Blogs from Île-de-France, France, Europe - page 461

You love travel. You love the senses of your adventure to lose their bounds amidst the revelations of new things. You love to bask in minority, in the ages of time passed. You love to hear everything, yet understand as little as possible, finding yourself alone, but surrounded by culture. You love to feel a part of it, yet somehow divided from it. You love to travel, yet you seek that isolated experience distinct from the connotations drawn upon like a child’s coloring book of the common tourist. So how do you do it? How do you travel and find your cultural crevasse of invisibility? One way is to go winter. Go winter. That’s what we did. We checked the local temperature. We checked the temp abroad—a Parisian temp registering a similar 40 degrees Fahrenheit—and so, ... read more

Day 5 begins. Today was my museum day. Some people don't like museums, I do. The Louvre was a must see for me. The Louvre As I said in an earlier blog, this time of the year Paris is not too crowded. It only took us about thirty minutes to go through the security checkpoint in the pyramid of the Louvre, and purchase our tickets on the main floor. A little tip: there are automated ticket machines that have much shorter lines than the regular ticket booths, but they only take 5's, 10's, and 20's. I had a 50 so I had to stand in the long line. I'm not going to say much about the Louvre. With over 30,000 individual exhibition pieces, I couldn't even begin to describe a fraction of what there was to ... read more

Ah Paris. Paris is the type of place that you must sigh about when you recall your time there. Paris is exactly what you expect it to be, and yet you're not disappointed at all. We arrived, somewhat sleepy and sore from our Venice train ride in the Gare Bercy. For awhile I didn't know where we were, Bercy is that insignificant. But we eventually worked out which Metros to take to get up to the Gares du Nord and d'Est. So we schlepped our stuff to the Liberty Hotel- and I use that term loosely- and left our stuff in a corner behind the front desk. Then we went in search of cash and breakfast. We found a ubiquitous BNP and then found a boulangerie where I bought some croissants and something with apples in ... read more

Introduction We had a short holiday at Gent University, so some friends and I decided to spend a long weekend in Paris. It was a much needed mini-vacation. The weather in Belgium was getting tiresome, and Paris was a much needed breath of fresh air. I took over three hundred photographs over the course of the trip, but I've only posted some of my favorites on the next few blogs. I have broken the trip up chronologically, and spread the photographs out over four journal entries. I hope you enjoy reading about this guy's first visit to "The City of Light". But first a short disclaimer. Who am I to write about Paris? Paris has been the subject of poetry and prose by many authors much more talented than I. My intention is not to provide ... read more

I arrived exhausted in Paris on Saturday. Nevertheless, I went out on my own and explored the City. I literally speed walked 26 km that day. I saw most of the major sites and ate the most amazing sandwich. Unfortunately it was very very cold. I could not wait to get back to the airport! ... read more