Category: France

Day 19, Musée d’Orsay

SDSpivey

This morning we went to the Musée d’Orsay.

It is filled with more modern art than the Louvre, with many paintings by Renoir, Van Gogh, Pissaro, Degas, Manet, and Monet.

There was only one elevator that we could find to go up, all the others were closed behind doors, hidden from casual use.

Afterwards, we crossed the bridge and grabbed some food and ate in the Louvre gardens at a round fountain, feeding a few of the baby ducks a bit of our bread.

The temperature here is in the low 60’s, with wind blowing and shifting directions. Neither of us brought any sort of jacket, but I did have my Inverness, FL sweatshirt, thankfully. Mom had to break down and admit she was cold and bought a Paris sweatshirt this morning.

Day 18, Le Louvre

SDSpivey

We spend most of the day at the Louvre Museum, starting off going down to the Egyptian exhibit.

There is a walkway that originally would have been under water, in the moat, making up the wall of the original small castle, before it was expanded and expanded.

There were a number of sarcophagi, more than I thought even existed.

The cafe wasn’t too high priced and was surprisingly good. In part, I ordered a small yogurt, which came in a terracotta cup, for some reason. I might have kept it to reuse, but it had yogurt residue inside, plus I didn’t want to carry this heavy thing around all day, but I felt guilty about throwing it away.

Smartly, we then found the elevator and headed for the top floor. Working down the stairs is so much easier than working our way up them.

After looping to and fro throughout the various rooms, we headed straight for the room with the Mona Lisa, huge crowd of people around it, of course. They were acting as if that was the only painting in the whole place. I doubt they even noticed the other paintings within that room.

With our legs giving out and rain threatening, we called it a night.

Day 17, Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame

SDSpivey

We started out the day going to the Eiffel Tower. That sucker is tall!

The base sits on stone pedestals about 30 feet square and are spaced 100 feet apart.

They have a double-decker elevator that goes up to the second level, at an angle, then you have to switch to another elevator to go straight up to the top.

There are people climbing the stairs. These people are crazy and need to be locked up for their own safety.

Oddly, the Sacré Cœur can be seen from even the second level, day or night, but the Eiffel Tower isn’t visible from the church. Even the top of the tower is still way below the elevation of the church and is lost in among the buildings.

We headed over to the Arc de Triomphe. When I asked the ticket guy if there was an elevator, he responded with a yes, but that there were still stairs after that to get to the roof. He lied. We had to climb a LOOOONG spiral staircase up to the inner room, then climb more stairs to get up on top.

We then walked down the Champs-Élysées to the river and crossed over to Notre Dame Cathedral. It was free and the line wasn’t long. It is really just a quick loop around the outer edges of the floor, leaving the center for prayers and other church duties.

It was rather dark inside and dirty. Not garbage on the floor, but a dinginess from centuries of dust and candle soot. All of the old buildings are the same way, they can’t be cleaned without doing damage, but this was a bit worse.

Also, while we could see the actual Notre-dame statue (the “Our Lady”), you could only see it from the back. Even the people praying would have been to far back to see it well.

Later that night, we headed back to the Eiffel Tower, to see it lit up and to go up. Did I mention it is TALL?

Day 15 & 16, Last of Italy, Arrival in France

SDSpivey

I had made a huge mistake. We had to check out of the hostel by 10 AM, but would not leave on the train until 11 PM, a thirteen hour wait.

We had a few options:

  • Drag the bags around with us all day as we browse the town.
  • Leave the baggage at the hostel until 5, then go to the train station.
  • Or take the bags to the station and check them.

The first option was no option. I only have one bag, but it is heavy and awkward. Mom has three. Also, there was rain forecasted.

The second was viable, but if we didn’t get back before 5, they would charge us for another night, AND we would still have to lug it around for 6 hours.

We decided on the third. We had already gone by the train station, on our walks, and found that it would be 6 euros per bag. That is 24€, but so much better than lugging them around.

Unfortunately, we neglected to notice (or remember) that this was only for the first 5 hours, an additional .90€ per hour was needed. We were already at the station, so we had little choice.

It ended up being over 57 euros, we would have been better off paying for another night. Then we could have had a nap, since because of the high winds and possible rain, we didn’t do anything all day.

There are only about 50 seats for about a billion people in the station, so when we got a couple, we stayed in them, taking turns going off to the potty.

I have actually found a good use for McDonald’s restaurant, they have free bathrooms. The station had a long line with a 1€ entrance fee. We also hit a McD’s in Rome, near the Spanish Steps, as there didn’t seem to be any toilets around.

The rain came much latter than the forecast predicted, but it was a doozy. The normal roar of the people talking was actually drowned out by the rain hitting the roof.

Finally, our train popped up on the departure board, so we decided to go ahead and go through the security gate. I don’t know why there was one, I didn’t see them checking tickets or baggage, just merely getting everyone to funnel through a tight doorway instead of the huge walkway they had walled off.

Going through early turned out to be a bad decision as there were no seats on that side, so we stood around the display waiting for our train’s platform number to be displayed (like everyone else in the secure area.)

At one point some station worker led a man over to the board and pointed out the man’s train and where the platform number would be when ready. Only the man was French and the station worker was speaking Italian.

I think the man was a bit slow and he just stood there for about two minutes just staring at the board, then was looking around nervously. As I was standing closest to him he asked me something in French about the train for Paris. Since I was going there and I knew the train was supposed to arrive in platform 8, I stated so, in my best French. I wasn’t 100% on that point, so I probably shouldn’t have said anything.

He then took off looking for #8, which was right in front of me, but he ran off anyway.

He eventually wandered back around and was staring at the display again. I couldn’t remember how to say 30, so I told him it would be 25 minutes. Close enough, right?

He then wandered over to #9, which had a train waiting. I didn’t see him again, so I hope he didn’t get on the wrong one.

Luckily our train car was the 3rd one, so we didn’t have to walk far to get on. (Unfortunately, that meant we were at the end of the train when we arrived.)

It was easy to get from the train to the Paris Metro, if you don’t count the numerous flights of stairs.

We were able to drop off our bags at the hostel, and then went out exploring. As long as you have money, you will never go hungry in Paris, there is a food vender every few yards.

I saw a shop across the boulevard wit h neon lights and made a joke to Mom about that being a strip club. Later we found out it <em>is</em> a strip club. There is an entire section of the street with strip clubs, sex toy shops, videos, or whatever.

Stranger still, are the families strolling along with their kids, as if it were just any street on a brisk Saturday morning.

The Moulin Rouge is also in the area, it is just a burlesque house, so it fits in well.

The Sacré Cœur (“sacred heart”) church is only a block north of our room, but it is literally about 500 feet up. It was built on the highest point in Paris. It even has a train that runs up the hill side, quite at a steep angle ~65°.

We walked around the streets beside the church, hoping that we could just gradually make our way up, but every time we turned a corner, there was a steep set of stairs that would have to be scaled.

We took a “short cut” through an old cemetery, but there was no exit, so we had to walk back out.

We finally made it to the top. The view was freaking great. There is about a 120° view of the city for miles and miles, unobstructed by any buildings or trees, of course you still have to see past the people.

There was only one way down, hundreds and hundreds of stairs. I know that we have done an entire year’s worth of exercise so far in the past 2 weeks, and there are still miles and miles left to walk.