Paris

Bonne Anee'!

(Happy New Year!)

Welcome to the Paris Page!

We arrived in Paris late on the 30th of December. It took forever to get from the airport into town and when we did, we were immediately taken in by a "friendly" cabbie. We arrived at our hotel late that evening and decided to just get something to eat and call it an early night. We were directed by the hotel to a little Bistro around the corner, where we enjoyed a nice dinner and split a bottle of wine with a couple of guys we met from Chicago. We ended staying at the restaurant until almost 2:00 am! I think we ended up having some combination of duck and escargot every night we were here!

The next day we started our adventure! We stayed at 2 hotels while we were in Paris and both were located just off the Place de la Concorde and just across the street from the Louvre and The Tuileries. There are lots of great sites to see while you're here. We were in Paris for 9 days and still didn't have time to see everything! Here are some of the pictures we took along the way.

This is probably the largest and busiest squares in Paris. It is located in the center of the older part of the city and is the "gateway" to most of Paris. Here you will find the Louvre, The Tuileries, Champs Elysees, Rue de Rivoli and the Seine River with the Eiffel Tower only a short walk away. It was really buzzing this morning as everyone was preparing for the festivities later in the evening.

As this was the starting point for us each day, we got some great shots throughout our visit. Here are some pictures we took one evening after New Year's. For the celebration, the city put up these very unusual Ferris wheels starting here and going up the Champs Elysees. You can see the largest one here as well as great pictures of the Eiffel Tower in the background.

This is located at the other end of the Champs Elysees from Place de Concorde. It was built by Napoleon over 30 years from 1806 to 1836 as a tribute to his victories. Traffic around the Arc de Triumphe was unbelievable, so you have to go through a tunnel to get to there and then when you do get there, you have to climb a very narrow, steep stairway to the top, but it's worth it. The views are spectacular. Under the Arc, is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier complete with an eternal flame.

This is the original Paris! These two small islands are located in the middle of the Seine just beyond the Louvre. It is here on Ile de la Cite, you will find two of the most ornate and awe-inspiring churches in the world: Notre Dame and St. Chappelle. Both are very much in contrast of each other. Notre Dame is very large and gothic with its multiple spires and hundreds of gargoyles, whereas St. Chappelle is very typical of the period until you go inside and see the beautiful frescoes painted throughout the downstairs and the large stained glass windows upstairs. St. Chappelle was originally built in 1246 by King Louis the IX to house Jesus' Crown of Thorns acquired from Constantinople. In addition, two of the original Palaces are located here: Palais du Justice which is still used to day as a governmental building and the first palace, the Conciergerie, where Marie Antoinette was jailed. This building was infamous for the political prisoners kept there and their torture.

This was the day after New Years, so we were pretty tired; however, the prospect of seeing Notre Dame kept us going. We took the Metro to Ile de la Cite and when we exited the subway we came out onto a flower market all along the street, so we had a great first impression of the island. About 2 blocks away was Notre Dame. When we arrived, I don't think we could have imagined the true gothic proportions of the cathedral. There were hundreds of gargoyles everywhere around the church protecting it from evil spirits with tall spirals of steeples everywhere. It was built, originally, in the 12th century. Napoleon was crowned emperor here. Unbelievably, it was actually scheduled to be torn down; however, Hugo's "Hunchback of Notre Dame" revived interest in the cathedral.

St Chappelle was very different from Notre Dame. Not nearly as ornate as Notre Dame; however, just as spectacular. When you first walk in the church, you are taken by all the beautiful frescoes throughout, which go from floor to ceiling. When you go up the small winding stairs to the chapel upstairs you see nothing but stained glass. There are 15 large windows that take up most of the wall space. As the light would shine through, the whole room would glow. This was Katie's favorite place!

Ile de la Cite is where most of the original structures of Paris exist. In addition to Notre Dame and St. Chappelle, there is also the Conciergerie and the Palais Justice among others. The Conciergerie was the original royal residence. After the revolution, it was used to hold many political prisoners who were tortured, then sent to the guillotine, including Marie Antoinette during The Revolution.

Ile St. Louis is the smaller of the islands and is very picturesque. It has only about three cross streets intersecting a main street through the middle. It consists mostly of residences with many little bistros and cafes. Victor Hugo and Marie Curie lived here among many notable residents, with plaques throughout the neighborhood signifying who lived there through the years.

