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Early heads up, I will cover Paris in two entries - Paris main (this one) and Euro Disney which will be a separate entry, even though it occurred during our Paris visit!
We arrived at Paris Airport pretty much dead on time. From there it was bag collect, transfer terminals, get a train, then a metro and a short stroll to our hotel which borders the sixth and seventh arrondissements. Essentially the city is divided into 20 of these 'administrative districts', indicated by the postcode. They are arranged in the form of a clockwise spiral (snail shell) starting from the middle of the city and north of the Seine River, so 6/7 are south of the river but close to the middle of the city.althoughwe were also pretty close to 13 and 14.
Hotel was nice, we were on the top (5th) floor and the elevator barely fit the two of us with bags. The room was also tiny but would suffice for five nights.
We managed to grab dinner at a Crepe restaurant and muddle our way through ordering. Or I did given I decided I needed to add ice cream to my caramel dessert crepe. Wasn't
sure what I would end up with but it ended up being what I hoped it would be! Win #1.
After dinner we walked up to the end of the Champ de Mars to get some evening/dusk photos of the Eiffel Tower. We sat there on the grass with hundreds of other people, saying no to hawkers trying to sell us beer and wine and ignoring the drunk teenagers.
After seeing it sparkle (which its 300-odd lights do every night for five minutes until 1am) we walked back to the hotel and went to bed.
Next morning it was off to St Michel to meet our walking tour guide for another free walking tour.
The tour took in the main sites, some from a distance such as the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame.
We walked past the Académie Française and Assemblee National, saw the Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Elysees. Also walked over on to the Ile de la Cite, or island in the city, and the 'old bridge' which is the newest bridge.
Also wandered through the area where The Louvre is before finishing up seeing some of the palais and a lovely park.
By the time the tour had finished it was well and truly lunchtime so we grabbed a baguette and drink and sat in the same park for a while enjoying the weather, the views and the 'tranquility'.
From there we walked across to the Musée de la l'Orangerie, one of many art museums in Paris. It contains some of Monets' masterpieces (the water lilies paintings) plus collections from Jean Walter and Paul Guillaume - dedicated to the likes of Renoir, Cezanne, Matisse, and Picasso.
We then walked down the Champs Elysees, a 1.9km strip best known for its luxury shops and cafes. I didn't buy anything.
Ended the stroll at the Arc de Triomphe. Built in the early 1880s, it is 50m tall and one of the most famous monuments in Paris. A smaller version of it, the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel, stands to the west of the Louvre, with another in Rome just near the Colosseum.
The Arc de Triomphe honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces. Twelve
streets lead to the Arc, making the roundabout one of the most dangerous in Europe/ the world. Crossing it is a nightmare with no traffic lights or crossings - just like playing chicken with the cars (just kidding Mum, there is an underground tunnel).
Then it was some average Chinese food/noodles for dinner before calling it a night.
Up the next morning to head to Notre Dame Cathedral. Being a Tuesday, a few of the museums were closed so we had planned our Paris itinerary somewhat, as other things were closed on Monday too!
In line with yesterday's walking guide tour recommendations we did the full walk around the Cathedral, noting her behind was quite nice to look at. Seeing as it was free we also lined up and went in to check her out. Impressive stained glass windows. Notre Dame was also built over a period of nearly 200 years, quite a long time, and there were photos and boards inside that showed how it was left for so long.
We then headed to the Musee d'Orsay, another famous art museum. It is on the bank of the Seine and is housed in a former
railway station, built for the world expo in 1900. It was converted to a museum in the 1970s and the building itself is quite impressive for a museum. The museum holds a large collection of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, including well known ones from the likes of Monet, Renoir, Cezanne and Van Gogh.
To be honest - the roof and building itself was worth a visit, let alone the art. But among the pieces of note (i.e. the ones I had heard of or seen previously) were Van Gogh's Starry Night, Renoir's dance party (Bal du Moulin de la Galette), Degas' Small Dancer, Monet's Houses of Parliament and Gogh's Self Portrait.
From there we decided to walk up to the Eiffel Tower, grabbing lunch on the way. Quite a long walk and unfortunately for us we were about three quarters of the way there when it started to rain. We were prepared, having looked at the forecast, but changed plans to scrap the tower and head back to the hotel anyway since it was mid to late afternoon anyway and the rain was on the heavy side of consistent.
Next day was Euro Disney which will be
the subject of a separate entry.
Our final day in Paris started later after a long Disney day, first up was the Eiffel Tower for some photos. Again, the postcard hawkers I remember from the 2001 visit had again been replaced by selfie stick hawkers, and lots of men carrying around giant rings of Eiffel Towers in various shapes and sizes. You couldn't walk a couple of meters without someone approaching you. After walking around and admiring the giant metal structure we headed back to the metro for an afternoon at the Louvre.
The Louvre is the largest museum in the world and a well known, historic monument and central landmark In Paris. It has nearly 35,000 objects exhibited. The audio guide has 35 hours of content, there are 8km of hallways and has around 10m visitors a year. Most of who run in, look at the Mona Lisa, and run out again.
It is huge. Multiple wings, lots of security, lots of French descriptions. But very little English on most of the exhibits. We spent a couple of hours ticking off the main things to do - the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo's Dying Slave, the Winged Victory
of Samothrace, Venus de Milo, Sphinx of Tanis, and Botticelli's Venus with Three Graces.
By then it was late afternoon so back to the hotel for our final dinner in Paris (Mexican, ironic huh?).
Couple of additional thoughts about Paris. And perhaps more broadly about Europe which I don't recall from my last visits.
Firstly, the amount of police and military everywhere. Around Notre Dame there were army/military guys patrolling with machine guns. Lots of them in the train stations too. Not uncommon to see what look like riot police at stations, sometimes 10 or so cars and vans of them. Sirens sometimes feel endless. But despite this everything feels quite safe. Security checks everywhere but that's pretty normal these days.
The other thing is the amount of smokers in Europe. In Australia, it's pretty rare you end up getting a face full of second hand smoke from someone walking near you. Here - it is everywhere. Smokers in restaurants, outside buildings, in train stations. Can be hard to avoid at times! Odd to think we used to be that way and now come to expect a smoke free world!
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