Look Out France! Here I Come--Part 6--The Louvre, Notre Dame, and the Arc de Triomphe

April 16, 2012
Paris

We had breakfast in our hotel breakfast room again this morning, as it was included in our package. Though the breakfast was good, it got to be a bit repetitive since there was very little variety. They always had bread, croissant, prosciutto, ham, two kinds of cheese, and yogurt. The only variety was sometimes they would have a chocolate croissant or some other sweet mini-pastry. I grew into the habit of having ham, prosciutto, and cheese on French bread with orange preserves each morning.

After breakfast, we headed over to the L'Orangerie Museum to see Monet’s Water Lilies paintings. The museum featured to small oval shaped rooms designed to showcase the paintings. It was very neat to see the paintings after visiting the gardens and ponds that inspired them the day before.

The L’Orangerie Museum was a tiny museum with a small collection. We walked through the entire museum in about a half hour, and with the exception of the Water Lilies nothing stood out to me. The museum is worth checking out if you have the Paris museum pass (which we did) or you are a big Monet fan, but it’s not a museum where you would spend an entire day.

We then headed over to the Louvre, where we were planning on spending most of the day. The Louvre was very crowded, especially around the masterpieces like the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo.

I was going to get the museum audio guide, but when I saw they were using Nintendo DS, I changed my mind, though we did go and get them a bit later. They were fun to use because they were wireless and could direct you to specific pieces of artwork, but they were a bit difficult to use. They had only started using them recently so only a small portion of the collection was included on it, and they still need to work out the kinks with them. I had an easier time using it than Linda since I am more used to using video game controllers than Linda.

I was surprised by the number of religious paintings in the Louvre. I found myself very drawn to them, and was happy to see a few paintings of St. Francis of Assisi, who was the patron Saint of my church. Some of the paintings were really beautiful.

 

 

The room with the Mona Lisa was insanely crowded. They had a roped off area where people could wait and more their way forward to get a closer look at the painting. We opted to look at it from an angle outside the roped area since there were so many people pushing and shoving inside the roped off area.

After exploring the museum a bit, we were ready for lunch. We wound up going to La Cuisine, which is a cafeteria near the main entrance to the museum. I actually had one of the best meals of my trip here. I ordered the beef bourguignon with French fries and Parisian Salad. The beef bourguignon was fantastic with large tender chunks of beef, carrots, and celery. The Parisian salad was excellent as well. It was basically what we in America would call a chef salad, as it had strips of cheeses and meats on it. It was served with the traditional French salad sauce (oh how I missed a choice of salad dressings).

After lunch, we walked around the museum a bit more. We went to see Napoleon’s apartments at the suggestion of my friend Krista, and they were pretty neat to see. We also found our way to the Sculpture area, where we saw a living statue talking to a group of kids.

We also found the Venus de Milo. There was a school group of young kids lying on the floor in front of her drawing her, and they were adorable. The sculpture itself was impressive to see in person. Most people only viewed and took pictures of her from the front, but I took the time to walk around her and view her from many different angles.

 

 

We wound up heading back to the Mona Lisa later in the day so that we could hear the audio commentary on the DS, since we didn’t have that the first time around. There were fewer people in the area so we decided to move in closer and get pictures with the Mona Lisa in the background.

 

 

Somehow we also managed to miss the Wedding Feast at Cana, which is in the same room as the Mona Lisa, during our first stop in the room. When I saw the size of the Wedding Feast at Cana, I was surprised that we missed it because it is so huge. I spent several minute just taking the details of this amazing piece of art. There were so many people and details in it. It was one of my favorite pieces of art we saw on the trip.

 

 

When we had our fill of the Louvre, we took the subway to Notre Dame. After seeing Sacre Coeur and the Strasbourg Cathedral, Notre Dame was a bit of a let down. It is a lot smaller than the other churches. Though it was still ornate both inside and out, it lacked the spectacular detail of the Strasbourg  Cathedral and the beauty of Sacre Coeur.

 

 

But it was definitely worth viewing because it is a beautiful church with a unique look. I was surprised by how small it was. I loved the stained glass windows and statues in Notre Dame.

