Arriving in Paris was the only time this trip that felt absolutely monumental. Paris is a big deal. I'd never been to Paris before. People were going to be rude to us. There was cheese. And wine. And the Eiffel Tower. This probably sounds bizarre considering we'd just spent six weeks traveling to places we'd never been before, but Paris felt like significant. It was also our last new city/country, as we would return to London (we're practically natives there after the first go round). Between these last few cities I had booked us flights on Vueling: oh the luxury! No more German train a-holes, no more confused bus drivers, just clear and concise plane rides.
We flew in to Charles De Gaulle, which was supposedly better than Ryan Air's flight arriving in Tille, France, a city nearly two hours away from Paris itself. CDG didn't feel so much closer, because we had to walk nearly three miles between terminals just to find the train to get to the terminal which could connect us to the train which took us into the city where we could take the metro to our Le Marais neighborhood and from there walk to our second AirBnB apartment. I go through that whole description to really convey to you how charming I looked, dripping with sweat (temps in Paris at 9:30PM were still above 88F), and dry heaving from running the last few blocks, when we arrived at the apartment to meet our host, and found the door code he'd given us wasn't working. We stood there at these 15 foot tall doors, probably carved and hung in the 18th century, staring at one another as twilight darkened into a deeper night, and I thought to myself, 'well, I have absolutely no idea what to do now,' while I'm sure Sally looked at me thinking, 'ten more minutes in that Scottish mobile phone store and this wouldn't be a problem you impatient idiot!' As we had no cell phone to call our host, we rather sheepishly hovered around the doors until a very kind French woman entered the building and we scampered in after her.
Up in the apartment, David was very genial and we chatted a bit, as tears of sweat course visibly down my visage, all of us pretending I was not the most unappealing character on the face of the earth. It was all I could do not to shout "Get out of here David! You have only one fan and I'm taking off my pants immediately!" Eventually he left and after a quick dinner around the corner, I was pants-less and contemplating why on earth there would be a down comforter on the bed. Sally was there too, much less sweaty and much more concerned about my immodesty.
Our apartment was très française and by française I mean tiny, but adorable. Unfortunately we did not have a map of Paris, so even though we woke up early and I had written down instructions for getting to the Paris Sandeman city tour, we ended up in deep in the 5th arrondissement before I bumbled us back to Place St. Michel, an hour late for the first tour, but right on time for the 11am! The tour was lovely as always. Our first stop was Notre Dame, of course, where we learned that during the French Revolution the citoyen were quick to tear down the stone figures carved above the entrance to the cathedral, which they assumed were statues of kings, so they beheaded them, piled them up in front of the church doors, and used them as a toilet. Vive la resistance! Errr, or maybe not. Because actually they were statues of saints, and even the most fervent citoyen knew that was probably a revolutionary misstep. Who doesn't love a good urinating-on-saint-statues story? How absolutely French!
We walked through the city seeing a small portion city's major hot spots: the Palais de Justice, Pont Neuf, Musee du Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries, and the Place de la Concorde. The heat of the day was unrelenting, and after three hours strolling around, I found myself drifting to sleep in a garden chair while the guide talked about the historical significance of the Place de la Concorde. So I can tell you nothing about that. After the tour, Sally wanted to see the "circle thing, with all the traffic" which most people refer to as Arc de Triomphe. From there we walked back to the Seine, and across to the Eiffel Tower, which was just spectacular to see, I mean you can't really anticipate how cool it is to see it in person. The tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair, and Eiffel himself had secured a permit to keep it standing for 20 years, so he actually lived in it. To make sure it wasn't torn down (which the city planned to do), Eiffel attached a powerful radio antenna to the top, which made the tower a utilitarian necessity in the era of telegraphy. I must have learned that whilst napping.
That evening we made our way to Montmarte for another walking tour. The hill used to be well outside the city of Paris, and is the infamous location of the decapitation of Saint Denis in the early 200s. It's infamous because after being decapitated, Saint Denis picked up his head and walked six miles before finally dying on a spot that would become a church in his honor. Can you imagine what a horror show it was to live in that time period? Not only do you have to eke out a terrible existence of despairing poverty under the iron fist of a vicious ruler, subjugated to his every whim, you're watching bloody zombies march through the countryside, head in hand. Don't even get me started on Jesus. The more contemporary inhabitants of Montmarte were much less religious zealots and much more bon vivants of the Belle Epoque. We saw the apartment owned by Theo Van Gogh, who lived in Montmarte with his brother Vinnie for a number of the artist's prodigious years. We saw the cabaret where a young penniless charmer ate countless dinners and paid for them by offering the waitress a sketch drawn on his napkin. That is, until the owner served him, refused his napkin, and produced the previous napkin drawings and demanded payment in full. It was at that point that Pablo Picasso offered to give the owner an oil painting to cover all the bills, which worked! The cabaret itself is across the street from Montmarte's last vineyard, which makes atrocious wine. The tour finished at Sacre Coeur, which was gorgeous and glowing inside, and still very much a functioning parish. Sally and I wandered home after the tour, stopping along the way for multiple bottles of wine and a baguette. We sat on the couch in our oven of a flat that evening, buttering bread, pouring glasses of cold white wine, and listening to music on the iPad. Ideal.
