Before you ask, yes it is possible to camp in Paris. There is a grand total of one campsite, located in the city's version of Central Park (Bois de Boulogne). They provide a not-so-courteous courtesy shuttle, which you have to pay for, that takes you to Porte Maillot, a stop on Paris' Metro line number 1. Though the park itself is definitely sketchy during the evening, I assure you we felt quite safe throughout our stay.
Like Rome, it would be impossible to give a detailed account of everything we did during our five days in Paris, so instead, I'll stick to the highlights. The good news is that I can also use photos in this post (since is a picture is worth 1,000 words, of course). Unfortunately, it rained for almost the entirety of our stay in the City of Lights, so we didn't get to hang out in grassy parks and people-watch as much as we'd hoped. BUT, as far as I'm concerned, the weather didn't stop us from having a fantastic time.
Day One: Before the rain really set in, we had the chance to do an early morning city walk where we saw the shockingly-gothic Notre Dame Cathedral. Though we weren't able to spot Quasimodo himself, we did see some creepy gargoyles and got some great photos of what our guidebook referred to as the church's "muscular buttresses" (tee hee).
The photo here doesn't quite do justice to this awe-inspiring church, but it certainly gives you an idea. Imagine starting construction on this massive project, which was largely the work of community volunteers, in the hopes that your great, great, great grandchildren would one day be able to attend the opening ceremony nearly 200 years later.
Next we went to the gorgeous Saint Chapelle church. It doesn't look like much from the outside, but the inside walls are constructed almost entirely of stained glass, an overwhelming effect. Each giant panel of stained glass (of which there are 16) contains hundreds of tiny biblical scenes which proceed in chronological order from left to right. It ultimately tells the story of the entire history of the world from start to finish (according to the bible, of course).
We also saw the Conciergerie, where prisoners such as the infamous Marie Antoinette waited for the guillotine to make them a foot shorter on top; the Opera Garnier, a lavish opera house with a grand ceiling painted by Chagall in his very recognizable, whimsical, primary color cartoon-like style; and the Galeries Lafayette, where we purchased some fleece blankets to get us through the rainy nights in our tent. We finished off the night with a guided boat cruise of the Seine, where we were able to see many of Paris' biggest hits framed by pale yellow floodlights from our dry, cozy seat on the boat.
Day Two: We spent the entirety of our second full day in Paris at Versailles. The chateau itself was just as luxuriously gaudy as you could possibly imagine, and the gardens were truly amazing. Perhaps lesser known than the palace itself is the imaginary village Marie Antoinette created for herself so that she could pretend to be a peasant. The set-up was like something out of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, truly an 18th century Disney World:
Day Three: Day Three had the misfortune of falling on August 15th. August 15th happens to be a French holiday that must rank up there with Christmas and New Years, because the first three museums we tried to go to were closed. Darn. We did get to wander around a few beautiful neighborhoods and ultimately ended up at the Pompidou Center which was open for the day. The Pompidou Center is a museum of modern art, including the building itself. It was constructed as an "inside out" building, which means all of the escalators, pipes, tubes, and wires are outside the walls. Casey and I both enjoyed the top floor of artwork which represented the years 1900-1960. The other floor was work from 1960-present and housed a special exhibit consisting entirely of works of art by women. It was cool in concept, but proved to be a bit too modern for our tastes. (Many of the exhibits were meant to elicit shock, disgust, confusion and sadness). As it turns out, the perfect remedy to recover from a long rainy day full of closed museums is some hot, delicious falafel, a bottle of wine, and some card games.
Day Four: Rain again. Ugh. Not to be deterred from having a good time, we started the day with a climb up l'Arc de Triomphe to look over Paris' wheel spoke layout. Then we strolled down the Champs Elysees. To an outsider, it may have looked less like a stroll, and more like me clutching onto Casey's arm for dear life to avoid slipping on the slick wet curbs and cobblestones in my flip-flops.