 

 

 

 

We then started to walk back to the hotel. They were filming a movie on one of the bridges over the Seine. I took pictures, and zoomed in on some of the people, but none of them looked familiar. One of the guys working on the shoot said that Morgan Freeman was in the film, but he wasn’t on set that day.

After a quick break at the hotel, we took the subway to the Arc du Triomphe. I was surprised by how tall the arc was. I thought it would only be a couple of stories tall, but it was a lot taller than that. We found the steps that lead to the tunnel under the road, and made our way to the island that arc stood on in the middle of a very busy rotary.

We had learned from someone on the tour we took to Giverny and Versailles that there was an elevator that took you most of the way up the arc, so we were very grateful to avoid walking up all the stairs.

The view from the arc was amazing. A really funny guy offered to take our picture with the Eifel Tower in the background. He told us he was going to charge us to take the picture for us.

 

 

 

At one point, I walked downstairs to use the restroom at the arc. It was the smelliest nastiest rest room in Paris. It was small and creepy. My friend Diane would definitely thought this bathroom was a monkey cage.

We hung around the arc until the sun started going down so we could see Paris all lit up. The view was even more stunning at night.

We then started to walk down the Champs Elysees to find someplace to have dinner. We wound up going to Café Vesuvio, which was close to the arc. The restaurant was busy, and everyone seemed to be getting the pizza, so we decided to get some pizza ourselves. We wound up sharing a salad and a Hawaiian pizza. The food was very good. The pizza had some delicious ham, and thin slices of yummy pineapple.

Our server was fantastic. He was very attentive, and was also kind enough to have the kitchen split the pizza for us. The hostess at the restaurant was really sweet. She came over at one point to ask me where I was from, and chat. When she saw Linda holding her camera, so she offered to take a picture of us. She then lead us outside to take a picture of us in front of the restaurant, and then a third one with the arc behind us.

After dinner, we walked several blocks down the Champs Elysees. Since it was later in the evening, most of the shops were closed by the time we arrived, but the Disney Store was open, so of course I had to go inside.

 

 

We hopped on a train and headed back to our hotel after another fun and busy day in Paris.

Look Out France! Here I Come!--Part Five Giverny and Versailles

Sunday April 15, 2012--Paris, Giverny, and Versailles 

We booked an all day tour to Claude Monet’s House and Gardens in Giverney and Versailles this day, and it wound up being a good thing. When we checked into our hotel the night before, we found out that the Paris Marathon was scheduled to be run this morning. Many roads and subway stations would be closed, so it could make getting around the city a bit challenging for a good part of the day.

But since we had to be at the tour departure point by about 8:00 that morning, we didn’t have to worry too much about that.  So after having a continental breakfast of bread, cheese, and deli meat at our hotel, we left our hotel to walk to the tour office.  We walked through the park near the Louvre to get there, and it was quite pleasant and quiet there before 8:00 in the morning.

When we arrived at the tour office, they told us that we would be departing from a different location down the street due to the marathon. Luckily we got their early so we had plenty of time to get to the new departure location.

We soon boarded our bus and were on our way to Claude Monet’s House in Gardens. Giverny is in the Normandy area of France, and is about an hour and 15 minutes drive outside of Paris. Our tour guide gave us lots of information about the area we were driving through (most of which I forgot within minutes after she said it).

When we arrived at Monet’s House and Gardens, we walked as a group to the main entrance, where we received our tickets, which allowed us entrance into the house, the garden, and the lily pond that inspired Monet’s famous Water Lilies paintings.

We headed into the house first. We were only allowed entry into a small portion of the house, including Monet’s art studio, bedroom, kitchen, and dining room. There were replicas of many of Monet’s paintings in the studio, so we spent several minutes in there looking at the art work.




Claude Monet's House

 



The view from Monet's bedroom

 

 

We then spent some time walking around the garden. There were lots of flowers in bloom, which surprised me a bit since the temperatures on our trip were only in the mid-40’s to mid-50’s. I bet the gardens are even more gorgeous later in the spring when the temperatures are a bit higher.

