A Weekend in Paris

Paris in May. At the last minute, we decided to just go... we got decent flights out of KLM and got out of Amsterdam late on a Friday night. The flight was very quick--50 minutes or so, and we hopped in a cab without waiting.

Welcome to Paris! Our cab driver was a crazy person--but then, it seems, so were all of the other drivers. For some reason, there are streets in this city that do not have painted lines on them for guiding traffic. Many times we passed on the left or right of cars while in a single lane. Parking at the intersections were fun too, as the cars seemed to line up more like kids at the start of an easter egg hunt, all waiting for the chance to go. Somehow, though, all these drivers managed to figure out who got to go first without any real issue. Realizing we were safe, Helen and I just sat back and enjoyed the drive--seeing some of the most famous sites of this beautiful town.

The Crown Plaza was in a pretty good location to get around, and everyone spoke English without giving us the attitude we were expecting. It wasn't the best hotel, and the people weren't the nicest, but it was close to a tasty bakery and close to a train station for a quick ride to the Louvre.

...ah, the Louvre. We had heard how great this museum was, but to me, a great museum was a lot like a great beer for a non-drinker. I really don't enjoy walking through museums. But, I was absolutely floored after 10 minutes of walking through this amazing place. Given some direction from our Rick Steve guidbook, we headed straight for the Venus de Milo. We were all alone despite getting lost a few times along the way. And then... there she was. All alone.

The crazy part was that we were walking by some of the most amazing art in history on our way to see this one piece. We decided to stick with the plan and rush to see the Mona Lisa, but I gotta say it was killing me the whole time passing up some of the art I had read about in school. Unfortunately, the French decided not to list much of the descriptions in English. There were plastic pages with type in English for some of the most famous pieces, but the majority were in French. On our second day we picked up an audio tour, but it just didn't do the trick.

Having spent about 8 hours in two days here, I'd suggest you bring an art history instructor with you--and plan to spend more time than you think you might want to. I was just shocked at how much I wanted to see in this incredible museum.

After spending Saturday morning rushing around seeing The Venus de Milo, the Mona Lisa and taking a glance at the Marly Horses we decided to head out to see some of the other sites we always wanted to see... Notre Dame, Ste Chappelle, the Cluny museum... huh?! The Cluny!? Helen snuck this one into the itenerary while I wasn't looking.

What's in the Cluny Museum, you ask? Well, tapestry, of course. This museum was a bit different than the Louvre and other museums as this one let you get up nice and close to things like stained glass windows and tapestry. Yeah, tapestry. I followed Helen around for a few hours looking at rugs hanging on the wall. Sure, they were nice, but how does a museum get created on the basis of putting cloth up on the wall in a dark room? Beats me, but my wife could have stayed here all day just looking at them. Does this stuff do it for you?

Ok, so it is kind of a silly love affair with unicorns, but I'll admit that it is quite interesting to see these rugs after they've survived for 500 years. And were pretty detailed for having been sewn up in 1500. After another hour spent in the gift shop we were on our way.

One of my favorite stops of all of Europe was Ste. Chappelle. It wasn't all that impressive on the outside, although pretty nice. Luckily, a purchase of the Museum pass saved us over an hour in line by allowing us to skip right passed everyone and walk right in. Initially, it was a nice church, but a few steps up and we were in the most beautiful room with 50 foot high stained glass windows in all directions. I wish I could have taken better pictures, but I was able to snap a couple that I really liked.

After this little place, we walked over to Notre Dame and spent a good 40 minutes navigating through this beautiful church with hundreds of other tourists. There was no way to snap a picture of it since it was very dark, with the only light coming through the stained glass windows. We stopped by one that I thought offered a unique photo opp--as the window was partially openned. I really liked this church, but didn't recognize just how beautiful it was until spending more time at churches in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium.

Oh, and we passed up the opportunity to climb the tower since both of us have not-so great knees and figured we needed them for some more walking.

Our dinner was at a touristy Italian place that we should have known better than to sit down at.. right along a very busy road with cars speeding by, making more noise than one needs while dining. This was a nice lesson for us that we have taken advantage of since leaving France. EUROPEAN DINING TIP: Eat at Cafes that are off a side street or away from the tourist destinations. Those places make enough money feeding you crappy food, while the places a bit out of the way seem to work harder at making tasty dishes. Or you can just eat at the Louvre food court. That was pretty good too.

The 2nd day (Sunday) we headed back to the Louvre, deciding to spend the entire day there. This time we went to see all the stuff we had rushed passed the day before. We both believe another week is necessary to really enjoy this place--and both agree we need a lot more information to really appreciate it.

After we had had enough Louvre (well, we were exhausted) we had a bite in the foodcourt (this was some good food), we went walking around to see some more sites before heading home on KLM. Before leaving, though, I really wanted to see Napoleon's apartment here. This man had a real impressive taste in the gaudy, but you really can't blame him--it was very impressive. If gaudy. Seriously, though, can't you imagine this room with a nice 60 inch plazma right there where the mirror is? I mean if he were alive today, he'd defintely have a plazma right there.

I really did like seeing all the rooms here, not sure how much of the stuff was original or not (since the guided tours never seemed to speak English when were nearby). But I could see myself living in this little section of the Louvre.

After the Louvre we headed out to the food court area to grab a bite. Did I mention how much Helen liked here Lasagne? Good Italian food in a food court of a musuem really makes you want to go to Italy and order some Italian food!

We had to end the day doing something besides museum stuff so we walked around town just a little to wear ourselves out. Frankly, we were worn out already, but had only a few more hours left to see Paris. We swung by the Pantheon, which I didn't even know existed, and found the paintings in here really neat. And big. We also stopped by Napoleon's Tomb to complete our Napoleon tour. The tomb, here, looks small, but if you look closely you can see the little people walking in the background (click the image to enlarge it). Oh, and we did go by the Armory that was really what I wanted to see here--and it was a real waste of time. It was, unfortunately, mostly a tour of the armor during Naploeon's time, rather than what I had hoped--some sort of comparison of armor over time. Oh well, I'd have to wait for my trip to Germany to get a good armor comparison.

To end this long blog, let me just say that we had a really good time. Everything was truly amazing, but 2 days were not enough, unless you skip the Louvre. Or just spent the 2-days at that one place. We loved Paris, but it really wore us out. Our legs were like rubber, our feet were sore, and our bodies were aching. But. we really enjoyed it, just the same.