10 days in Paris

Old May 3rd, 2014, 12:18 AM
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Thanks for the feedback! We were lucky having 10 days, if our plan went wrong we knew we could probably come back to it at some point.

Day 5
Second attempt at the Notre Dame towers today! I hurried the boys through making our filled baguettes for lunch and walked to the towers to avoid the Velib fail from two days ago. We timed it perfectly and arrived at 9.45 to a line of about 12 people and were first up at 10am. What a stunning morning, I love the towers with their incredible stonework, gargoyles and chimeras. We coined a beautiful day so we had a fantastic view of the city. We spent as long as possible up there before descending down to St Chappelle. The line for this looked massive so we ducked in to the Concierge instead; hopefully we will make it back another day. The first hall in the Concierge has a beautiful roof, all stone arches and vaulted ceiling lit up with mood lighting. I loved it. We breezed through the rest quite quickly; highlights were the old cells and the list of the 2000+ people executed by the guillotine. Their professions were listed as well, which was the most interesting thing, ex-noble, judge, maths professor etc.

After the Concierge we walked to the park at the very tip of the Isle de la cite and found a pretty little oasis from the concrete of the city. We ate our lunch while watching the boats pass by our beautiful little spot. I highly recommend spending half an hour here on a nice day.

Velib time! We sped up the left bank for our second shot at the Musee D’Orsey but overshot it while looking for parking for the bikes. We decided to keep going and check out the fascinating looking Grand Palais. What crazy architecture! We didn’t go in, as there was obviously something big about to happen. There were gendarmes everywhere, the traffic lights were all flashing orange with crowd control infrastructure being set up. After admiring it from the outside we parked our bikes and walked back to the Orangerie, attempt 2! It was open and but we only had a brief visit, I was a bit disappointed by the first room of waterlilies but loved the second room with the more macro scenes. We did a quick lap downstairs and saw some nice Renoirs then back into the sunshine, over the bridge, coffee and baguette recharge and then Musee d’Orsay attempt 2.

I loved this space, the architecture is fantastic and it has the art that I enjoy. I loved the imitation statue of the continents holding up the world and looking out through the back of the clock on the 5th floor, (also watching the people who had fallen asleep in the couches up here!). The gallery of impressionists was impressive but we really loved the Van Gogh and Gustave Dure exhibitions and spent a long time in these. J got through a bit quicker and biked over to the Pompidou Centre before we met back at the apartment at 5pm. Jumping on the bikes after a long day on our feet is so refreshing and fun, I love our route home past the Louvre each day. On our way home T looked at me over his should and said “lets cross here” as he rode over a white line that turned out to be a white judder bar. His bike bucked wildly and he only just stayed on with a comical look of panic on his face. Highlight of the day was riding through the Louvre courtyard in the fading sun, laughing hysterically on our bikes!

We had a rest at the apartment and hatched a plan for salmon and crème cheese crepes with wine for dinner on the steps of the Trocadero, watching the Eiffel Tower sparkling. Little did we know what a mission this would turn out to be. After purchasing our picnic ingredients, we jumped on some Velibs and started to bike towards the Eiffel Tower, we ran into some road blocks and somehow ended up biking down the main road on the left bank that was completely blocked to traffic. The lights were all flashing orange and there were gendarmes stationed every 5meters…turns out the road was closed for an official motorcade and we were happily biking down the middle giggling away! I asked a gendarme in French “what’s happening?” and I’m pretty sure he said that the President of China was in Paris to attend an art opening at the Grand Palais, we rode for another 10mins before finally being told to get off the road.

