Yesterday Ben and I took the ICE (inter-city express) train into Paris' Gare de l'est station. From there we spent the day museum and monument hopping. We got full value out of our museum pass and wore my knees out climbing stairs and hoofing it all over the center of the city. Now that I've experienced the glory that is the Paris Metro I am happy to come back to the great united states of driving everywhere in air conditioned comfort. Actually, the metro is a great system and very useful for getting around, but sharing a train car with 100 of my closest sweating friends is not a great experience. Memorable, but not exactly a treasured memory.
My favorite place was possibly the Orangerie museum. AIR CONDITIONED! And full of Monet's water lilies.
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| Ben made me climb all the stairs to the top of L'arc de Triomphe. My knees still hurt. |
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| I like art deco stuff |
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| Ben's choice of destinations |
To get into the Louvre without standing in line for hours we visited a Tabachi shop in the Carousel mall near the Carousel entrance. This little shop also sells one day tickets so you can skip the lines so why doesn't everybody go there? With our Museum pass in hand we skipped the lines and muddled our way through the crowds to see famous art. With so many people trying to crowd in to see, it is kind of difficult to get close to a lot of the famous works. I lost track of what all we saw. After a horribly expensive lunch we walked through the Tuileries and people watched in the increasingly sticky heat of the day. One favorite was the pedestrian bridge over the river, with strategically placed steps allowing you to see the river beneath. It almost looks as if you are somehow suspended over the river.
Next was the Musee d'Orsay, which is actually an old train station. I loved seeing the Van Gogh paintings (reminded me of an old humanities professor going on about Van Gogh and his squiggly lines). Also, a lot of Monet, who is a favorite of mine. For more Monet, we went to the Orangerie, which was air conditioned and a blissful break from the heat. I'm spoiled, I know. After hunting to find a metro stop at the place de la Concorde (traffic abounds and I once again gave thanks for not driving in it) we ventured out to l'Arc de Triomphe. Because we are not old, and didn't have little kids with us we had to climb the stairs to the top. The view was great, but my knees gave out somewhere around the middle. The climb back down was filled with much murmuring.
Last stop of the day was the Cathedrel of Notre Dame. Luckily the line moved quickly and we sat in the cool interior to try and plan dinner. After wandering the island, getting upset at each other and being unable to form any kind of plan we saw the line at Saint Chappelle had shortened and we wandered in. It is a gorgeous little jewellery box of stained glass, and I am so glad we went there.
To be honest, the trip was both exactly what I expected and completely surprising. The guards everywhere with machine guns were just a little intimidating and the lines to go through security everywhere we went (except the Arc) were not so fun, but the trip was really quite wonderful. Seeing famous art in person that I've seen in books is very cool, competing with several hundred people to try and see it is not so much.
Still, I had the best pear sorbet I've ever had, and that surely counts for something!