 

 

We then walked over to the lily pond. The pond area was really beautiful. There were a couple of beautiful bridges (including the famous Japanese bridge), and lots of winding pathways. It would be a great place to just sit and reflect for a  while if you had a lot of time, which we didn’t.

 

 

While we stood on one side of the pond taking pictures, I saw some American teenagers planking on the railing of the bridge. It is always so good to see American teenagers behaving properly and representing our country so well (sarcasm). I was secretly hoping that they would fall of the bridge and into the pond because I’m evil like that.

 

American Teens Behaving Badly
 

We headed back over to the garden area, and went to the gift shop. They had a lot of Monet prints, and some neat knickknacks featuring some of Monet’s recognizable artwork. Once we purchased our souvenirs, we headed to the parking lot to catch the bus. We had to walk through a small village with shops along the way, but we didn’t know it was there, so we didn’t really have time to browse in the shops.

Once everyone had arrived back on the bus, we drove to the small village of Fourge, where we would be having lunch at the le Moulin de Fourges. Our group was lead to a small barn near the main restaurant. We were sitting with really nice couples from Marblehead, MA, Wisconsin, and Chicago.  There was also a widow from Vancouver who was supposed to take this trip to France with her husband, but he passed away before they could take the trip. So she decided to still go on the trip by herself. We had a lot of nice conversation and laughs as we ate or dinner and sipped wine.



Le Moulin de Fourges

 

 

Our appetizer was on the table when we arrived. It consisted of some kind of salmon and cream cheese loaf, and rice with tuna flakes. Since I don’t eat seafood at all, I skipped this portion, but the others at our table seemed to enjoy it.

 

 

The entrée was chicken in a marsala sauce with mashed potatoes. The food was very tasty, and the mashed potatoes were very smooth and flavorful. I can’t remember what we had for dessert, and I didn’t put it in my notes, so it must not have been that good.

 

 

After lunch, we were back on the bus and on our way to Versailles. We arrived at Versailles shortly before 3:00 in the afternoon, and were lead into the building though an entrance for tour groups. We were given headsets so that we could hear our tour guide tell us about the history of Versailles and the rooms we visited.

 

 

The crowds at Versailles were insane. The smaller rooms were wall to wall people. It was really too crowded in there to really enjoy the palace. There were so many people crammed into the rooms that it was difficult to truly enjoy the beauty of the artwork and details in most of the rooms.

 

 

There were signs all over the palace saying “Beware of pickpockets” and it was easy to see why. There were so many people crammed into such a small area that it would be easy for pickpockets to slide a wallet or cell phone out of a pocket or purse. It would also be a great people for gropers to get some enjoyment.

Our tour guide took us through the rooms of the palace for about an hour and twenty minutes. She kept on telling us not to look at the floor because “it’s not the original floor, and it is ugly.” She also told us not to look at the chandeliers because “they are not the original chandeliers and they are ugly.” Oh, and she didn’t like the fact that they put electricity in the palace instead of lighting it by candles like in the old days. I’m grateful that they didn’t light them by candles because if there was ever a fire, it would be impossible to get the thousands of people crammed into the rooms of that palace out before the place turned into a pile of ash.

 

I'm a rebel. I took a picture of the ugly floor.

When our guided tour of the palace was over, we had about 45 minutes to use the restrooms and enjoy the gardens. Our tour guide assured us that would be plenty of time. So, we made our way to the rest room outside of the palace, and we weren’t the only ones with that idea. We got in the long line for the ladies room with dozens of other ladies. We found out from ladies coming out that there were only about five or six stalls, and none of them had toilet paper.

Lucky for me, I was prepared with a pocket pack of German tissues! We were waiting and waiting for the ladies room line to move, and it was moving very slowly. At the rate the line was going, we would be lucky to make it through the line in the 45 minutes we had (and there was no bathroom on the bus). 

As is usually the case in public rest rooms, there was no line in the men’s room. We followed the lead of some other women and used the men’s room, which also had no toilet paper. Thank you German tissues! It was one of the smelliest, messiest rest rooms I’ve ever used, but when you gotta go, you gotta go.

