I didn’t really make it out of Dublin until November, and my first trip was to Paris. My good pal Julie was going to be there so I went to meet up with her. She had lived there for a few months once so it was nice to have a pseudo tour guide. Travel is cheap here so my round trip ticket was €40 (~$60).
Part of the reason it was so cheap, I later found out, was because Ryanair doesn’t exactly fly into the local airport. They fly to a "nearby" airport. In this case I was an hour and a half away from Paris. I did not know all this until well after I landed. I guess I was expecting to get off the plane at the base of the Eiffel Tower with a welcome committee made of French supermodels handing out berets and cappuccinos or something magical like that. I mean, it IS Paris. Back to real life: When I got off the plane and onto the runway (because there was no terminal, we literally went down a ladder and onto the tarmac) all I could see was open skies and farmland. I immediately panicked a tiny bit but continued to follow the rest of the sheep into the airport. I was thinking "maybe there is more than one Paris in Europe (there are a few in the USA after all) and I flew into the wrong one. The smaller one in the middle of nowhere that is famous for its...open plains and tall grass?" Keep in mind everyone else was speaking French. I'm familiar with the bread but a little sketchy with the language. I saw a bus and figured "what the hell, might as well check out Other Paris" and bought a ticket. 1.5 hours later the Eiffel Tower appeared and I was able to breathe again.
I had a few hours to kill before Julie arrived at the hotel so I decided to wander around. I was near the subway so I went for the map. At first glance, the Paris subway system looks like a small child’s first attempt at tying his shoes: a complicated twisty jumble. Once you take it a few places it becomes clearer. I’d say I stood there for about 40 minutes the first time. 20 minutes to figure out where I was on the map and another 20 to figure out how to get to the Eiffel Tower.
Eventually I made it there and I was not disappointed. When you first see the Eiffel Tower, you walk around the corner and all the sudden it is there, bearing down on you, this behemoth of steel and rivets. It was 10x bigger than I imagined. It will leave you speechless for a second and you will walk about 100 feet with your head tilted back and your mouth open. Careful not to bump into people. **Side note: if a woman approached you and asks if you speak English, either say nothing or say no in a French accent. They are beggars and if they find out you speak English they will not leave you alone.** The line for the elevator to the top was short and the ticket was surprisingly cheap. (€11.50 to go all the way to the top.) The elevator is wild. It goes up one of the legs, so the track is at an angle but the car stays upright. The first level is not far up and has a souvenir shop, museum, restaurant, and post office. It’s neat to send a post card from here because the post mark says Eiffel Tower. Level two is another observation deck and from here you take the elevator straight to the top. The top is where you realize, again, how big this tower is. There is an observation deck with diagrams that show you what you are looking at, and you can go up a few more steps to the outside deck. Even if you are afraid of heights you have to do this. In the daytime you can see every famous thing in Paris and at night the lights are spectacular.
I was there for a little over an hour and then had to head back to meet Julie. The hotel room had only one key, which you are supposed to leave at the desk when you leave. (oops. I wondered why the key chain was so big…) When I got there, I found Julie waiting in the lobby with her luggage, where she had been for 45 minutes (oops again.), slightly annoyed, very tired, and excited to see me. (Either that or just excited to be in Paris. We’ll say it was a bit of both.) It was still fairly early so we went for some dinner at a little café and straight back to the Eiffel Tower. It’s that neat, I didn’t mind going right back. It’s especially amazing at night with all the lights. They sparkle for about 10 minutes every hour on the hour.
