Episode Twelve: In which our heroine falls in love with Paris

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Including her adventures
Watching Swan Lake at the Opera
Climbing the Eiffel Tower
Seeing the Mona Lisa
Looking for the hunchback of Notre Dame
Wandering the streets of Paris for hours
& attending a wine and cheese party
... among others

After my amazing day wandering through Montmartre, I jumped back on the Metro and headed to Bastille station to meet Armelle after work. I arrived a little early, so I wandered through the outdoor market that had been set up for Christmas, and watched some kids on the carnival rides. I bought a deliciously hot folded savoury pancake from a street vendor and ate it while walking. I also spent a while attempting to ask many people in French where I could find a public toilet. Apparently these don't exist in the area (either that or my French is terrible!) and I eventually resorted to sneaking into McDonalds. Wherever you are in the world, you can always rely on McDonalds to be close by with bathroom facilities!

Armelle had invited to me to see the French National Ballet perform "Le Lac des cygnes" (Swan Lake) in the modern Opera building. I had never been to a ballet before, and I was absolutely blown away. The dancers were accompanied by the National Orchestra, and the amazing music combined with the beautiful choreography and some unbelievable physical performances made the whole thing spectacular. I never realised before what amazing athletes ballet dancers need to be, and I was most impressed.

I was interested to see how much of the story I'd understand, because I didn't know a lot about it and there was nothing but the music and movement. It was actually really intriguing to watch a narrative on a whole different level, and although everything wasn't spelled out exactly, I was able to follow the story fairly easily. I absolutely loved the whole performance, and it capped off what was pretty much a perfect day for me. I recommend that you go and see a ballet performance if you never have, because it was captivating.

We caught the subway home after that, and I had a good discussion with Armelle about Paris and its attractions, planning for the following day, which was to be my last day there. Armed with a list of things to do and a map to follow, I went to bed exhausted.

My first stop the next day was the Eiffel Tower, which, even early in the morning, had hundreds of people milling about. I decided to climb the tower rather than taking the lift, which put me on the end of the shortest line, and had me on the stairs in a matter of minutes. The Tower has three observation decks, and you can walk as high as the second. After a bit of a climb, stopping to read the signs about the Tower's history along the way, I arrived at the first observation deck, which was buzzing with activity. I had expected that the Tower would just be a monument with a view, but as with everything these days, it has become a bit of a money-making enterprise. The first level had a display about the Tower's history, restaurants, a souvenir shop, a post office and even an ice skating rink! I went inside to warm up a little and sent a couple of postcards, then watched some of the ice skating before heading up to the second level.

The next level wasn't as commercial. I guess due to the decreasing width as the Tower got higher, there wasn't a lot of room for shops. The day was fairly clear, so I had a good view over Paris, and spotted a lot of the famous monuments and buildings with the help of the directories posted about. I took one look at the line for the lifts to the third level and realised that I'd be waiting for at least an hour if I wanted to see the same view from the third and final vantage point. I had a lot to fit into the day, so I decided against it, and headed back down the stairs.

I then strolled along the banks of the Seine, looking back at the Eiffel Tower occasionally. I saw many different views of the Tower throughout the day, and it was during my walk along the river that I took the first photo of this blog entry, with the sunlight spilling through the clouds around the Tower. It was pretty amazing how different the Tower looked depending on the time of day.

I eventually made my way to L'Arc de Triomphe, so I headed through the underpass to have a look and take a few photos. Then it was time for a stroll down Avenue Champs Elysees, looking in the windows of all of the fancy shops. A wedding procession went past, accompanied by about 4 police cars, and the newly married couple waving to everyone from an open-roofed car. It reminded me of one of the ticker-tape parades we have for returning Olympians or AFL Premiers. I don't know if they were famous, but they weren't recognisable to me, so this could just be an everyday Paris occurrence for all I know!

Passing by a few other landmarks, I arrived in the Jardin du Carousel, where I sat by a pond for a while, people-watching. On my way again, I saw the top of the inverted pyramid made famous in The Da Vinci Code and eventually reached the even more famous pyramid of the Louvre itself. The Louvre is ENORMOUS! I spent just over two hours there, and while I managed to see many of the most famous works, I passed by the majority of the paintings and sculptures I saw, and still only managed to cover a small area of the museum. If you spent only ten seconds looking at each work of art, I'd say it would take you at least a week to get through the museum. That may be an exaggeration, but either way, it's huge. (Side note: it's not actually that much of an exaggeration. According to the website, the museum has 35,000 artworks on display, so if I've worked it out correctly, viewing each for ten seconds would take over 4 days, non-stop).

I went through the painting and sculpture wing, and saw Winged Victory, the Mona Lisa and various other famous works. I wasn't all that impressed at seeing the Mona Lisa up close. It could have been a print, for all the difference I could tell, and I was actually more impressed by the Da Vinci drawings I saw at Windsor Castle. At least I can now say I've seen it in real life! I also quickly looked through the only "Australian" section in the museum, which consisted of a few pieces scattered amongst other examples of sculptures and pottery from Asia and Oceania. I didn't have time for anything else, but I will definitely have to get back there someday and see some more of the art, because a 2 hour tour of the famous works doesn't do the museum justice.

By then, it was late afternoon, so I made my way to Notre Dame Cathedral. After my incredible experience at the Sacre Coeur the day before, it didn't stand out much, but it was still a beautiful church and some of the stained glass was beautiful. I also saw the famous gargoyles, but there was no sign (or mention!) of the hunchback anywhere! Quite disappointing, really.

From there, my plan was to head back to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up and sparkling at night. I wandered through the Latin Quarter for a while, and it was another lively, colourful area that I want to explore some more in the future. Rather than follow the river back to the Tower, I decided to cut through the streets to get a different experience. This was probably a bad idea though, as I managed to get myself slightly lost. I eventually figured out where I was at the Jardin du Luxembourg, and despite the freezing cold weather (which I fought off with a warm pain au chocolat from a patisserie), I was glad for the detour. The sun was setting over the garden and there was a wonderful outdoor exhibition of black and white photography along the fence.

Maybe an hour after that, I finally made it back to the Eiffel Tower, having walked for over nine hours through the streets of Paris. I got there just in time for the hourly sparkling light display, which I watched before catching the Metro back to Armelle's. I was tired and sore after the long walk, but was pleased at fitting so much into my day.

That evening, some of Armelle's friends came over for a wine and cheese party. I was very impressed by the amount of different cheeses on offer, telling everyone that when entertaining in Australia we might pull out some camembert or brie, but that's about all. I tried some of each cheese, and they were all different, and all good. Armelle's friends all spoke at least some English, so I spoke to them for a while, as well as trying to understand the French conversations going on around me, and I had a good night.

After a few hours of sitting and chatting, I was exhausted, so I went to lie down in Armelle's room, fell asleep, and didn't wake up until Armelle came in a few hours later. Everyone had gone home by then, and the apartment was back to normal. Five minutes later, I was back in the loungeroom on my sofa and sound asleep again, ready to get up early and head to the airport the following morning.

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Photos

Statue
Outside a museum near the Eiffel Tower

Sculpture at the Louvre
With the famous Pyramid in the background, outside.