazing at night as during the day, and it even has lights that sparkle for 10 minutes every hour. We took pictures of it as normally lit up, went to go have pastries and coffee in a cafe within site, and then returned to take more pictures/videos as it sparkled. Freezing cold, but worth it.
I say badly planned not because we didn't have enough time inside, but because we were tired and lasted a shorter time than we probably could have been capable of if we had visited it our first day. Nevertheless, we made it to almost all the exhibits open and definitely saw the big pieces. Such as the Winged Victory of Samothrace,
Venus de Milo, 
the Code of Hammurabi,
and the Mona Lisa. Speaking of which, I'm really not a fan of Mona. It's just a small portrait of an ordinary woman and her smile isn't really that intriguing. Not only that, but they only let the school groups actually get close to look at her. 
I was more interested in some the HUGE paintings they had displayed (you never realize from textbooks just how big they are) and watching local art students/artisans sitting in the halls of the Louvre, copying the masters. 
My major disappointment with the Louvre was that the wing for the Dutch painters was closed off and I couldn't see as much Rembrandt, etc as I wanted.
After the Louvre, we split ways as I went back to the Opera Garnier to see if they were having reheasals that day and Ally went to the Monet museum. Unfortunately, the auditorium was still closed but I did get some more pictures of the main lobby. Fortunately, I was able to lust after the Godiva chocolate again (although I didn't buy anything because I didn't know any French to fight my way through the crowd at the counter) and this time sneak a picture of the chocolate-dipped strawberries. Mmmmmm...
Ally and I met up again at her next hostel (she had changed for her next two nights in Paris) and there we parted ways for the last time, she to stay before meeting up with other friends in Amsterdam and me back to Valencia. Thankfully, I had no problems catching my shuttle bus back to the airport, and the flight caused me no problems either.
And that's Paris, my friends!
1 comment:
Great pictures, just got back from Paris and these were great to bring back memories..i saw the moulin rouge but for some reason i didnt see the windmill.
Post a Comment