Our Paris Vacation Comes To An End

On our last day in Paris, we decided to take it relatively easy. We got up late, and then decided to do all the things on our list that we had missed earlier in the week. The first stop was Notre Dame. A relative had recommended seeing the crypt, but it had been closed our two previous times there. The crypt isn't what it sounds like--we weren't looking at old skeletons. It was basically an underground museum with an interesting display of the history of Notre Dame.


We had also wanted to try the restaurant in the Musee D'Orsay, and did so today. We only ate out a few times in Paris because I bought too much stuff when we went to the grocery store by our apartment, and that was my only real regret about this portion of our European trip. I was glad we had the opportunity to eat here though. It was reasonably priced, and I found the food to be good. We each had the plat du jour, which was fish (cod, if I remember right) over fettucine. For dessert, Hubby had the best ice cream I have ever tasted (and that includes all the gelato I ate in Italy), and I had a “Floating Island.” I’m not quite sure what a “Floating Island” is, but it tasted like a big, toasted marshmallow in a caramel sauce. Yummy!


After lunch, we went to the Orangerie to see Monet’s lilies. For those of you unfamiliar with these pieces, they are huge canvas paintings of...well...lilies. They were breath taking. I had originally had the Orangerie on the list of sites we’d see if there was time, and I am really glad we ended up going. That man was just a genius. I can’t believe he painted so many pieces of that size. Amazing. Here are some pictures (these paintings were about 8 feet tall by 25 feet wide):

And that was the end of our time in Paris. Of all the places we went in Europe, Paris is the one I miss the most, which suprises me actually, because at the time we were there, we felt as though we had done a pretty good job of seeing everything we wanted to see. But there is something about waking up and falling asleep with the Eiffel Tower that I'll never forget. Paris was magical, and I hope that all of you reading who would like to get there someday are able to do so.

Versailles

We watched Marie Antoinette with Kirsten Dunst before going on this trip, and I knew then that I wanted to see Versailles. Versailles is about an hour train ride out of Paris, and the train ride was mostly uneventful. At one stop, a group of tourists taking a bike tour got on. They successfully loaded six bikes onto the train in the 45 seconds they had to do so. I was semi-impressed. Of course they put the six bikes directly in front of the staircase on the train, blocking passage for anyone wishing to go up or down, but the speed at which they did so was impressive. When we got off the train at Versailles, we followed the masses to the palace, and…NO! The marble courtyard was undergoing renovation. (Rent Marie Antoinette if you want to see what I'm talking about. It is amazing, but alas, wasn't to be for us.) It had sheets and tarps and scaffolding all over it. I was really looking forward to being able to see Versailles from this angle in person, so was disappointed to discover we would not be able to.

It took about an hour and a half to see the interior of the palace. My favorite part about the whole experience was looking for all of the hidden doors in the walls to see how many “secret” rooms there were. The exterior of the palace--now that was the highlight in my opinion. The grounds are massive, and immaculately kept. I loved the gardens—I wished I had had the energy (or the debate skills I needed to convince Hubby to rent a golf cart) to see even more than we did. And I absolutely loved the Hamlet. We spent all day at Versailles. It was a lot of walking (I had to rest a couple of times) but well worth it. Here are some pictures:

Above: Versailles

Above: Marie Antoinette's Hamlet. She had this built so

she could experience peasant life.

Above: The gardens

The Mona Lisa!

For our fourth day in Paris, we spent the morning at St. Chapelle, and then the bulk of the afternoon at the L'Ouvre. A relative had recommended St. Chapelle, and we really enjoyed seeing it. The chapel is almost entirely stained glass, so it's really pretty when the sunlight comes in and hits the different windows. Here's a picture of one of the windows:

After we left St. Chapelle, we stopped by Notre Dame again so Hubby could climb the tower. You are still able to climb some of the towers of the churches in Europe, and Hubby wanted to try this one. It was the same tower Victor Hugo wrote about in Hunchback of Notre Dame. I don't do heights, so Hubby was on his own for the 400+ stair climb. Here is a picture from the top:
After Hubby finished his climb, we were ready to see one of the most storied museums in the world. We headed first in the direction of Winged Victory and the Mona Lisa. Winged Victory was quite impressive. I liked how they had it displayed on top of a staircase, and it was much, much bigger than I thought it would be. We continued on, admiring all the paintings, but the best parts for me were the ceilings. Don’t forget to look up when sightseeing in Europe. You’ll miss some of the best stuff.