The next morning we dawdled around the apartment, doing a good amount of tourist research due to my wine-addled brain having spurted out the fact that Jim Morrison lived in and was buried in Paris, much to the delight of Doors-loving 22 year old Sally Grace. I'd also found a highly rated hipster coffee shop that had bagels, so Sally prioritized our day accordingly: bagels, coffee, Jim's home. Boot Café was the five-seat coffee shop where we breakfast-ed/broke fast. While sipping our coffee, which was excellent, we read quietly and watched an American college student walk in with her mother and speak French to the presumably French barista who responded with, "I have no idea what you're saying, can you speak English?" They guffawed and tried again in French, and received a wide-eyed blank stare. Finally he was able to guess what they wanted (Cafe au Lait, I'm sure) and allowed them to pay. We spent the rest of the day walking excessively, past Jim's house and down to the Seine where we stumbled on an orchestra rehearsing al fresco, buying tins of loose tea at Mariage Fréres and Malongo, and watching a bagpiper lead dancing teenagers around Luxembourg Gardens. A musical day to say the least. Just before sunset Sally and I made our way to the Bateaux Parisiens dock for an hour-long river cruise. Rays of bright bronze sliced across Haussman's stately grey buildings along the river and Parisians enjoyed the quickly cooling evening by sitting on the river's edge with friends and picnics. We passed under 26 bridges of Paris and listened to the boat's guide tell us that Paris was the most romantic city in the world, which is lost entirely on Sally and I on this trip. Paris is a mega metropolis with museums and political buildings, a lot of bridges, and plenty of churches. But why is it romantic? Is it the huge iron phallus of a tower? Maybe I'm just not romantic enough to be sufficiently impressed.
On our last night in Paris we joined the masses sipping wine on the Seine, and on our last morning, I went to the Musee d'Orsay which absolutely impressed me. My god, I literally cannot imagine what people are paying €15 to see in the Louvre when the most incredible masterpieces in the world are collected in this museum. Truly, I wandered from room to room slack-jawed at the Maurin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bernard, Signac, Seurat, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir, Monet, Degas, Bouguereau, Cassatt, Manet, Pissarro, Tissot and so many others! I took so many photos of paintings my camera shut down out of nerd shame. But here are some of them!
I made it back to the apartment by 1pm, Sally and I said adieu to France and boarded a Eurostar back to St. Pancras International, London.
We flew in to Charles De Gaulle, which was supposedly better than Ryan Air's flight arriving in Tille, France, a city nearly two hours away from Paris itself. CDG didn't feel so much closer, because we had to walk nearly three miles between terminals just to find the train to get to the terminal which could connect us to the train which took us into the city where we could take the metro to our Le Marais neighborhood and from there walk to our second AirBnB apartment. I go through that whole description to really convey to you how charming I looked, dripping with sweat (temps in Paris at 9:30PM were still above 88F), and dry heaving from running the last few blocks, when we arrived at the apartment to meet our host, and found the door code he'd given us wasn't working. We stood there at these 15 foot tall doors, probably carved and hung in the 18th century, staring at one another as twilight darkened into a deeper night, and I thought to myself, 'well, I have absolutely no idea what to do now,' while I'm sure Sally looked at me thinking, 'ten more minutes in that Scottish mobile phone store and this wouldn't be a problem you impatient idiot!' As we had no cell phone to call our host, we rather sheepishly hovered around the doors until a very kind French woman entered the building and we scampered in after her.
Up in the apartment, David was very genial and we chatted a bit, as tears of sweat course visibly down my visage, all of us pretending I was not the most unappealing character on the face of the earth. It was all I could do not to shout "Get out of here David! You have only one fan and I'm taking off my pants immediately!" Eventually he left and after a quick dinner around the corner, I was pants-less and contemplating why on earth there would be a down comforter on the bed. Sally was there too, much less sweaty and much more concerned about my immodesty.
Our apartment was très française and by française I mean tiny, but adorable. Unfortunately we did not have a map of Paris, so even though we woke up early and I had written down instructions for getting to the Paris Sandeman city tour, we ended up in deep in the 5th arrondissement before I bumbled us back to Place St. Michel, an hour late for the first tour, but right on time for the 11am! The tour was lovely as always. Our first stop was Notre Dame, of course, where we learned that during the French Revolution the citoyen were quick to tear down the stone figures carved above the entrance to the cathedral, which they assumed were statues of kings, so they beheaded them, piled them up in front of the church doors, and used them as a toilet. Vive la resistance! Errr, or maybe not. Because actually they were statues of saints, and even the most fervent citoyen knew that was probably a revolutionary misstep. Who doesn't love a good urinating-on-saint-statues story? How absolutely French!
