Paris: Je t'aime

We left London by train in the morning to arrive at the Gare du Nord in Paris around noon.  Our first impression of Paris was stressful because while we were trying to navigate the subway with all our gear on, several professional pickpocketers approached us with false pretenses of helping us figure out where to go.  Luckily the police spotted them quickly and gave us a stern warning, resulting in the best possible scenario of teaching us a necessary lesson with minimal damage.  After that stressful encounter, we made it to our hostel in Montmartre that you may recognize as the famous district with the Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rouge.  Montmartre was a quaint place to stay, and every night around 8:00 a restaurant around the corner would have live accordion music playing, making it impossible not to feel the romance of Paris.

We dropped our bags off and headed to the iconic structure of Paris, the Eiffel Tour.  

After exploring the picturesque park around the base, Rob, Ryan, and I decided to pay the 9 Euros to head the to top and get a better view of Paris.  While climbing nearly 700 stairs, I was fascinated by its structure.

The view from the top was a bit smoggy, but impressive and a great way to appreciate the sprawling, historic city of Paris.  Coming from New York, it’s an entirely different type of city than what you would expect of a “big city”.

We started the next morning at the Notre Dame.  Below you can see the view from inside down the main aisle towards the altar.

After leaving Notre Dame, we crossed over the Seine via the Pont Neuf.  While this bridge literally means “new bridge” in French, it’s actually the oldest bridge in the city.

Exhausted, we grabbed a quick espresso in a café overlooking the Seine and eventually worked up the energy to walk to the Louvre.  This was probably one of my favorite spots of Paris; I loved the courtyard with the pyramids and fountains and took entirely too many pictures.  

Ryan and I decided to head into the Louvre to see the highlights.  Pictured above is Winged Victory.

Of course, we had to stop by and see the Mona Lisa.  The picture was much smaller than I was expecting which was hard to see around people crowded around it but Ryan and I waited patiently so that we could snap a picture in front of it.

After the Louvre, we walked on towards the Place de la Concorde and the Champs Elysee.  This is the fountain in the famous plaza where many of the royal family lost their heads to the guillotine during the French Revolution.

At the end of the Champs Elysee is L’Arc de Triomphe.  It was much larger than I was expecting.  Pictured below is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

 

After a busy day of sightseeing, we finished off the night with a trip to the Sacre Coeur.  This is the second highest point in Paris, which gave us beautiful views of the city and the Tour Eiffel that lit up the night. 

At the base of the stairs to climb up to the Sacre Coeur, there was the coolest jam session going on.  We stopped and took a seat on the stairs to listen for a while.

The next day, we took the train out to see the royal palace of Versailles.  After standing in a long line, we purchased the tickets to go on a tour and set off to explore the gardens before it began.

We also walked over to Le Grand Trianon, Marie Antoinette’s “cottage” where supposedly she used to like playing pretend milkmaid…

This is a picture of the gates outside Versailles.  In the golden gates, you can see the face of the Sun King, Louis XIV, who is largely responsible for the palace because he took his father’s hunting lodge and turned it into the royal residence that it is today.

Inside the palace was overwhelming with satin walls, pictures of the royal family, and tapestries decorating every ceiling with ornate scenes.

This is one of my favorite parts of the ceiling in one of the rooms.  Our tour guide pointed out that this was France’s impression of America when it was painted.  In it, the natives are mostly naked indicating the impression that they are savage compared to the other Europeans in the room that are fully clothed.

This is the hall of mirrors, the most beautiful part of the palace in my opinion.

Before leaving France, Erica and I couldn’t resist getting crepes and finishing off a bottle of wine underneath the Eiffel Tour to cap off the city.  On our way over on the subway, I conversed with a Parisian man in French who asked us where we were from.  When we said the states, he responded “Texas!!”, pulled out fake guns from his holster “Pow, Pow, Pow!”, “Cowboys!”.  I’m glad to know that is their impression of America today!

Overall, I loved my time in Paris because it allowed me to see the things that I have been studying since 8^th grade.  I enjoyed French culture and found that as long as you attempt to speak French to the locals, they will gladly switch over to English if the conversation is failing in order to help.  They are a proud country, but they have a wonderful culture to be proud of and we are very fortunately to have been able to see a glimpse of it during our three short days in Paris.