The next day was mostly museums. The Louvre holds some of the most famous works of art and artifacts in the world and I was quite excited to see some of it. Like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre is about 10x bigger than I expected. There is a nice park leading up to it with many trees and ponds and even some artwork outside. There is an arch here that lines up with the Arc de Triomphe and the Modern Arch which is downtown. All three of these are perfectly aligned and point right at the Louvre. The outside of the building is a work of art in itself. Every wall, every window sill, every brick is ornate. The entrance to the museum is through the big glass pyramid. This along with the smaller pyramid and the inverse pyramid were added recently, to the dismay of many Parisians who feel that it an eyesore on an otherwise beautiful landmark. I’ll admit it does look a bit out of place, but nonetheless it is very cool to look at, especially the inverted one that is directly under the smaller one outside. Go past the gift shops inside to see this one. Once we
were inside we got a map and chose the high points we wanted to hit. We saw the Mona Lisa, which was behind bullet proof glass and you couldn’t go within 10 feet of it. It was quite smaller than I imagined. The other major attraction was the Venus de Milo. In between we saw countless other paintings, statues, jewels, and artifacts. You could spend a week there and not see it all. We were there about 4 hours.
Next we went across the Seine to Musee D’Orsay. The building used to be an old train station and the architecture alone is worth
looking at. Inside they had tons of statues as well as paintings by Van Gogh, Monet, and Rembrandt. We also walked through a neat exhibit on photography, most of it very old.
From there, we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. It’s about a 15 minute walk through the Louvre Park and down the Champs-Elysees. Napoleon had the Arc built and it is inscribed with the names of French generals and the battles they fought. Each of the four pillars has a sculpture on the outside that depicts a battle scene. I thought these were the coolest part. You can go all way to the top by way of a spiral staircase. The view from the top is well worth it, especially around sunset. You can see for miles and take in almost every monument or building in Paris.
My
other favorite attraction was Notre Dame Cathedral. I could sit outside and look at this building all day long. Every square inch is intricate, and it was built in the 1100s. It is still a functioning church but tourists are let in, you can even go up in the bell towers (which I did not do on this trip because I couldn’t find it, but I did the next time I was in Paris with my ma. I highly recommend it.) There are enormous stained glass windows on all four sides. I became obsessed with the gargoyles, especially the ones on the bell towers. I took a lot of pictures of those.
Part of the reason it was so cheap, I later found out, was because Ryanair doesn’t exactly fly into the local airport. They fly to a "nearby" airport. In this case I was an hour and a half away from Paris. I did not know all this until well after I landed. I guess I was expecting to get off the plane at the base of the Eiffel Tower with a welcome committee made of French supermodels handing out berets and cappuccinos or something magical like that. I mean, it IS Paris. Back to real life: When I got off the plane and onto the runway (because there was no terminal, we literally went down a ladder and onto the tarmac) all I could see was open skies and farmland. I immediately panicked a tiny bit but continued to follow the rest of the sheep into the airport. I was thinking "maybe there is more than one Paris in Europe (there are a few in the USA after all) and I flew into the wrong one. The smaller one in the middle of nowhere that is famous for its...open plains and tall grass?" Keep in mind everyone else was speaking French. I'm familiar with the bread but a little sketchy with the language. I saw a bus and figured "what the hell, might as well check out Other Paris" and bought a ticket. 1.5 hours later the Eiffel Tower appeared and I was able to breathe again.
I had a few hours to kill before Julie arrived at the hotel so I decided to wander around. I was near the subway so I went for the map. At first glance, the Paris subway system looks like a small child’s first attempt at tying his shoes: a complicated twisty jumble. Once you take it a few places it becomes clearer. I’d say I stood there for about 40 minutes the first time. 20 minutes to figure out where I was on the map and another 20 to figure out how to get to the Eiffel Tower.Eventually I made it there and I was not disappointed. When you first see the Eiffel Tower, you walk around the corner and all the sudden it is there, bearing down on you, this behemoth of steel and rivets. It was 10x bigger than I imagined. It will leave you speechless for a second and you will walk about 100 feet with your head tilted back and your mouth open. Careful not to bump into people. **Side note: if a woman approached you and asks if you speak English, either say nothing or say no in a French accent. They are beggars and if they find out you speak English they will not leave you alone.** The line for the elevator to the top was short and the ticket was surprisingly cheap. (€11.50 to go all the way to the top.) The elevator is wild. It goes up one of the legs, so the track is at an angle but the car stays upright. The first level is not far up and has a souvenir shop, museum, restaurant, and post office. It’s neat to send a post card from here because the post mark says Eiffel Tower. Level two is another observation deck and from here you take the elevator straight to the top. The top is where you realize, again, how big this tower is. There is an observation deck with diagrams that show you what you are looking at, and you can go up a few more steps to the outside deck. Even if you are afraid of heights you have to do this. In the daytime you can see every famous thing in Paris and at night the lights are spectacular.