The palace has hundreds of rooms, and approximately 3,000,000 people visit Versaille each year.  You’d think that they could give up some more space so that they had adequate toilets for the visitors. We saw they had more rest rooms in the garden area, but we didn’t know that when we got in the huge line at the palace.

We then walked around the garden for a bit. There was a long reflection pool that must have stretched a half mile. It would have been fun to walk all the way to the end, but we didn’t have enough time, so we just walked around the garden area closest to the palace, which featured a beautiful fountain and many statues.

 

 

We then made our way back to the bus to head back to Paris. Overall I enjoyed the tour with just a couple of complaints. While the restaurant we ate at was very good, it was 20 minutes in the wrong direction on the trip from Giverny to Versailles. We had to ride past Monet’s Garden again to get back to the highway to go to Versailles. It would have been nice if the restaurant was somewhere between Monet’s house and Versailles because we basically had to ride in the bus an extra 40 minutes to go to lunch. My other complaint was that the tour guide droned on and on too long in Versailles so we didn’t have enough time to enjoy the gardens. She should have had us out of that building in an hour instead of an hour and twenty minutes so we would have adequate time in the gardens.

When we arrived back in Paris, we walked back to our hotel for a short break. We then headed over to grab some dinner at the Café Mucha, which was at the Solferino subway station. We both ordered the omelet complete, which was a ham and cheese omelet served with French fries and salad. The omelet was excellent with lots delicious cheese and ham. It was one of my favorite meals of my trip, and I’m not even a big fan of omelets.

After dinner, we headed to the D’Orsay RER station to go to the Eiffel Tower. A train was just about to leave, and I wasn’t sure if it was ours or not, so we didn’t get on. Well, it was ours, and we should have gotten on because the next one wasn’t scheduled to arrive for 20 minutes. I wound up pulling out my subway map, and figured out another way to get to the Eiffel Tower, though it would require a change of trains. One of the trains we went on was completely automated--there was no driver. They had tall barriers set up on the platform so people wouldn’t fall onto the tracks since there were conductors to stop the train if someone jumped on the tracks.

We soon were at the Eiffel Tower. As soon as we got there, they lit up the tower.  It was better seeing it at night than it had been seeing it in the day light. It looks beautiful all lit up.

Sorry this picture is sideways, but I can't figure out how to flip it.

Looking up at the Eiffle Tower from underneath it.

It was a cold and windy night, so the crowds weren’t as big as they were the night before. We decided to wait in line to go up the tower. We waited less than a half hour to get our tickets. I originally wanted to go to the top, but it was so windy and cold, I had no desire to go up to the top that night. The view from level two was amazing, and it was windy and cold enough there that I was extra grateful that I didn’t go up to the top.



Just hanging off the Eiffle Tower

I got so cold that I wound up getting some hot chocolate at the snack shop. It was one of the best hot chocolates I’ve ever had. I don’t know if it was good because I was so cold or if it was good because I was drinking it in one of the most famous landmarks. Or maybe it was just plain good.

Since we didn’t know the train schedule to go back to the D’Orsay RER station, and didn’t feel like dealing with switching trains, we decided to take a taxi back to our hotel. We were back in our room and ready for bed after another long and busy day in France. 

Look Out France! Here I Come! Part 4--Strasbourg and Paris

April 14, 2012 Strasbourg and Paris, France

We had a few hours in Strasbourg before our train for Paris would be leaving. Rob had to run back to his house to pick up a bottle of wine that he had picked up at a winery that Linda was bringing home with him, so Linda and I were on our own for a couple of hours, and were going to meet Rob at the train station.

We walked back over to the cathedral. We hadn’t really looked at the cathedral from one of the sides, so I wanted to take a look at that side. We wound up walking all the way around it.

When we were back in front of the church, I could hear music coming from the church, so I stepped inside to listen to the pipe organ for a few minutes while Linda browsed in a nearby gift shop.

We stopped at bakery near the cathedral to get some breakfast. I got a delicious soft pretzel with ham and melted cheese on the bottom. It was so good that I wished I had picked up a few of them.