We walked through the city seeing a small portion city's major hot spots: the Palais de Justice, Pont Neuf, Musee du Louvre, Jardin des Tuileries, and the Place de la Concorde. The heat of the day was unrelenting, and after three hours strolling around, I found myself drifting to sleep in a garden chair while the guide talked about the historical significance of the Place de la Concorde. So I can tell you nothing about that. After the tour, Sally wanted to see the "circle thing, with all the traffic" which most people refer to as Arc de Triomphe. From there we walked back to the Seine, and across to the Eiffel Tower, which was just spectacular to see, I mean you can't really anticipate how cool it is to see it in person. The tower was built for the 1889 World's Fair, and Eiffel himself had secured a permit to keep it standing for 20 years, so he actually lived in it. To make sure it wasn't torn down (which the city planned to do), Eiffel attached a powerful radio antenna to the top, which made the tower a utilitarian necessity in the era of telegraphy. I must have learned that whilst napping.
That evening we made our way to Montmarte for another walking tour. The hill used to be well outside the city of Paris, and is the infamous location of the decapitation of Saint Denis in the early 200s. It's infamous because after being decapitated, Saint Denis picked up his head and walked six miles before finally dying on a spot that would become a church in his honor. Can you imagine what a horror show it was to live in that time period? Not only do you have to eke out a terrible existence of despairing poverty under the iron fist of a vicious ruler, subjugated to his every whim, you're watching bloody zombies march through the countryside, head in hand. Don't even get me started on Jesus. The more contemporary inhabitants of Montmarte were much less religious zealots and much more bon vivants of the Belle Epoque. We saw the apartment owned by Theo Van Gogh, who lived in Montmarte with his brother Vinnie for a number of the artist's prodigious years. We saw the cabaret where a young penniless charmer ate countless dinners and paid for them by offering the waitress a sketch drawn on his napkin. That is, until the owner served him, refused his napkin, and produced the previous napkin drawings and demanded payment in full. It was at that point that Pablo Picasso offered to give the owner an oil painting to cover all the bills, which worked! The cabaret itself is across the street from Montmarte's last vineyard, which makes atrocious wine. The tour finished at Sacre Coeur, which was gorgeous and glowing inside, and still very much a functioning parish. Sally and I wandered home after the tour, stopping along the way for multiple bottles of wine and a baguette. We sat on the couch in our oven of a flat that evening, buttering bread, pouring glasses of cold white wine, and listening to music on the iPad. Ideal.
The next morning we dawdled around the apartment, doing a good amount of tourist research due to my wine-addled brain having spurted out the fact that Jim Morrison lived in and was buried in Paris, much to the delight of Doors-loving 22 year old Sally Grace. I'd also found a highly rated hipster coffee shop that had bagels, so Sally prioritized our day accordingly: bagels, coffee, Jim's home. Boot Café was the five-seat coffee shop where we breakfast-ed/broke fast. While sipping our coffee, which was excellent, we read quietly and watched an American college student walk in with her mother and speak French to the presumably French barista who responded with, "I have no idea what you're saying, can you speak English?" They guffawed and tried again in French, and received a wide-eyed blank stare. Finally he was able to guess what they wanted (Cafe au Lait, I'm sure) and allowed them to pay. We spent the rest of the day walking excessively, past Jim's house and down to the Seine where we stumbled on an orchestra rehearsing al fresco, buying tins of loose tea at Mariage Fréres and Malongo, and watching a bagpiper lead dancing teenagers around Luxembourg Gardens. A musical day to say the least. Just before sunset Sally and I made our way to the Bateaux Parisiens dock for an hour-long river cruise. Rays of bright bronze sliced across Haussman's stately grey buildings along the river and Parisians enjoyed the quickly cooling evening by sitting on the river's edge with friends and picnics. We passed under 26 bridges of Paris and listened to the boat's guide tell us that Paris was the most romantic city in the world, which is lost entirely on Sally and I on this trip. Paris is a mega metropolis with museums and political buildings, a lot of bridges, and plenty of churches. But why is it romantic? Is it the huge iron phallus of a tower? Maybe I'm just not romantic enough to be sufficiently impressed.
On our last night in Paris we joined the masses sipping wine on the Seine, and on our last morning, I went to the Musee d'Orsay which absolutely impressed me. My god, I literally cannot imagine what people are paying €15 to see in the Louvre when the most incredible masterpieces in the world are collected in this museum. Truly, I wandered from room to room slack-jawed at the Maurin, Toulouse-Lautrec, Bernard, Signac, Seurat, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Renoir, Monet, Degas, Bouguereau, Cassatt, Manet, Pissarro, Tissot and so many others! I took so many photos of paintings my camera shut down out of nerd shame. But here are some of them!
I made it back to the apartment by 1pm, Sally and I said adieu to France and boarded a Eurostar back to St. Pancras International, London.
No comments:
Post a Comment