We got a peak at the Mona Lisa between the heads of the people crowded around her. By this time, we needed to get away from the crowds, so we made our way to the sculptures. And there I discovered my favorite piece: The Veiled Lady. I couldn’t believe I was looking at stone, it was so realistic and delicate looking. Before leaving, we saw the Medieval L’Ouvre, which Hubby and I also really liked—it is the foundations of the old building. I would recommend that as well, to anyone who is going.

You could spend a week in the L’Ouvre, and still maybe not see it all. One thing that really helped us was reading about the collection beforehand, and deciding what it was that we wanted to focus on. If we hadn’t done this, I would have felt very, very…lost.

We didn't take many pictures inside the building because it wasn't worth fighting the crowds, but here are is a picture of the outside:

That night we took a cruise down the Seine. The cruise was nice (bring a jacket!). But I think we were spoiled with our apartment. I enjoyed seeing all of the sights at night from the boat, but…it just wasn’t the same as looking out over all of Paris from our apartment. But I would definitely recommend the cruise nevertheless.

Plan B in Paris

On our second full day in Paris, we had planned to go to Versailles, in keeping with the castle/palace theme from yesterday's tour, but surprisingly in Paris a lot of things are still closed on Sunday, most notably train ticket offices, so we had to come up with a Plan B.

Because it was still early out and there weren't many people around, we decided to begin Plan B with a walk around Paris. We meandered over to Place D’Concorde and then down the Champs Elyses toward the Arc D’Triomph. It was a beautiful morning with perfect weather. Here is a picture of the Arc D'Triomph:

And a picture of the fountain at the Place D'Concord:

We walked back down the Champs Elyses, over a bridge Hubby had seen on the bus ride out yesterday morning that he had also liked, and back toward the Musee D’Orsay, which we’ve decided to see today.

On the way back, we noticed several walkways leading down to the Seine were roped off, but not by the police. We couldn’t figure out what was going on. We thought maybe someone was filming something. We crossed back over the river and walked along the street closest to the Seine, before realizing why those walkways have been roped off.

There was a Formula One race car on the street below. For those of you who don't know, Hubby. Loves. Cars.

We were so close to the Musee D’Orsay. I thought about all those masterpieces inside that building, and then looked at the Formula One car. It’s not even doing anything. It’s just sitting there in all of its exhaust-filled glory. There was a driver and a crew, but there was only one car, so it didn’t appear as though there was a race.

Hubby of course has to stop and have his moment of Formula One Worship. We lined up along the fence with other gawkers, and Hubby took some pictures. One of the car guards came over and started shooing people away, and I thought, “Yay! Now he’ll HAVE to leave.”

Oh no. Hubby just moved his pilgrimage a few feet down. The fact that the car was not doing anything was just fascinating to him, because it opened up all sorts of possibilities of what COULD happen. A race? A practice? Hubby was determined to find out. So while the world’s artistic masterpieces sat forlornly a few blocks away, we stood near the Seine, in the presence of…a Formula One car. Finally, finally the driver reved the engine, and the car sped off out of eyesight. Hubby is ecstatic. So am I, because it means we can leave.

The Formula One car:

We finally made it to the Orsay. I loved the Orsay. We mainly stuck to the Impressionist works, but did also see some of the sculptures, the print exhibit and an exhibit that was a glass floor with a model city of Paris underneath it. The thing I loved so much about Europe was that so many things that you just study in school here in the US, or only ever see pictures of, is there, in front of you, in Europe. I marveled at all of the Impressionist treasures under one roof, especially since Impressionism is my favorite style. We got close up to the paintings, and then stood back a few feet to take them in to compare/contrast the detail versus the overall effect. Lovely. I also enjoyed the sculptures, I think because of the way they were laid out, and the fact that all of the crowds are upstairs looking at the Monets. It was a very calming atmosphere.

We spent maybe 2-3 hours at the Orsay, and then headed back to the apartment for food. Then we headed back down to tourist central to see Notre Dame. The interior of this church is worth seeing, but we were disappointed that it felt like a tourist attraction and not a church. But the outside: Wow. Here are some pictures:

Later that night we walked down to see the Eiffel Tower. I hadn’t been that excited to see the Eiffel Tower up close, because I assumed it would just look like this awkward metal…thing. I was really surprised to see that it looked…almost graceful, and…delicate. It was actually very pretty close up, and a very ingenious design.