We had run out of time on our bikes and were still quite far from the Trocadero so we found parks and started walking, After all the excitement, I left our desert strawberries in the basket of the bike. The boys made me sprint back to get them but some lucky homeless person has already taken them ☹ by the time I got back we were rushing a bit to get to the Trocadero by 9pm. Unfortunately after the big day, the rushing around and the loss of the strawberries tensions were high so T and I ended up having a lovers tiff over something meaningless. He wandered off by himself and when I realised he was gone I rushed around trying to find him and consequently missed the Eiffel Tower sparkling. We all found each other again and had our picnic dinner in frosty silence, which was not the result I had hoped for. We ended up apologising and hung around for the 10pm sparkle, which we watched from in front of the military school. It was a crystal clear evening, the tower was beautiful and we had made up, but I still felt very melancholy as I watched the lights flash.
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Old May 3rd, 2014, 04:28 AM
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Thank goodness we're not the only ones to have silly tiffs on holiday, adwenture. I hope that the lights made up a bit for the loss of the strawberries!
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Old May 6th, 2014, 02:54 AM
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Day 6
Today we decided to see something outside the city and choose a trip to Fontainebleau Chateau. J and I had both been to Versailles before and T is not a fan of huge crowds so Fontainebleau seemed like a good option. It was a bit of a mission to get there, we started with an exhilarating rush hour bike ride to Gare de Lyon, which as always was both exciting and terrifying. Then we had a 9Euro train to Fontainebleau and a 2euro bus to the chateau. Although the castle iself is huge and has an impressive history, the first impression was nowhere near as spectacular as Versailles. When we went inside it was a bit shabby and dingy and we thought that we had made a huge mistake, however, after the first 5 rooms, it suddenly opened up to a magnificent castle. It was definitely in the same league as Versailles but with its own style, a lot more wood and marble as opposed to gold and mirrors.
After wandering through the interior, we made our way outside to the grounds to have lunch. We saw some gigantic carp and a white swan in the lakes as we sat by a fountain in the sun. The grounds were not super well maintained and a little disappointing, maybe because it was early spring. We were in good humour though and entertaining ourselves on our 1 hour walk back to the train station. We played “who can find the crappiest fountain” in the woods and played pooh sticks in the water races and canal outlets.
We were pretty tired from all our walking and biking over the past few days so tonight we stayed in and watched the movie “The Castle” for a bit of home culture. It made me a little sad to watch this as it was Dads favourite movie and he would always quote from it. It made me miss Dad’s jokes and constant laughter.
Day 7
I like to call this “museum pass fever day”. Thanks to some creative penmanship, the boys’ 6-day museum pass had been turned into a 12-day pass and they wanted to tick off as many as possible. T and I got up early to see St Chappelle, we were first in line when it opened and ducked straight upstairs at 9.30. We had the place to ourselves for 5mins and the rising sun was illuminating the panels directly behind the altar, really quite beautiful. From there, we walked to Notre Dame where T visited the crypt and I found point zero and people watched. There were a couple of camera crews filming travel shows in the square that were fun to watch. When T emerged, we did a quick lap around the inside of the cathedral and I laughed at the obnoxiously loud “shhhhhhhhhhhhhh please be quiet” message they were playing. Notre Dame is one of my favourite buildings but I always find the inside quite underwhelming.

On the bikes again and we were off to the Invalides to see the exhibits we missed out on a few days ago. I enjoyed the CDG exhibition but was not impressed with the plan relif museum. The models were pretty basic, colourless and in a dark hall, definitely can be missed. The WW1 and WW11 museum was amazing but unfortunately by this time I was so foot sore from the past week that we sped through it. We decided on a “hot lap” of the most interesting bits, but you could have spent 2 hours in here alone.

Back on the bikes for a really refreshing ride to the Eiffel tower and a relaxing hour lying underneath it, people watching in the sun while we ate lunch. We were watching a gang of Roma men running a shell game scam; it was quite sophisticated with look out men, the scammers running the game and the two “lucky punters” actually playing the game. It was quite amusing watching them split when the police were around and then regroup 5 mins later. We watched them take 50 euro from one tourist!
J arrived and with some protest from me, we went to the Burnley museum to look at the art collection from the pacific region. We did see some cool stuff from NZ but nothing I haven’t already seen before. Afterwards we walked to the Trocadero and up to the Marine Museum. This place was fascinating; I love boats and have spent some time on tall ships in NZ. We had a free audio guide here that was fast paced an interesting, unfortunately I was so tired at this point that I started to sit myself down on the floor in front of exhibits to listen. We then went next door to the Architecture museum but they wouldn’t let me in free with my passport. I was actually extremely please with this development and spent a beautiful 45mins sitting in the sun on the Trocadero terrace with an ice cream, people watching and looking at the Eiffel tower.
When the boys emerged from the museum, we got bikes and bikes to the Arc de Triomphe. T was hugely impressed with the scale of it up close and it looked stunning in the late afternoon sun. We climbed to the top to check out the view, unfortunately, only 180 degrees due to restoration work. Back down below, we picked up our bikes and rode to our apartment along the Champs Elyesses and through the Tuileries. All in all a pretty incredible end to a big day, I think I was asleep before 8pm.