I was there for a little over an hour and then had to head back to meet Julie. The hotel room had only one key, which you are supposed to leave at the desk when you leave. (oops. I wondered why the key chain was so big…) When I got there, I found Julie waiting in the lobby with her luggage, where she had been for 45 minutes (oops again.), slightly annoyed, very tired, and excited to see me. (Either that or just excited to be in Paris. We’ll say it was a bit of both.) It was still fairly early so we went for some dinner at a little café and straight back to the Eiffel Tower. It’s that neat, I didn’t mind going right back. It’s especially amazing at night with all the lights. They sparkle for about 10 minutes every hour on the hour.
The next day was mostly museums. The Louvre holds some of the most famous works of art and artifacts in the world and I was quite excited to see some of it. Like the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre is about 10x bigger than I expected. There is a nice park leading up to it with many trees and ponds and even some artwork outside. There is an arch here that lines up with the Arc de Triomphe and the Modern Arch which is downtown. All three of these are perfectly aligned and point right at the Louvre. The outside of the building is a work of art in itself. Every wall, every window sill, every brick is ornate. The entrance to the museum is through the big glass pyramid. This along with the smaller pyramid and the inverse pyramid were added recently, to the dismay of many Parisians who feel that it an eyesore on an otherwise beautiful landmark. I’ll admit it does look a bit out of place, but nonetheless it is very cool to look at, especially the inverted one that is directly under the smaller one outside. Go past the gift shops inside to see this one. Once we
were inside we got a map and chose the high points we wanted to hit. We saw the Mona Lisa, which was behind bullet proof glass and you couldn’t go within 10 feet of it. It was quite smaller than I imagined. The other major attraction was the Venus de Milo. In between we saw countless other paintings, statues, jewels, and artifacts. You could spend a week there and not see it all. We were there about 4 hours.Next we went across the Seine to Musee D’Orsay. The building used to be an old train station and the architecture alone is worth
looking at. Inside they had tons of statues as well as paintings by Van Gogh, Monet, and Rembrandt. We also walked through a neat exhibit on photography, most of it very old.From there, we walked to the Arc de Triomphe. It’s about a 15 minute walk through the Louvre Park and down the Champs-Elysees. Napoleon had the Arc built and it is inscribed with the names of French generals and the battles they fought. Each of the four pillars has a sculpture on the outside that depicts a battle scene. I thought these were the coolest part. You can go all way to the top by way of a spiral staircase. The view from the top is well worth it, especially around sunset. You can see for miles and take in almost every monument or building in Paris.
My
other favorite attraction was Notre Dame Cathedral. I could sit outside and look at this building all day long. Every square inch is intricate, and it was built in the 1100s. It is still a functioning church but tourists are let in, you can even go up in the bell towers (which I did not do on this trip because I couldn’t find it, but I did the next time I was in Paris with my ma. I highly recommend it.) There are enormous stained glass windows on all four sides. I became obsessed with the gargoyles, especially the ones on the bell towers. I took a lot of pictures of those.
Those are the highlights of the trip. In between all that I managed to eat some amazing food (crepes!) and drink some great wine, ride a Ferris Wheel, walk past Moulin Rouge and about a hundred sex shops, go inside the Pantheon, shop, get lost, and make my way back to the bus to take me back to my airport on the other side of France. Paris is now one of my favorite cities. How could it not be?
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1 comment:
It was my favorite trip to Paris thus far. We didn't get very far down my list of things to do. Guess we'll just have to go back! :)
Nice blog.
Jules
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