Paris: The City of Lights and B.O.

Yes, it's true: Paris smells, of body odor and cigarette smoke. But thankfully that didn't detract too much from my weekend there!

Day 1: After too little sleep, I woke up at 5:15 to catch our train out of St. Pancras. We made it to Paris in good time, around 11. All 28 of us had to schlep through the Metro with our bags, having no idea where we were going. The London underground system is so much more organized and efficient. Plus, it's in English so I can actually pronounce and recognize the names of stations. Our hostel was most certainly in a bad part of town, and looked like a cruise ship. It was three to a room, and thankfully we had our own bathroom. Oh JMU, you spoil us.

Our next adventure was to get to the Musee d'Orsay, where we would be meeting up with the art history professor, Rachel, to show us around. We had some time to kill before we had to meet, so a group of us got baguette sandwiches and ate on the steps outside the museum. Definitely going to miss the French baguettes. The Musee d'Orsay was a really cool museum; it used to be an old train station, but is now the home of the biggest collection of French Impressionist art. My favorite room was the Van Gogh room. I could look at his paintings of the night sky forever. Apparently Brad Pitt was there, but no one from our group actually saw him. Like most museums, it was overwhelming to see it all in an hour, but I was very impressed (get it??). As we've studied it more in art, I really enjoy the paintings from the Impressionist movement; the colors, the subjects, and the style. After our visit in the museum, our whole group walked along the River Seine to the Lourve. On the way, we passed the famous lock bridge of Paris: lovers buy a pad lock, write their name on it, lock it to the bridge and then throw the key in the river, so their love lasts forever. And for the record, there really are accordion players everywhere: on the bridge, on the tube, EVERYWHERE.

Musee d'Orsay

Inside the clock of Musee d'Orsay

THE LOURVE. Where do I begin? It's a mammoth of a building: it used to be palace but now houses over 10,000 pieces of art. I can't even imagine how long it would take to see every piece. Rachel took us on the "unabashed highlights tour": Michealangelo's "Dying Slave," "Venus de Milo," "Mona Lisa," and "Raft of Medusa." Like every other art museum, I can't believe I'm seeing these pieces in real life. The Mona Lisa was different than I expected: it's behind a glass case and is the only picture on the wall. It's actually bigger than I expected, but it's the size of a normal portrait. Not as bright and vibrant as it appears in pictures, but still very cool. My favorite piece, though, was the Veronese right across from Mona. It's HUGE and has so much going on. I could have stayed there all night just staring and it. 

Dying Slave

Venus de Milo

Mona Lisa

Veronese

Raft of Medusa

After an art-filled evening, it was time for some food. Twelve of us piled into a French brasserie and had a delicious meal and a few bottles of wine. It was definitely a good first day in Paris!

Day 2: We were allowed to sleep in bit on Saturday, and met downstairs at 9:30. For all the flack our hostel got this weekend, I must say their breakfast croissants were GREAT.

Our first stop on our sunny morning was the home of Quasimodo (Notre Dame). Fun fact: I've never seen the movie but as a child I was obsessed with Esmeralda. Maybe I should get on that now that I've been to the real place. The building is breathtaking. Well, except for the huge scaffolding outside commemorating the 850th anniversary of the cathedral. I didn't realize that not only is the Notre Dame on an island in the middle of Paris, but this was where the center of Paris used to be. We crossed over the mile zero marker while queuing to get in!

Inside the cathedral was stained glass heaven. I particularly loved the one that's on the inside of the large circle. I think there was a service of some sort going on; there was a man at a podium talking to people sitting down, but he was speaking in French so I'm not sure what was going on. For some reason, the little chapels on the side didn't feel as superfluous as they did at St. Peter's. The church was beautiful, but not over the top. It was also really interesting to have just been to St. Paul's, a baroque style church. Notre Dame is tried and true Gothic. I wandered through it for about a half an hour, then went back outside. Unfortunately, the weather was starting to turn and it was definitely chillier and cloudier. 

Jay was taking us around on CBD Saturday, so he took us to an "alternative view" of the Eiffel Tower via the metro. It was definitely worth it. I kept scanning the skyline for the Tower the previous night, but I realized that it's actually not in the center of the city. Most of the horizon views were lacking the Eiffel Tower!

