Paris is huge!
It is so big that it took us almost five hours from landing in the airport until we were in our hotel. And we didn't even get lost.. it's just so big.
Because of the amount of time it took to get to our hotel (named: Cheap Beds Paris and referred to Ali as the place where hookers get murdered) we weren't able to site-see at all Monday. But bright and early Tuesday we were up and went to McD's for breakfast (cheapest tea in Paris).
Tuesday was the best day weather-wise, that we were there. It was sunny and warm and everything looked amazing. We spent the majority of our day mindlessly wandering through the city. It was full of outdoor cafe's, water fountains, statues and cute little parks. In some spots Paris has an odd mix of old and new architecture. The city also has more museums than I think I've seen in any one city yet. Tons of which are just dedicated to art. Also, the streets & metro system are full of musicians and artists that made it constantly entertaining where ever we went.
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| Notre Dame |
Our big sites for Tuesday included Notre-Dame (just the outside, to get inside was a crazy long line), walking by & through the Musee de Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries (large garden), and of course the Eiffel Tower. Since we knew we had plenty of time, we wanted to spend our one sunny day seeing everything and then to go back and tour the insides of places on the following days which were supposed to be rainy.
Wednesday morning we rushed to meet the Sandeman's free tour group in front of St. Michel's fountain, the reason for the rush was that our RER (commuter train) broke down, so instead of 1 stop on a high speed train we had to walk over an hour and went from being very early with time for a tea stop to running very late. Our tour, like the other's we've been on by the same company, was so educational! Because I'm quite the history nerd I love the history lessons we get on these tours. Some of the highlights and fun stories were:
1) Seeing the bullet holes in the Conciergerie - the building were the Nazi's made their base. The bullet holes are the only scar on Paris from WWII, because after the Resistance movement stormed the Conciergerie, the Nazi's abandoned Paris and decided not to burn down the whole city as Hitler had ordered. It was also the original Royal Palace
2) The first stone bridge in Paris - (by the Conciergerie) Parisians were nervous to cross it at first (since it wasn't wood) so the King held a large party and emptied his wine cellars so that everyone would get drunk and forget to be scared of the bridge. During the party he had artists draw each of his guests faces and then a scultpurerer made mini face sculputres to decorate along the bridge of all the guests. Our tour guide made a joke about King Henry being so progressive he was the first man to post 300 of his friends pictures on his wall - making a facebook.
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| Love Lock Bridge |
3) Love Locks bridge- couples put a lock with their names on the bridge and throw the key into the Seine showing their eternal love. However, every couple years the police come and use lock breakers to clear up the bridge. People put locks on any bridge on Paris though that one in particular is the most common
4) Guardians of the French Language - Academics known as the "Immortals" who are France's top linguistic scholars are considered in charge of keeping the purity of the language. They decide what words are masculine or femine. They also do everything they can to keep all influences of English out of French. It took them 5 months to decide that the iPod would be masculine (the people of Paris made a joke that it is masculine because it's easy to turn on but doesn't last long). A long time ago they also were upset that the french word for "weekend" was starting to sound like the English word, so they made up a new word to keep the distinction between languages.
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| Musee de Louvre |
5) The current location of the Louvre Museum is where King Louis XIV moved to after living in the Conciergerie, also where Napoleon III lived. The pyramids out front where created by a man to be a scene of modern art in an area of old art, it was intended to be completely see-through and self supporting- but that failed. It's quite ugly and full of wires and cables
6) From Jardin des Tuileries you can spot Sacre Coeur in the distance, the basilica in on Montmartre, the highest point in the city and is famous for the view from the top (which we saw Thursday) and for using several different types of building styles
7) Place de le Concorde is the central square of historical Paris. It has the obelisk with the gold point and Egyptian hieroglyphs that was a gift from Egypt, however they sent a second one too but since the first was so difficult to bring to Paris, France returned their gift. The location of the obelisk is where the old guillotine for executions was.
Also in this square you can see the National Assembly to the south across the bridge for the river and then directly across it to the north you can see Eglise de la Madeleine, the head of the French Catholic church. They have them directly across from each other to show the very distinct separation of church and state. In France they have very strict rules regarding religion. No one of any religion is allowed to wear anything to a public school that shows which religion you're part of, including necklaces or head wear.
8) Grand Palace - built for the 1900 world fair. (although royalty never lived there) showcased the worlds first escalator and had a human zoo. The human zoo was apparently popular back then and they were exhibits of people in their "natural or primitive" state typically showing the difference between Europeans and non-Europeans. Luckily, people eventually realized they were highly racist and degrading.
9) Eiffel Tower - built as the entrance to the 1900 world fair. It was supposed to only be there for 20 years until a radio transmitter was put on top and hence making the Eiffel Tower "useful" it has not been taken down. When the German's invaded Paris they cut the cord of the elevators so that the Germans could not go to the top making it a part of Paris only ever owned by the Parisians.
