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Published: June 29th 2013
Paris, the city of love... and the smell of pee. No seriously, it smells like urine everywhere.
We flew into Amsterdam early on Tuesday morning, the immigration guy thought I was Paris Hilton- wasn’t sure whether to take that as an insult or a compliment, grabbed our bags and hopped on a train to Paris. We decided to buy the travel card and a museum pass which promised to get us into monuments and many museums for free (besides the cost of the pass.....). After figuring out how to find our apartment that we had rented on VRBO, we set off on our first mission.
Well, like usual we got lost. Got off on the right transit stop but really could not figure out where we were supposed to be. Wandered up and down the streets for a little while looking for ours, only to discover we were one street off the whole time. Our apartment was located off the busy market street, Rue de Mouffetard, right between a wine store (woo!) and a possionerrie(fish market). We met the owner who gave us many pamphlets about Paris in Spanish, German, and French, and then set off to sightsee before
the day was over.
First stop – the Eiffel tower of course! It was much bigger than I had thought it would be. We contemplated back and forth about whether we wanted to take the lift up the top or not, but when we finally arrived at the bottom we discovered that the Eiffel tower was on strike due to social dispute. That settled that. We walked down to the Musee National De La Marine to take more pictures of the tower, and stopped for a crepe down by the river. We were both pretty exhausted afterwards and headed back to the apartment for a good sleep.
The next day was FULL of tourist activities. We started our day out pretty leisurely. I wanted to check out the market street we were staying on, so we cruised up and down stopping at a fruit market for the best tomatoes ever, and some peaches. Headed to the wine store for a bottle of Malbec, to the bakery for croissants and baguettes, and lastly to the fromagerrie for some stinky cheese. After creating a breakfast with our treasures (yes, that included the Malbec), we were ready for our crazy day.
We went to the Pantheon, the Notre Dame Cathedral, the Crypte Archeologique du Parvis Notre Dame, Saint Chappelle, Les Halles, the Louvre, and Arc de Triomphe. The Pantheon was cool, underneath housed a crypt of interesting people including Voltaire, Marie Antoinette, Marie Currie, and Victor Hugo. Afterwards, we headed to the Notre Dame Cathedral; personally I enjoy the interior of the one in Montreal more. We also went to the crypt just outside of the cathedral where Binnson proceeded to throw my beautiful Rocky Mountain Soap coconut lip balm down into the depths of the dirt floor of the crypt, never to be seen again. We stopped at Saint Chappelle, also close by, to check out the crazy stained glass windows and then relaxed in a park in Les Halles before deciding to head to the Louvre-which is open late on Wednesday. We walked around checking out tons of paintings and sculptures, including the famous Mona Lisa and Venus de Milo. Deciding that we were Louvre-ed out, we headed to the Arc de Triomphe and climbed a bazillion stairs to get the panoramic city views. I brought my GPS watch this trip to see how far we walk in
a day of travelling and for this crazy day, we totaled 26kms. Ouch, our feet and legs were tired and ready to head back to our apartment.
The next day, we headed to Versailles, a huge palace just outside of the city. There were a ton of tourists there and we waited in a huge line to get in. It was worth it however, the palace was beautiful. I was most looking forward to roaming around in the beautiful gardens that I had seen in pictures but they were mostly under construction. After a good 4 hours, we headed back into the city. We were both pretty tired and hungry after the morning at the palace but we decided that we would grab some train food and head back to the Louvre as there was still ground to cover there. After stocking up on baguettes and croissants, we ran to make it into the train that was just about to depart. Wellllllll, that was bad decision. When the train doors close on the metro in Paris, they mean business. No throwing something in the censor to keep the doors open, they are closing no matter what. At this particular
station, there are two sets of doors, ones that open when the train arrives, and then of course the ones on the train. As we dashed to make it on, we were both smashed into each other half of our bodies on the one side of the doors and half on the other. People ran over to the doors to pry them open just in time for us to hop back onto the platform as the train took off, all limbs in tack. After picking up our broken pride, we waited with our faces down and our croissants crushed for the next train.....
We finished the day off at the Louvre waiting until it closed to head home. That night we checked out our awesome street that we were staying on, it seemed to go on forever with restaurants and bars and food stalls. The best. We gathered some goods and walked around until we were satisfied that we had seen mostly everything before heading back.
On what was supposed to be our last day in Paris, we decided that we would see a few last touristy attractions. We started the day off at Saint Germaine and Saint
Sulpice churches before going to the Luxembourg gardens, and then to Musee D’Orsay to check out some Van Gogh and Monet. Afterwards we went to the Hotel Invalides and on our search to find Napoleon’s tomb ended up in the Musee de L’Armee. When we finally figured out that his tomb was not a part of the museum and found the building where it was, the doors were JUST closing. We headed out towards the Grand and Petite Palaces before ending up on the strip outside of Arc de Triomphe again. Deciding to end our Paris adventure on Rue de Mouffetard, we started back towards home.
The next day, we were out of our tiny apartment bright and early and headed to the Gare de Lyon to book a train to our next destination, Lyon. The man at the ticket office told us that we could not get on a train with our passes until 5pm so we locked our bags up at the station and put in one last day of sightseeing. We headed back to Napoleon’s tomb to check it out first, then the Musee National de L’Orangerie for a bit more Monet and some Picasso. Next
we relaxed in the Tuleries while deciding if we wanted to head back to the Louvre at the end of the gardens, when we arrived there was a crazy long line so we decided to hop back onto the metro and go out to see the huge Montmartre Basilique du Sacre-Coeur. With just enough time to grab some baguette, croissants, and crepes for the road we caught our highspeed TGV train to Lyon.
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Amanda
non-member comment
Dear Paris... Hilton that is.
Dear Paris, I imagined that you were waving at me while standing in front of Versailles. Also wanted to let Binnson know that he looked just like the statue!!! Glad you guys are having fun!! Miss you stay safe.