We walked through a couple streets, turned a corner and there the Tower was! It's been the first city landmark that has been bigger than I imagined. It's cold and steel, but it fits the city. Interestingly, it was designed for Barcelona, but ended in Paris. I love it.

My lovely flatmates!

Flat E (above) had a nice, albeit expensive lunch in a cafe before meeting up with the rest of our group. Those of us who wanted to see the Arc de Triomphe trekked over there, and then walked down the Avenue de Champs-Elysee. The Arc is in the middle of a very intimidating traffic circle in which there are no lines but room for at least four lanes of traffic. Count me out for driving in that thing. The Avenue is incredible: the sidewalks are the size of a normal street, then you have the actual road, and then another sidewalk on the other side! Paris was redesigned after the Revolution to prevent another from happening. The streets were made incredibly wide to prevent barricade, and to make it easy for troops to march through. 

For dinner I ate at a restaurant near the hostel, which was cheap and delicious. A large group of us headed over to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up! I ate an embarassing amount of food leading up to and at the tower: a bottle of wine, a whole chocolate bar, a pack of Madeleines (which are DELICIOUS, like lemon pound cake, and I got them from a vending machine), and 2 crepes. WHEN IN PARIS?!

Anyway, the Tower was spectacular at night. Hands down my favorite part of the Paris trip. Unfortunately, climbing up to the top had closed minutes before we got to the ticket booth, but we were still able to climb to the second floor, which is pretty high up! Paris really is the city of lights, and it was breath taking to see the city from that view. It could also have been breath taking because I had just climbed about 200 stairs in 10 minutes. Either way, it was awesome. I ran back down to the bottom to see the Tower sparkle at 11. It went on for 5 minutes, with blue lights twinkling with the yellow. So incredibly beautiful. Pictures (per usual) don't do it justice.

So many carousels!

We called it a night after the majesty of the Eiffel Tower. Definitely worth the climb, a reminder that I'm incredibly out of shape.

Day 3: Versailles! We got a bit of a later start than intended, but got to Versailles around 11, after a 40 minute train ride. I had imagined the chateau to be in the countryside, but there is a little town just outside the grounds. It was very strange. We actually got in free to the apartments; Paris has been really nice with giving students free entry to museums. That was awesome, so off we went into the decadent interior of the palace. My jaw dropped in every room. I had to keep reminding myself that people lived here. Everything glittered with gold and was so luxurious. 

Hall of Mirrors

After drowning in gold, it was time for the gardens. We had the most perfect day: sunny with some clouds, but warmer than I've felt in weeks. It ended up being just Meagan and I at this point, so we just wandered around the gardens for a few hours, trying to soak up some Vitamin D. All of the gardens are perfectly trimmed and symmetrical. We commented on how often they would have to be trimmed (probably every week). Everything is just so perfect. 

Apollo Fountain

We finished at Versailles around 3, so Meagan and I decided to check out the Montmartre area. This is the art area, and also home to the "red light district": the Moulin Rouge, sex shops, and burlesque. We got off the Metro stop and the Moulin Rouge was RIGHT THERE; it was very surprising. Definitely underwhelming during the day time, it would have been cool to see lit up. We walked around the area, stopping to get a macaron-WHY did I not get one sooner, they're awesome. I thought they would be hard like meringue  but the chocolate one we split tasted like a brownie. I want a million of them!

We made our way to the Sacre Coeur, atop the Montmartre hill. The church is beautiful, and you get a fantastic view of the city from the top. We climbed it, and even took off our jackets because we got hot! AH! Is it finally going to be spring time? We'll see. It was crazy crowded and there were so many people trying to get us to buy things. I wish we had had time to sit out on the lawn and relax in front of the church.

View from the top

I got the obligatory French fries on our way down the hill, and then we headed back to the hostel. Coincidentally, we met up with literally everyone else from our group on the Metro on the way back! We grabbed our stuff from the hostel and Metro'd to the train station. I had possibly my favorite dessert there: a pastry filled with chocolate. Heaven. 

Paris was definitely packed full of sights, and I'd love to go back and see everything again and more. Au revoir until next time, France!