10) Musee de l'Armee - Inside the Museum of the Army is the Tomb of Napoleon, his remains were brought to Paris after he died (he was sent to exile) and his tomb was raised so that even to see his tomb people were lower than him (a bit of a narcissist). A rumored story is that when Hitler came to Paris he went to see the tomb but refused to look up at Napoleon but somehow his hat fell off and he bent to pick it up, so even Hitler bowed to Napoleon.
Sorry for the long history lesson, but I find it all fascinating. We learned lots of other fun facts along the way and as usual the tour was definitely worth our time! Because we're dumb tourists, for some reason all three of us left our jackets in the hotel, and it was the one day that it rained. This made it a bit wet and cold but everything was still very exciting, and we warmed up quite nicely with a cup of tea (expensive tea!) and warm yummy nutella crepes.
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| Venus |
On the tour we learned that the Louvre was open Wed & Fri evenings from 6-10 (an extended 4 hours) and was free to European students. Luckily, we all have our University of Oslo student ID and got free access! Because we were exhausted and had sore feet we didn't explore the whole thing. We did see: Venus & other amazing Greek sculptures, Mona Lisa and a few other paintings (there were so many we got bored pretty quickly), Mona Lisa is smaller than you'd think and I personally don't see the appeal in the painting. (it's mainly famous because it got stolen at one point). After that we went to Napoleon III's apartments. The richness and gody-ness of the place was unbelievable! Everything was gold plates, tons of crystal chandeliers and huge doorways that could fit a giant. But it was still very beautiful!
Thursday morning we headed out to Chateau de Versailles. It was the country home of the royalty until King Louis XIV (mentioned above) got sick of the people of Paris and moved permanently out there. It was also the home of Louis XVI & Marie Antoinette, until they were beheaded. We didn't want to pay to go inside (very pricey) though we hear it's stunning! Instead we spent several hours wandering the immense gardens of the palace. Closest to the palace are perfectly groomed flower beds made into pretty designs. Further out are long rows of bushes, trees and lawn decorated with marble statues, ponds and fountains. Partway through our walk the sun came out and we got to see how truly beautiful it was.
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| Sacre Coeur |
After Versailles we headed back into Paris and went over to Des Champs Elysees the famous 2km long road full of Paris's top shops and restaurants leading up to the Arc de Triomphe (Arch of Triumph) which was built by Napoleon to show how "magnificent" his victories were. It is also know the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the location of the eternal flame. After that we walked down the famous street and were shocked at some of the stores we saw. Cartier, Louis Vuitton etc. Then we took a metro (to save our owee feet) and went to Sacre Coeur. It was beautiful! From the top you can see all of Paris! The very top has a better view I'm sure but that cost money! From there we found the red light district (which was very obvious by the names of the shops and "establishments") and the Moulin Rouge! Since I love that movie I enjoyed seeing it! That night we stayed out late and saw the Eiffel Tower all lit up! Every hour on the hour, for five minutes it sparkles! The guys selling tourist crap are very smart, they were also selling bottles of wine at the park in front of the Eiffel Tower (it's a very romantic spot).
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Image from Google- shows the
colors better than my pics |
Friday bright and very very early (6am) we were up and getting ready to go on our last day in Paris. We started it with going inside Notre Dame. It was amazing! Of course, we were told it looks best on a sunny day because of all the stained glass (and we went on an overcast day), but it was still breath taking, and absolutely huge! From there we went to Saint Chappelle cathedral, the original Royal Chapel in the courtyard of La Conciergerie. It was built to house King Louis IX's collection of relics of Christ. He had the crown of thorns, Image of Edessa and parts of the cross. The chapel itself is almost completely stained glass and is some of the best 13th century stained glass. This place also would have been more stunning on a sunny day, but it was still amazing! After that we walked back over to Notre Dame (luckily close to each other) and climbed up 69metres to the top of the towers and explored the belfry, looked at gargoyles and looked out over the whole city where we could see all the land marks we had visited. The finale viewing of the city was the perfect way to wrap up our visit to Paris. The city was so huge that there is of course many things I still want to see but was unable to.
Aside from the tourist stuff. Everyone says that the French are rude to tourists particularly American tourists. We found this to be completely and utterly false! Everyone we met was extremely nice and helpful. Majority of the French people we met did not know English at all and we don't know French at all, but through elaborate gestures they were always able to help us if we needed it. Because many of the words are Latin based like English, seeing the words made it easy to figure out what they meant, however hearing the words was completely different. The French language is very complex with lots of letters not pronounced and extra combination sounds. Even though the language was way beyond anything I could grasp it really is a beautiful language!
I look forward to a day when I can go back to Paris and further explore and see the amazing sites that are there!
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| Eiffel Tower |
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| Napoleon III Apartments |
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| Versailles Garden |
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| Eiffel Tower at night |
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| Notre Dame |
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| Top of Notre Dame |
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| Gargoyle Notre Dame |
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| Looking Down |
The first night was: me flying to Edinburgh solo and staying in the crappiest hostel of my trips yet (but that's alright! It was $10).
-Edinburgh Dungeon - a haunted house of sorts with actors and props to retell Edingburghs "bloody past" with cannibals, torture and grave robbers/murderers that sold bodies to doctors.
