Paris. I had bad memories of Paris from 20 years ago... where I was travelling alone, and ran into the stereotypical rude Parisians... starting with the person at the "Information" booth at Orly airport who was rude and gave me wrong directions. Those memories are being replaced with good memories. Paris is much funner this time around.
We arrived on Saturday and settled into our apartment and neighborhood. The apartment is quirky - to say the least - but comfortable. It's in a non-touristy neighborhood but with a good metro stop at the end of the block, and a grocery store between the apartment and metro stop. We spent Saturday afternoon doing the essentials: getting sim cards for our phones, buying groceries, and exploring the 'hood. We're walkable to the Pantheon and Notre Dame... so life is good.
The views from the 5th floor (6th by American standards) are a mix of Haussmanian buildings and modern buildings.
Sunday we walked over to Notre Dame, early... It was before 10am when the tower tours start - but I'd read online that it was better to buy the museum passes at the lesser visited St. Chappelle - a few blocks away. The museum passes give you entry to most sites (not Sacre Cour's tower or the Eiffel tower, though). It also lets you skip the ticket purchase line (except at Notre Dame). We loved St. Chappelle, despite the fact that it was a cloudy day so the stained glass was less bright.
From St. Chappelle, with our new museum passes in hand, we walked back to Notre Dame... we went inside the main Cathedral - which was packed like sardines - and decided, again, not to wait in the line to do the tower. Instead we walked along the Seine to the Louvre. We were amazed by the crowds in line there. But Lou got to see the I.M. Pei pyramid in person.
We were going to walk home... but I decided to see if there was a shorter line for museum pass holders - sure enough - there was!!!! We waltzed right in. We went straight to the Medici gallery because that was what I remembered the most from my trip 20 years ago... the giant Ruben paintings that give meaning to the term "Rubenesque".... It was fun showing the kids that - explaining why Marie Medici was in so many of the paintings (she commissioned them - so, yeah.... she's in them.) Then Rigo wanted to see the Mona Lisa. I warned him a) it's not that exciting and b) it will be super crowded. It lived up to my memory.... What had changed was they no longer had any other paintings on that wall of the room - because the crowds all want to see just the Mona Lisa. Rigo insisted I take a picture of him near it... it's as close into the crowd as I was willing to go.
By this time we were starved... so we went to the cafe in the basement of the Louvre.... not too badly priced - a fixed price menu that included steak for Rigo and Lou, and a salad for me. Piero qualified for the kids menu, saving us 6 euro. Good boy.
The day was a good day.
Monday - with most museums closed, we decided to tackle the Eiffel tower. I'd read about the horrendous lines - so we made a point of getting there before it opened... arriving about 8:40am. We were up in the tower by 9:30... not too bad. Unfortunately, the weather report had been wrong... it had predicted rain in the afternoon - but instead it rained while we were up at the top of the tower. We were stubborn and hung out - eventually the skies cleared a bit. Still got some nice pics.
From the Eiffel tower, we walked to the Arc de'Triomphe. The elevator seemed to be broken, so we hiked up the stairs. Again great views.
Then we walked down the boulevard, past the Louvre, and home.
Tuesday - with the Louvre closed, we decided to hit the Rodin museum. The chateau part was closed - but there was some of his work in the exhibition hall, and the gardens were open. From there we walked to Musee d'Orsay... only to be greated by a HUGE line. I figured we'd be able to bypass it with our museum passes - but the long line was for people WITH tickets. Yikes. We decided it could wait for another day - and headed across the river to the park. We had picnic fixings with us and spent about 90 minutes eating, reading and enjoying the park. We decided to check out the line at Notre Dame on our way home. - It was as long as ever.
Today (Wednesday) we left early to get to Versailles before it opened. We arrived about 8:30 - and the line was about 100 people long. By the time it opened it was about 600 people long. Unfortunately, there were a few annoying tour groups in front of us - one chose to stop right in the middle of the stairs that take you up to the Grand Apartments - completely blocking anyone from getting by... once we worked our way in front of this group we had nice, crowd free access to the apartments. Rigo decided he would like to live like this. I pointed out a few problems - you'd need a huge staff just to polish the chandeliers; no indoor plumbing, and they sometimes take the heads off of people who lived there. Here are some chandeliers and Marie Antoinette's bedroom
The gardens were amazing. We decided to splurge on a little electric cart to get around the gardens (1 hour for 32 Euro...) but given the size of the gardens, the price of the "petite train" etc we decided it would be fun.... It was. We also had a beautiful sunny day. This was so much better than 20 years ago, when I took the train out to Chateau Versailles only to find the museum workers were striking so it was closed. They had these weird mirror things in the garden - here's a pic of me taking a pic of me and the boys, via the mirror.
When we left - the line was still about 600 people long. Sooooo glad we got there early and didn't have to stand in line for tickets because of the museum pass.
Tomorrow - Sacre Coer and maybe Musee d'Orsay... Weather permitting on the first, line permitting on the latter... or perhaps we'll run into a shorter line on Notre Dame....