Despite this, we had a grand time window shopping, perusing the 450 euro t-shirts and paying the equivalent of 7 dollars for some chapstick. Paris, overpriced? No! Next we visited the Orangerie, a small museum that's best known for housing Monet's waterlily paintings. This beautiful display (which we both loved) is considered by some to be the very first art installation, as the 80 year old Monet actually designed the canvases knowing they would be displayed in the oblong, skylit rooms of the museum. The afternoon was reserved for our visit to the Louvre where our Rick Steves tour gave us a two hour long crash course of all of the museum's most famous pieces of artwork. We did, of course, see the Mona Lisa. Though I certainly appreciated the painting, it was nearly impossible to be emotionally moved by it. The giant mobs of tourists shoving and snapping photos at the tiny canvas which was housed behind the glare of a sheet of bullet-proof glass made me feel underwhelmed by the whole experience. So physically moved by mobs of people? Yes. Emotionally moved by Lisa's elusive smile? Not so much. But, Casey loved it and neither of us regretted the trip to see it.
The final activity for the day (as the rain let up and the skies began to clear) was a hike up the Eiffel Tower in the evening. I say hike, because there was no way were were going to stand in a huge line and pay 8 euro for an elevator when we could stand in a short line and pay only 3.50 to climb the 750 stairs to the second story. The climb itself was an adrenaline-pumping experience. The wobbly stairs are enclosed by a cage so you can't fall, but I would not recommend the climb to anyone with a fear of heights...On the second platform, the tower began to shimmer as the clock struck 10pm. This new-ish light display was installed for the turn of the century and it was such a hit that the tower now sparkles every evening on the hour. As we ascended the final third of the tower (in an elevator by necessity this time), I couldn't help but think of how old this structure was. And why am I trusting my life to this tower, which was hastily erected as a temporary structure for the 1889 world's fair??? Rest assured, I did my research first. The construction of the tower is so sound and the weight so evenly distributed that the pressure per square inch of the 10,000 ton structure on it's four massive concrete bases is no more than a man standing on tiptoe.
Day Five: Our final day in Paree! We visited the Musee D'Orsay in the morning where we got our impressionist fix in the converted train station. Casey got a bit cranky because some of the display was being renovated. Consequently, when Rick Steves told us which paintings to look at, they were not in their proper locations. Tragedy! We recovered from this traumatic reorganization with a trip to the Rodin museum, where the sculptor's works were displayed exactly in the order Rick Steves predicted. Phew! We made a mandatory stop at a patisserie for some sweets before heading over to see Napoleon's tomb and the Army Museum. There was a fascinating and very moving exhibit on WWII (with a focus on French involvement, of course). General Patton was mentioned more than a handful of times which inspired a bit of hometown pride.
At this point in the evening, our lovely last day in Paris, which was not as rainy as the others and therefore considered to be good weather, was far from over. We had initially planned to spend a final night at our campground before catching our early morning flight, but the man at the information desk shook his head sadly while informing us that we "need to be sleeping in airport" as there was no form of public transit from our campsite that would get us there in time. Alright. No problem, right? So we had one last dinner and packed up camp for the last time on continental Europe. To minimize time in the airport, we planned to catch a late train out of the city. And that's when the trouble began. We arrived at the train station to find ALL ticket windows were clamped shut. Unfortunately, said train station was in a not-so-nice part of town, we were lugging around heavy backpacks, Casey desperately needed to pee, and one of us (whose name will not be mentioned) decided to discard his metro ticket despite knowing that we needed it to be allowed to exit the station onto street level. Several mini breakdowns ensued, for once, not one of them mine (!) before we located a coin-only ticket machine, sprinted to a bakery where the owner was cashing out, asked for 20 euro in coins in broken French, purchased our tickets, and got the h*ll out of Dodge.
One night of restless sleep in Charles de Gaulle airport, and we were on our way home. Sort of. More like on our way to Iceland, which, believe it or not, is cold. (See previous post).
Thus concludes our Europe Blog. Thanks for reading along. Seriously. If a few people enjoyed reading this half as much as we enjoyed writing it, then the whole thing was worth it. Our next (and last) post will be a link to our photo albums where I'll do my best to provide helpful captions that label everything we tried (sometimes futilely) to describe to you. We'll make two albums available, one with all 500 hundred and some-odd pictures we took, and a second with our "best of" hits for the reader with better things to do than scroll through 500 pictures (some of which would make the bloopers reel if this were a video special...)
Vaarwel, Auf Wiedersehen, Ciao, Au Revoir, Goodbye!!!
I hve loved all your blogs and am sorry your trip is over. I had the pleasure of your experiences with all the comforts of home including a "loo" whenever i wanted one. Congrats on being such excellent scribes. Love, Fran
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