We then headed to the tram station to go to the train station to catch our train to Paris. We were hoping that Rob would have arrived at the train station by then, but we didn’t see him. We waited a short time for him near the exit from the tram, but he still didn’t arrive.

We didn’t have a lot of time before our train would be leaving, so we headed over to the area where there were some shops and cafes so we could get some lunch to eat on the train. We both wound up getting ham and cheese sandwiches.

I also bought a Twix bar to eat on the train. Twix bars are the same as we get in America, but it tasted a lot different in France. I didn’t really like it.

They were soon boarding our train, so we started to head towards the platform. Linda spotted Rob coming up from the tram station, so he made it just in time to give Linda the bottle of wine. Rob walked us to the platform. We gave him big hugs and boarded the train. The train left right on time, and we were soon speeding across the French country side on our way to Paris.

When our train arrived in Paris, we walked out and got in a cab to head to the Hotel D’Orsay. We lucked out and had an excellent cab driver. His English was very good, and he was great about pointing the sites along the way. He told us that it was his dream to visit the United States, and he had many questions for us as well.

When we arrived at the hotel, we were greeted by Gregory at the front desk. I really liked Gregory a lot--he was at the desk each night of our stay. He was always willing to offer suggestions or directions, and asked about our day when we arrived back at the hotel each night.

Check in was quick, and we were soon on our way to room 15, a superior room on the first floor of the hotel. Once again, I was surprised by the size of our room. Whoever said that hotel rooms in Europe are tiny obviously never travelled with me! There were two twin beds pushed together against one wall, and a small desk with two chairs against the other wall. There was about 15 feet of space between the foot of the bed and the wall the desk was against. There were two pairs of large windows overlooking the quiet street below.

The room was very clean, and the furnishings made the room feel very homey.  The beds were very comfortable. The room was a bit on the warm side, and even when we adjusted the thermostat, the temperature in the room never went down. The bathroom was huge and like the Hotel Gutenberg, featured a very deep tub.

After settling into the room, we were ready to explore Paris. We were originally hoping to visit the Eifel Tower this afternoon, but they were having trouble with the elevators, and we couldn’t get advanced tickets. So, we decided to head over to Montmartre area of Paris to go to see Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rouge. I had picked up a map of Paris at the airport, and it looked like they were both right at the Abbesses subway station. We soon found out that the maps in Paris are a bit deceiving, as they don’t put all of the streets on there, but I’ll get to that in a bit. We have to get there first.

So, off we headed to the Solferino subway station, which was just a few minutes walk from the Hotel D’Orsay. The subway in Paris was fantastic. There was very clear signage at the station so you could clearly tell which direction each train was going. There were signs on the platforms that told you how many minutes until the next train would arrive. The subway was well utilized, and clean. Despite all the lines, it was very easy to navigate. 

Soon, we were at the Abbesses station.  We started to walk up the stairs and everyone stopped. We couldn’t understand why everyone stopped, but then saw they were just waiting for the elevator. We decided to walk up the steps rather than wait in the long elevator line.

We started to ascend the wide spiral staircase that wrapped around the elevator. And we walked up, and up, and them up some more with no end in sight. We now knew why everyone stopped for the elevator. Each time I would reach a platform, I would think we would be coming to the street level, and I would see more stairs above. I reached the point where I would just laugh each time I would turn the corner to see more stairs. I found out later that the platform is about 118 feet in the ground (or about 10 or 11 stories underground), and there are about 200 steps from the platform to the street level.

Once on the ground, I was fully expecting to see both Sacre Coeur and Moulin Rogue right from the station because that’s what it looked like on the map, but I was mistaken. I couldn’t see them anywhere. We weren’t exactly sure where we should go, but I spotted a sign for Sacre Coeur, so we headed in that direction. Surely, we were only a few minutes away because it was so close to the station on the map, but I was mistaken.  We walked a bit, and walked a bit more, following the signs.