We staked out a piece of grass and waited for it to light up. It was kind of cool being there when it did light up, and hearing everyone around applaud. While we were there, a woman approached me and asked me in French if I spoke English. I could tell she was American, so I told her in English that I did because I was American. It turned out she and her family are also from the Minneapolis suburbs. We chatted with them for a few minutes and take turns taking pictures of each other. By this time it is completely dark, so we headed back to the apartment. We were reminded again of the importance to roll with the punches, because while we didn’t end up doing Plan A, Plan B ended up being one of our favorite days in Paris.

Loire Valley, France

For our first full day in France, we decided to take a day tour of some of the castles in France. We found one through Paris Vision that we thought would suffice nicely. A bunch of other tourists had the same idea, because the tour was packed.

When I had booked this tour, there had been four language options for this day: English, French, Spanish, or Japanese. For some reason, I had assumed that meant there would be four separate tours. Don’t ask me why. At some point while we were waiting, it occurred to me that there was probably one bus with audio guides in four different languages, which was fine with me. We waited outside with the rest of the tourist mob for the bus to appear. It finally does, and Hubby and I waited for a line to form to board the bus.

Except the line did not form. Instead, there was a massive surge of people toward the bus. I was totally caught off guard by not only the behavior of some of the group, but also by Paris Vision for not controlling it better. No attempt was made to have everyone line up. We were left to fend for ourselves. I was a little irked by that. I am also regretting having to spend an entire day with some of these people.

Hubby and I sighed and joined the mob, as there was no other choice. I got on the bus first, and Hubby had to literally push his way on behind me in order for us to stay together. It was a double decker bus, so we headed up to the top. That would prove later to be a mistake.

Everyone finally finished boarding, and we waited for audio guides to be passed around. However, there would be no audio guides. The audio guides were only handed out at the castles. The information on the bus was presented orally by the tour guides into a microphone, and they took turns speaking: two girls would switch off doing the French, English and Spanish portions, and there was a gentleman who ran the Japanese tour. Sometimes they did all four languages, sometimes they only did two or three. I started to think maybe this wasn’t the best way to go about seeing castles.

We got comfortable for the ride and watched the French countryside roll by. I watched the lady in front of me have a Heineken for breakfast. And then another Heineken for her mid-morning snack.

The first caslte on the tour was Chenonceau. Here are some pictures:

We both really enjoyed Chenonceau. The castle is picturesque, the information provided by the guide was decent, and the grounds were also very pretty. We didn’t have as long as we would have liked there, but I knew that would be the price we paid for taking a tour of this nature. For our free time, we had enough time to see either the remainder of the interior of the castle that hadn’t been covered in the tour, or the grounds. We chose the grounds, and had an enjoyable time.

Our next stop was Cheverny for lunch and also to see the Cheverny castle. I wasn’t expecting much from the lunch, as it was included in the price of the ticket, but it was actually really good. We ate at a restaurant right outside Cheverny (forget its name). Each table had a bottle of red and white wine, water, and lunch consisted of a salad, salmon over a bed of rice (it was really good), and some sweet breads for dessert.

After lunch, it was on to Cheverny, which we both could have skipped entirely. The architecture of the place, when you’re on a “castle” tour, is somewhat disappointing. It’s really more like a palace at best, and the interior didn’t have anything that we found to be particularly unique. The highlight of Cheverny was seeing the dogs in the dog pen on the grounds, along with the herb garden.

Here is a picture of Cheverny:

And here is one of the dogs:

We got back to the bus a little early, and couldn’t figure out why people were getting on and then getting right back off again. We got on, walked up to the second level, and…there’s the elusive summer we saw so little of on this trip! The upper levels of double decker busses apparently get quite hot when the air conditioning has been turned off for awhile! Having never been on a double decker bus, this was a new discovery for us. But we saw it as a trade off for the cool weather we had in London and sat down.

Our next and last stop was Chambord (on the way there we saw a double decker tour bus like ours that had gotten too close to the ditch on one of those narrow country roads and overturned, gulp). The lady in front of me was on her fourth or fifth Heineken by this point (and that’s not counting the two or three beers she had with lunch).

We got out and…another Wow moment. Chambord is the reality of what you imagine a castle to be. It was gorgeous. Hubby and I couldn’t wait to get going. But we were quickly disappointed to learn we would only have an hour here total. Only an hour? Chambord is large, with extensive grounds, and we really wanted to see as much as we could. But even with an hour, we knew—it was either going to be the interior or the grounds. So we did something that I considered slightly rude, and that I told myself I wouldn’t do: we stayed with the group to see the large circular staircase in the castle, and then we ditched the tour. I justified it by saying I would probably never be back here, and I should, as much as possible, make the most of it.

