Paris - Part One

Looking back at the writeup of the Italy trip, I see that I managed to get that posted a week after returning and am quite impressed. For the latest trip to Paris and London, we took about twice as many pictures -- seven hundred and change -- almost as many as our memory card can hold. That's a lot of pictures to post and talk about, so I am going to break it up into parts and post them over time. As we did with previous trips like this, we planned our first day to be lots of walking so that we could fall into bed at 8:00 pm and reset our body clocks to the local time. In service of this, we planned a walk through the oldest part of the city and through several churches in that area. First we had to get there. The Metro stop closest to our hotel was disrupted because of some protesting, so we walked to the next one. Sadly, this one was packed with everyone else avoiding the closer one, and was so crowded with people that a confusing situation was made even more so. The fact that the ticket machines were only in French didn't help. Thankfully walking the next station resolved the issue, since it was much less busy and we didn't feel rushed to vacate the machine. We managed to figure out that the little metal bumper dealie at the base of the screen was actually a roller for moving the cursor. Very odd. Sort of a silver banana instead of a mouse.

The walk started at and around Notre Dame which was huge and gothic and impressive. As is typical of us, silly details tended to catch our eye more than the larger picture. The exposed buttresses on the side were both impressive to see and fun to say. Buttress! It's like female butter! We also enjoyed picking out odd sections from the statuary on the face of the building. Of particular interest were the statues of St. Dennis with his head on a platter in his hands and another of a dude who, for no reason we could gather, was standing on a sheep.

We tended to find some of the smaller, out of the way sites to be more enjoyable than the more popular ones. A good example of this was St. Chappelle. This is a church that was built somewhat in the courtyard of another building, but that had used buttresses (hee!) to make the walls in the chapel almost entirely stained glass. It was an amazing effect to see so many floor to ceiling windows in such bright colors, and we thankfully got a rare burst of sunlight to make it all the more special.

An unfortunate sight on our first day was finding things we wanted to see closed. This happened at two separate parks as well as a memorial to the Jews deported in world war two. I suppose that on a rainy off season Saturday we should have expected as much, but it still became an irritating pattern. Thankfully, after day one it passed.

Paris, like Rome (and London for that matter) straddles a river. Unlike the Tiber, however, the Seine (which I never really figured out how to pronounce, so I just mumbled something different every time) is actually displayed and used instead of ignored. There are dinner cruises, parks that overlook it, and pricey real estate lining it. It also was a very handy tool for figuring out where things were relative to each other.

A site that we enjoyed much more than we expected was the Rodin museum. Going in, we knew little of Rodin other than The Thinker. Seeing a large grouping of his work and reading about each in our guidebook really made it interesting. We also are suckers for gorgeous old buildings and gardens like the mansion he lived in, where the museum is set.

There were several Rodin sculptures that really caught our fancy, but none as much as the Gates of Hell. This was a huge set of doors carved with scenes from Dante's Inferno. It was an enormous piece of work, yet so full of details and personality. We were quite taken.

A theme that began to develop on day two was how much the French royalty loved the French royalty. By the end of the trip I had decided that they pretty much had it coming with the revolution. The beginning of this revelation was Napoleon's Tomb at Les Invalides (yes, I know that Napoleon came after the revolution.) The man was not modest. From the gilded dome and spire to the fourteen nested coffins surrounded by angels and scenes of Napoleon being awesome while dressed as an ancient Greek, the man knew how to brag -- even from the grave. Mary and I pointed out all the great ideas we were getting for each other's memorials, and determined which family members we would put in each of the many alcoves and chapels that Napoleon had put his relatives in.

One thing we really liked about Paris was that despite being ancient and very crowded, it still had a lot of green space set aside. Here is Place Vosges, which was a square that one of the Louises had created so he could be surrounded by the right kind of people. They so had it coming. It was a lovely park surrounded by cute shops and cafes. I can definitely imagine returning to Paris during the much busier summer season and spending our time picnicking in parks and people watching in cafes.

Another interesting theme from Paris was the juxtaposition of very modern elements with very traditional ones. In this case, it's the famed (and sometimes loathed) glass pyramids of the Louvre. We really liked them, and the inverted one in the underground entry area was particularly cool. Throughout the visit, we would see modern art installations in parks or at sites that had a much more classical feel. We saw the usual suspects in our visit, but it was a few less famous (but I am sure well known by those more cultured than us) works that we preferred. The Raft of the Medusa is a scene of despair and madness as the remaining crew of a sunken ship fight for life adrift on choppy waters. How can some smiling chick compare to that?

Paris was home to the impressionist movement, which neither of us cares for that much. Still, how could we not go to see the water lilies in the space they were painted for? Especially because it was on our way and covered by our museum pass? We ended up enjoying these quite a bit, and seeing them in person does make a huge difference. The scale is amazing (some were six feet by twenty or thirty feet.) In this case it was the lack of detail that was interesting. Being able to move in and see the brush strokes, then step back and see the images that they formed was very cool.

More recurring themes! This time, cramped stairwells. We ended up climbing up the inside of four different structures on the trip, the first being the Arc d' Triumph shown here.

The Arc grants some amazing views if you can stomach the many steps to get to the top. From here you could see the layout of the city and find that it actually had some method to its madness. Here we are looking down the Champs Elysee, which is the Magnificent Mile of Paris. This was a day of massive amounts of walking for us and in the distance, behind the partially constructed Ferris Wheel (take that, Eiffel!) you can see the Louvre where our trek had begun.

A rare picture with both of us! Rare for a reason, as I still haven't mastered the outstretched arm self photo. On top of this one with us blocking the arc, I also have several of us with the Eiffel Tower sticking out of each of our heads.

Another great, out of the way sight is the Sacre Coeur. It sits on a rare hill in the Monmarte district, and is worth the climb. The exterior is a striking white, with byzantine domes. It reminded us a lot of St. Mark's in Venice. It is also in a seedier part of town, so the normal vendors of light-up plastic Eiffel Towers were much more aggressive, and were joined by men selling beer. From a six pack. In a brown bag. Still, we enjoyed the church and found a fun restaurant nearby where we got excellent desserts and wine.

The Sacre Coeur was the second climb we did and it afforded some nice, nighttime views of the city. Part of the climb took us up over rooftops of various parts of the church and gave us some up close time with gargoyles and the domes themselves, which we quite enjoyed.

Finally, no trip would be complete without some entertaining miscellany that caught my eye. As great as the Metro system was (once we figured out the ticketing machines) I have to admit that the best part for me was the signage. There were several that I didn't get good shots of (a bunny getting his hand trapped in the door, what looked like the silhouette of Siamese twins,) but this was probably my favorite. It's so detailed! So lifelike! You can easily imagine the poor man flailing as he falls to his death. Also, it is very reminiscent of the credits for Mad Men, which both Mary and I love. Neat!