Day 8
What was meant to be a casual day turned out to be quite a big one again. We took the metro out to St Denis Cathedral. I love the Pillars of the Earth book and wanted to see the revolutionary architecture of this building. We arrived as it opened at 10.30 and went straight down to the crypt to see the tombs of the kings and queens of France. Coming from NZ, which is a relatively young country, it is mind boggling to see history in such a tangible way, tombs of kings from 645AD. The cathedral itself is really beautiful inside, with lots of light and windows. The outside is not as good as the Notre Dame though. After lunch in the square we took a tram and a bus to the air and space museum. This was pretty interesting, I enjoyed seeing the early planes and walking through the Concorde, also the models of the dirigibles. I probably wouldn’t make the effort just to go there from the city though, unless you had kids that loved planes and space. J went back to the Gare du Nord at this point to meet our friend Mel from Belgium and T and I went to Porte de Montreuil to check out a flea market. Unfortunately it was full of junk and we spent 30min walking through quite an ugly part of town in poor humour, not the Paris of the postcards!
Our mood lightened when we reached Pere Lachaise cemetery, which is a weird thing to say, but it really is a beautiful place. Little cobbled streets, impressive miniature architecture and leafy green trees. T and I spent half an hour admiring Oscar Wilde’s tomb and eating more baguettes as we waited for J and Mel to arrive. It was so good to see Mel, the last time we were together was 6 years ago but it felt like only yesterday. After our rendezvous we visited the graves of Jim Morrison and Edith Piaf before biking to Buttes Charmont Park. It was uphill all the way but I’m so glad we made the effort, despite our energy levels at this point. There were hundreds of Parisians out having picnics on Saturday night. We found a student pub with an electric atmosphere and spent a couple of hours having beers in the setting sun, such a great place to catch up with an old friend.

Day 9
Today was a mellow day as we were moving apartments again. Mum and her friend were arriving back in Paris and I had booked two apartments in Montmartre for us. We spent 2 hours in the morning wandering around the isle st Denis and had a good visit to Shakespeare and co to buy books for the train south in a few days. After some cleaning and check out we headed over to Montmartre. T and I had a cute little apartment at the bottom of Montmartre hill and Mum, J and S had a roomy place just behind the Place du Tetre, location location location! We spent the afternoon lazing about, catching up on Mums travels and watching the talented buskers on the steps of the Notre Dame. This included some great French singers and a muscular guy doing tricks with a football on a wall and a lamppost! Soon it was time to say goodbye to Mel as she left on a train back to school in Belgium, before a nice family dinner and a drink in the evening.
Day 10 – Our last day in Paris

T and I went to the Louvre this morning; it was craaaaazy busy with lots of tour groups. The lines moved pretty quickly though and we were in front of the Mona Lisa by 10am. I showed T the Raft of the Medusa, love it, and then ticked of a few more highlights before moving to the Reichlieu wing to spend some time away from the mass of humanity. We didn’t last very long and so took the metro back to Montmartre to have lunch with mums genealogy Internet pen pal. We once though we were related to this lovely lady but the research said no but her and mum have become good friends anyway. It was great to meet her and she was helpful at correcting some of my French pronunciation!

We spent our last afternoon just wandering around together and enjoying the atmosphere. Tomorrow we leave for a house in the country near Montpellier for a month. I feel we have achieved a lot in Paris as tourists and I can’t wait to have a more relaxed pace and live like a local in the south!
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Old May 6th, 2014, 02:08 PM
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were watching a gang of Roma men running a shell game scam; it was quite sophisticated with look out men, the scammers running the game and the two “lucky punters” actually playing the game>>

how's it work, then adwenture?
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Old May 6th, 2014, 02:33 PM
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I'm enjoying reading about your trip, very nice report, thank you.
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Old May 6th, 2014, 04:04 PM
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Awesome trip report!!
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