Here is Chambord:

We walked around the back of the castle, and then down a little way by the canal. The views of the castle from these points were gorgeous. We walked back in front, and then over to the other side, and then…it was time to head back to the bus. I was really sad to leave. I could easily have spent half a day there.

We waited until the last minute before boarding the Oven-On-Wheels that wass our tour bus. Overall the tour was informative, although I thought the structure of it could stand some revision. I was also impressed by the guides that spoke three different languages so well, as I’m butchering the few words of French I remember. One other thing I found interesting is that English seems to be a default languages of sorts. There were people on the English tour who did not speak English natively, but who selected the language because of the four offered, that was the common ground.

Ultimately, however, both Hubby and I felt that if we could do it differently, we would have, and I personally would only recommend this tour as a last resort. Ideally the best way to see the Loire Valley is to take the time and stay in the Loire for several days, allowing enough time to see the castles you want to see. Hubby even commented that for the money (304 Euros) he would have rather hired a private driver, told the driver that we wanted to drive around the Loire and that we’d tell him when we saw a cool castle we wanted to stop at. I had to agree with the latter. I much would have preferred either method to the tour. That being said, I was glad to be able to see this part of France. It was absolutely beautiful. I was also able to sleep most of the way back, which was nice, because it made staying up to watch the Tower twinkle that much easier!

PARIS

Life is still really crazy but rather than completely abandon the blog indefinitely, I'm going to take the lazy way out and repost the second installment of our European trip report from 2007. After London we headed off for a week in Paris. I was both nervous and excited for this portion of the trip--nervous because I was going to have to rely on my rusty college French for the next week, and excited because, well, because it's Paris.

We arrived in Paris via the Eurostar from London. The train ride was uneventful, but I was a little disappointed to see a gray sky when we arrived. London had been frigid, and after a week, we were really hoping for some sunshine. But when I stepped off the train, I made my first pleasant discovery about Paris: Paris cloudy is warmer than London cloudy.

We took a cab from the train station to the apartment we had rented, and upon meeting our cab driver I realize that my rusty college French is going to become more problematic faster than I had hoped. The cab driver was of African descent, and spoke French as though he learned it as a second language as well. "This is going to be great," I thought. "Two people who don’t speak French well trying to communicate with each other in French." But we manage better than I thought we would, and arrive at the apartment after only a brief minute of confusion. (The street came up kind of fast so the driver passed it the first time around…and coming from the opposite direction, the building address numbers didn’t go in order so we had a little bit of difficulty locating the appropriate building. The apartment rental agency had given us explicit instructions, with pictures of the front of the building even, but of course I had left those in my suitcase, thinking that I had memorized the address and that was sufficient. Lesson learned: always, always have ALL of your travel documents/instructions on your person.)

We get upstairs to our apartment, and…WOW. I had found this apartment through Vacation In Paris, a well recommended agency on both Fodor's and Trip Advisor. The apartment was located in the 15th quarter, which is outside the main tourist center, but had a view to die for. Here are some pictures from our balcony:

Eiffel Tower Light Show

Panoramic Night View

Panoramic Day View

The Eiffel Tower actually looks closer in person than it does in the pictures—Hubby, a professional photographer, said there was a reason for this, which I’ve of course forgotten, but the point is we had a view of Paris that you can only dream of and think that you’ll never actually be lucky enough to have.

Our first day in Paris is very relaxed. We spent the evening gazing at our view, doing laundry (the apartment had a combo washer/dryer, which was nice, because it meant we only had to pack a week's worth of clothes for a 2 1/2 week European vacation) and getting some items at the local grocery store. The best butter and Yogurt I have ever had came from the grocery store a block from this apartment in Paris.

There is a light show on the hour every hour once it gets dark outside, and we didn't go to bed before watching this at least once from our apartment. Here is the video:

Here is a link to the apartment we rented, in case anyone is interested:

http://www.vacationinparis.com/apts/id_154.htm

R.I.P.

Hubby's maternal grandmother died this week. She was the quintessential grandmother--she doted on her family and grandchildren, and was the centerpoint of the family as a whole. She had a two year battle with cancer, and toward the end it was really hard for Hubby to see how much pain she was in. The wake is Sunday and the funeral Monday--will get back to the blog when life calms back down.