Advertisement
Paris has not changed since my last visit five years ago. The city is still alluring despite the masses of people you must wade through. The Louvre is still enchanting with its cultural and historical treasures and the view of the Eiffel Tower at night still makes the hearts of lovers jump. It is a city known for romance and charm.
I have been here about five days and have managed to fit in all kinds of tourist sights. Jake was visiting from the states so I showed him around one of my favorite cities. The first day we used the metro system, for which I am proud to say I still managed to remember how it worked, and took us straight to Notre Dame and the Latin Quarter. The flying buttresses were framing the sides of the structure like decorative arms flinging themselves outward to hold up its massive body. The stained glass windows still drew eyes upward and made necks crane to see the florid arcs and twists of the frame that bore the picture of saints. The three large entrance doors were heavily carved with saints, martyrs, and characters from the bible. My favorite carving stood out
on the far left door, that of the serpent woman Lilith in the Garden of Eden. My first trip here I had seen her by chance and this time I had only to seek out her twining figure there amongst the branches of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil.
The Latin Quarter was teaming with people. I managed to find the hotel that I had stayed in with Audie years ago and remembered restaurants I had eaten at and bars I had frequented. I pointed all these out to Jake remembering what an amazing time I had had. To think that I had returned to the sight of a set of adventures I had experienced just after high school and here I was now finished with college and finding new places to explore and visit.
We ate dinner in a restaurant that had been founded roughly four hundred years ago. The meal was delicious to say the least. The walls were decorated with paintings of men in flowery shirts and velvet coats, their heads crowned with powdered wigs and their pouting lips. I could not help but wonder who they were and what they had done in their
lifetimes.
The next day was a tour of the Louvre. Jake and I perused the famous paintings of Da Vinci seeing both the enigmatic smile of a woman well known and a satyr’s smirk and pointing finger. In order to get from one wing to the next or even one painting to the next you had to maneuver through people and twist around a maze of marble statues depicting sensual Greek goddesses and victorious Greek heroes. There was an Egyptian exhibit featured at the museum and we were sure to go through to see the preserved mummies, golden jewelry so bright it had an orangey glow, coffins that looked like macabre Russian dolls all lined up and waiting to be swallowed up into the confines of another. The stories and words of the ancients covered the stone walls, crying out from the confines of time to tell their fading histories.
After a coffee and a rest at the museum café we made our way outside to see the infamous I.M. Pei Pyramids. These glass beacons were controversial when they were built because they did not quite fit into the scene of the Louvre that had once housed the royals of
France. But the glass structures were built and now made even more famous by Dan Brown’s depiction of them in The Da Vinci Code. We watched the pigeons fight for scraps, took some pictures and moved on to find our way to the Eiffel Tower.
On my previous visit I did not manage to make it to the top of this daunting structure but this time Jake and I waited patiently in line for the elevator and managed to get all the way to the top to see the sun setting. The view was astonishing to say the least. There below me was the whole of Pairs laid out like a three dimensional map. I could see Notre Dame, the Louvre, the Champs Elysees, the Moulin Rouge, and countless houses and buildings fading into the distance, dusky horizon. It was breathing taking and completely worth the wait.
We made it down safely to the bottom and headed to a café to find dinner. On the way we saw the tower scintillating against the sky in a bright golden glory.
The following day we wandered around the Musee D’Orsay. I love the Louvre but no place can take the cake when
it comes to the Musee D’Orsay. Here are the paintings of Monet, Van Gough, Degas, Manet, and Pissarro. It is here that I am left in awe and bumping into strangers and I stare and stare at the splendor left behind from a single stroke of a paintbrush onto what was once virgin canvas. Whether it be ballerinas or haystacks the paintings will always hold a special place in my heart because of my love for the impressionists.
After the impressionists we wandered away into the city. The following day was taken up by the zoo and a park full of flowers and children. Spring was still in the air and people were getting outside to enjoy the pleasant weather. We saw myriad monkeys and birds, small deer-like creatures, crocodiles and sloths, camels with a bad case of mange and wild Mongolian horses that had the wild taken out of them. Every time I visit a zoo I cannot help but feel my chest squeeze in regret that such things are behind bars, caged, and put away from their natural homes. They are no longer free or wild. They are removed from nature and placed on display like so many
paintings in the museums. But while the paintings have a life of their own and a story to tell from the walls these animals are living, breathing representations of their species and feel their captivity so acutely. Paintings are never trapped like this.
Following the park we went onto to the Champs Elysees, the Arc de Triumph and managed, again, to get the top of this structure around sunset. From here we looked back at the Eiffel Tower where I imagined people were looking over at us at that moment taking pictures of us as we took pictures of them; anonymous strangers unknowingly capturing each other in the lenses of their cameras.
The evening was wrapped up with Thai food and a nearby restaurant and a long metro ride back to the hotel. Jake got to see all the major monuments and sights of the city and I was able to revisit things from the past. All in all it was a perfect way to begin my time in Paris.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.081s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 7; qc: 45; dbt: 0.0533s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Karen Miller
non-member comment
Wow
Hey Lindz, The photos are just spectacular! What a beautiful city. I am so glad that you got to go back there. Love you.