PARIS, FRANCE

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Bonjour mes amis! (Hello my friends!) We have returned from the last 6 days of our European adventure. We arrived in Paris on Saturday December 30th later than expected because our flight was delayed. Our first business, as usual, was to find our hotel. This hotel was certainly no Swissôtel like in Zürich! Since it was the holidays, rooms in Paris were quite pricy. So we booked a room at a more affordable hotel located just outside central Paris. Let’s just say we got what we paid for! We learned to make no assumptions about what we think a hotel typically provides. This hotel didn’t even provide us with shampoo! 😊 But, our room was decent and the bed was comfortable enough and we got a breakfast buffet every morning. We purchased a 5 day travel card to allow us on all public transit in Paris. We both have always wanted to see the Eiffel Tower so that was the first attraction we visited. The first view we had of the Eiffel Tower was breathtaking…we walked out of the metro station and the tower slowly came into sight just ahead of us. After snapping a handful of photos, we walked along the Seine River. We had tickets for a one hour boat cruise along the river that passed by many of the main sites in Paris. After the cruise we went to the base of the Eiffel Tower and wandered amongst the sea of tourists.

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We spent New Year’s Eve on Avenue des Champs Elysees which runs between the Arc de Triomphe and the place de la Concorde. Avenue des Champs Elysees is famous for its large volume of posh restaurants, cafés, and shops. It is also used as part of the route for the Tour de France. New Year’s Eve in Paris was not as grand as we expected it to be. Thousands of people crowded the roads around the Arc de Triomphe, most people carrying their own bottle of champagne. There was no countdown and hence no way to know when the new year struck except by looking at your watch. Shortly after midnight, Avenue des Champs Elysees became quite violent due to many drunk people throwing glass bottles at each other and fights erupting. We had to hurry out of the crowd to avoid being run over. We got banged into quite a bit and Bri got hit in the mouth, but we made it out relatively unharmed. As we were passing an underground parking garage, we heard a loud bang which we figure was someone lighting a firecracker. Police quickly ran to the scene. There were police all over the streets fully armed in riot gear (helmets, shields, guns, and padding) waiting to act quickly. We got to our metro station only to find out it was closed and we saw a police officer and his dog go into the station. We eventually made it back to the hotel, glad to have survived a very interesting New Year’s celebration.

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On New Year’s Day most of the shops and attractions were closed. We went to Trocadéro, two buildings that form a semi-circle housing many museums, located directly across the Seine River from the Eiffel Tower. We took in the annual marching band parade that showcases marching bands from around the world. The next site we visited was Notre-Dame Cathedral. Construction for Notre-Dame started in 1163. This is the cathedral that Victor Hugo refers to in his book Notre-Dame de Paris, introducing the hunchback, Quasimodo. Some of you may be familiar with the movie The Hunchback of Notre-Dame, based on this book. In the story, Quasimodo is said to have lived inside the two bell towers at the top of Notre-Dame and to have swung from the gargoyles on the building at night. Notre-Dame is quite stunning inside with very high ceilings and intricate architecture. The bell towers reach 69 metres high. Later in the evening we went to the Latin Quarter which is located not far from Notre-Dame. The Latin Quarter is a very lively area full of small streets lined with souvenir shops, restaurants, cafés, jazz clubs, cinemas, bookshops, and churches. We had a 3 course meal at a restaurant for only €10 each. After dinner we went on a romantic walk along the Seine River for a couple of hours.

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The next day we went to the largest museum in the world: the Louvre! The Louvre used to be a fortress under the reign of Charles V, who then transformed it into a medieval castle. Years later the Louvre became a palace under the reign of various kings such as Henry IV, Louis XIII, Louis XIV, and Louis XV. Later, King François I instigated considerable rebuilding in 1546 and initiated the Louvre collections. He brought the Mona Lisa and Leonardo Da Vinci to France in 1578. The Louvre today has over 30, 000 pieces of work exhibited and covers 160,000 square metres. The three most famous works of art in the Louvre are the Mona Lisa, Venus de Milo, and The Winged Victory of Samothrace. The two of us have never really been museum-goers, but we found ourselves engrossed in the Louvre for four hours. Having both read The Da Vinci Code, we found it interesting to actually be inside the Louvre at many locations that Dan Brown refers to in his book. We did not have the time (or energy) to go through the entire Louvre, but we did see a lot of it and of course made a point to see the most famous works. The Mona Lisa is a surprisingly small painting and is tightly secured by ropes and guards allowing visitors only within a radius of about fifteen feet of the painting. There was only time to take a few quick pictures before being hurried away by guards due to the large volume of visitors surrounding the Mona Lisa. After leaving the Louvre we went to see the Grand Palais which hosts hundreds of temporary fairs art salons and houses a science museum and planetarium. Lastly, we visited the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc de Triomphe is at one end of Avenue des Champs Elysees and stands 50 metres high. Napoléon commissioned a memorial to be built for the French army in 1806, but the Arc de Triomphe was not completed until 1836. After World War I, victorious troops marched under the Arc.

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On Thursday we ventured to Montmartre, a very artsy neighbourhood in Paris that is also home to Sacré-Coeur and Moulin Rouge. The place de Tertre is a popular square in Montmartre where dozens of local artists set up their easels and paint for the tourists. The artists here paint anything from scenery to personal portraits of any tourists willing to sit and model. Montmartre is located on a hill in the northern part of Paris. Sacré-Coeur was commissioned as atonement for the 58,000 dead of the 1870-1 Franco-Prussian war. Priests keep prayers running inside this church 24 hours a day. We stood outside Sacré-Coeur, which is the highest point in Paris. We then went inside the church and sat down to observe the current service. The Sacré-Coeur is absolutely beautiful inside. We walked around Montmartre and made our way to Moulin Rouge. Moulin Rouge is on a main street on the edge of Montmartre and is surrounded by various sex shops and cafés. After Montmartre we went back into central Paris to visit the Panthéon. The Panthéon is a resting place for outstanding citizens of France. The main floor of the Panthéon displays numerous religious paintings. One set of paintings that particularly caught our eyes was that of the life of Joan of Arc. Underneath the Panthéon is the crypt where the tombs of Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, Louis Braille, Marie and Peter Curie and many others are kept. Our last adventure of the day was Tour Montparnasse. We took a lift up 56 stories of this building to get a view of Paris.

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We now reach or final full day in Paris! Our legs were already feeling the effects of nearly two straight weeks of walking, but we decided to climb the stairs of the Eiffel Tower! 669 stairs later, we looked out over Paris from the second observation deck. The only way to reach the summit of the tower is to pay for the lift but we opted not to since we had already seen Paris from a high vantage point at Montparnasse. The view was spectacular! After our long climb up (and back down) the tower, we were exhausted! But, we summoned enough energy to keep going and we went to visit the Hôtel des Invalides. Les Invalides was designed to house old and wounded soldiers, many reduced to dire straits. 6,000 soldiers once resided there. Today under 100 soldiers remain. Les Invalides also houses Musée de l’Armée which displays an extensive collection of weapons, armour, flags, uniforms, and paintings. The main attraction at Les Invalides is the tomb of Napoléon Bonaparte. Napoléon’s body was returned to France in 1861 and is encased inside six layers of coffins mounted on a large granite base.

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Our trip over the last two weeks has been the experience of a lifetime. We have learned a lot about history and European culture. It is an experience we will never forget.

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Photos

Bri standing in front of the glass pyramid at the Louvre
That's right. It's only that big!

Mona Lisa - Leonardo Da Vinci
Yes, this is the original Mona Lisa