It had been a while since we saw a sign, and we saw a lot of people walking up a hill, so we decided to follow them. Linda spotted a building at the top of two long sets of stairs that she assumed was Sacre Coeur. There were a lot of people climbing and descending the stairs. I was a bit apprehensive about climbing the steps at first because we had just did a major stair climb at Abbesses station. I was afraid that if might not be the right place, but we figured it had to be Sacre Coeur because there were so many people.  So up we climbed, about 100 more steps to the top of Montmartre hill.

And we were rewarded with a stunning view of Paris. Although it was a bit overcast, it was still gorgeous. I bet the view would be absolutely breath taking in the evening.

We were also found out that we could have taken a funicular up the hill to the base of Sacre Coeur, which would have saved us a lot of steps. They also had a little trolley that people were riding up and down the hill. I guess that’s what happens when you don’t research something you are going to see in advance.  We hadn’t intended on visiting Sacre Coeur, so it really was a bonus attraction.

Sacre Coeur was massive. Though the outside of the building was not as ornate as some of the other churches we saw, it was still beautiful. It had a few statues and domes, and was really striking because of its size. Once again, I was awed by the thought of this building being built hundreds of years ago without the equipment that we have today.

Even more stunning than the outside of the church was the inside of the basilica. Unfortunately, they did not allow pictures inside the basilica. It was absolutely gorgeous inside, with amazing stained glass windows, artwork, and statues. We sat for a few minutes and just soaked it all in. It was by far the most beautiful of any of the churches we visited on our trip.

We then headed back down the hill. We decided to walk instead of taking the funicular. Walking down steps is much easier than walking up steps.  But we agreed that we would take the elevator down at Abbesses station to head back to our hotel later.

We were on our way to find Moulin Rouge using the crappy airport map. Sacre Coeur was about a 10 minute walk from the station. The Moulin Rouge was on the opposite side from Sacre Coeur, so we walked back to the station an headed in the opposite direction, hoping we were going the right way.

We walked a bit, and stopped to look at the map again to see if we could find any of the streets on it. We were about to give up when I spotted a tour group walking down the hill. I figured that the tour group must be heading somewhere worth seeing, so we started walking down the hill. We walked past a Moulin Rouge official gift shop, so we knew we were in the vicinity of the Moulin Rouge.

Sure enough, when we got to the bottom of the hill, we saw lots of people standing across the street taking pictures. So we crossed the street, and saw Moulin Rouge ourselves. I absolutely love the movie, so it was really cool to see the building in person. Of course, I had to be the tourist and have my picture taken in front of it.

We decided to head back towards our hotel. We wound up deciding to walk a different way to Abbesses station to see if there was anything else interesting around. I wound up spotting the Pigalle subway station, which was on the same line as Abbesses and Solferino. It saved us from having to walk back up the hill to Abbesses. 

We took a short break at our hotel, and decided to walk to the Eifel Tower. Though we probably could have a shorter walk by walking through the downtown streets, we opted to take the more scenic route along the Seine. It was a longer walk than I expected, and it took us a long time to get there, but it was worth the walk because we were finally able to get a close up view at one of the world’s most famous landmarks.

The tower wasn’t as tall as I expected it to be, and it was actually kind of ugly, but it was still a famous monument that I dreamed about visiting for years. I was surprised that the tower was brown--I always pictured it as being silver. We checked the line to see if there was any chance we could get tickets, but the line stretched really long, and neither of us felt like waiting in it, so we skipped it.

We then headed right down to the bank of the Seine to start the walk back towards our hotel. We found a little stand that sold gelato, so we got some to eat while we walked. We wound up crossing the river to the other side of the Seine and walked back towards out hotel at street level. We were able to get some nice pictures with the Eifel Tower. It was a really pleasant walk.

We wound up going to the Café Solferino, which was right around the corner from our hotel, for dinner. We both got the steak au poivre, which was served with pomme frites and salad. Neither of us was impressed by the steak au poivre here. My steak was very tough, and it just didn’t have great flavor too it.

We headed back to the hotel to get some sleep. It had been a long busy day, and our feet were aching from walking over 10 miles, but it was a great start to our stay in Paris.