Louvre and Tuileries

The Louvre is just plain huge! It is a 5-story, "U" shaped building that was once a palace. It has to be at least 1/2 mile from end to end! You enter through a large glass pyramid in the center courtyard of the museum where you end up in a shopping mall! Once you navigate through the mall, you can't miss the line to enter the museum. Luckily (and unluckily), we went on the Sunday of the month where admission was free. It was great to get in free considering the cost of everything else in Paris; however, the line was well back into the mall. Of course, the biggest crowd was around the Mona Lisa. I have to say, if you're a museum nut, this is definitely the place to go. It's just room after room of famous paintings, sculptures and artifacts. We spent over a half day there and were exhausted with just that much! We ended up running from section to section to see the things we had mapped out earlier (don't go without a game plan or you will spend most of your time just figuring out what to see!).

The Tuileries is a beautiful park that adjoins the Louvre and Place de la Concorde. Unfortunately, we arrived in Paris just after strong storms ripped through France and took down a lot of trees and caused some flooding. There were still hundreds of people relaxing around the park and enjoying the scenery. Katie bought a oil painting of the Eiffel Tower here from an artist that set up shop near the fountain.

On our first day out, we decided to take a walk up to the Eiffel Tower and scope out a place to watch the fireworks later that night. As we walked around, we thought we had found a perfect place to watch the fireworks right in front of the Tracadero which was just across the river and where all the television cameras were set up. We would find out later that evening that wouldn't be a very good plan! We decided to just hang out until it was time to find our spot for the fireworks. About 8:00 we decided to venture out. We ate and then started walking toward the Eiffel Tower. The closer we got to where we thought we wanted to be, the worse it got. We almost got to the Tracadero (which is just across the Seine), when it really got bad! People were pushing and shoving and these groups of kids decided they liked stirring it up even more. They would run behind each other and plow through the crowd pushing and shoving people. We decided this was not the place for us and left as quickly as we could to find another spot. It was so crowded, you just couldn't move! We had to literally fight our way out. We eventually made it out of the zoo and found a spot on one of the bridges over the Seine. We had a great view! Now it was time to wait. I figure there had to be at least 1.5 million people there! It was wall-to-wall people for miles! Everywhere you looked it was just masses of people waiting for the big event.

Finally...10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1,...BONNE ANEE!!! The fireworks were spectacular! They started at the bottom of the Eiffel Tower and gradually worked their way to the top. Then, another huge display of fireworks behind the Tower. There were cheers everywhere. Then the Eiffel Tower began to sparkle from top to bottom. It would stay like that for the remainder of our trip. This was a once in a lifetime experience!

Immediately after the fireworks, we proceeded to the Champs Elysees where the celebration continued. All through the middle of the street were these really odd Ferris wheels. Each had a different and unusual theme. One had the modern wonders of the world; another had musicians hanging off the wheel playing unusual electronic instruments; one was operated with pedal power; while another was just electronic lights and TV monitors. Again, this place was a nightmare. As you walked down the main road, others would pour in from the side streets creating a kind-of swirling action with the crowd. The Ferris wheels went on for about an hour and a half and we didn't even make it to the end in that time. It took us about 10 minutes earlier in the day. Unbelievable!

It seems that every King, Emperor, President or whatever had to build his own legacy. From the Conciergerie and the Revolution to the Louvre built by Francois I (opened to the public by Napoleon after the Revolution) and everyone in-between and after. No one was to be outdone. You've seen pictures of some of these above. Here's a quick look at a few more.
Hotel des Invalides		Hotel de Ville
Built by Louis XIV in the late 1600's, this palace is the resting place for Napoleon. Crowned by a gilded dome, this palace is across the park from the Eiffel Tower. It is here, at the Ecole Militaire (which, literally, winds for miles around the palace), you will find one of the largest collections of military Armour and weapons. There were some unbelievable suits of Armour dating to the 14th century as well as Viking armaments, swords, and collections from the Napoleonic and world wars. Unfortunately, we didn't get to spend a lot of time here. It was our last day in Paris and I had a surprise for Katie!		Once a medieval palace, this is now the city hall of Paris. Home to many executions in its earlier days, it has gone through some very drastic changes. Included are shops and boutiques that have taken over the building in the courtyard. In this area are beautiful gardens and sculptures as well as these odd columns that protrude throughout one part of the courtyard. This was just a few blocks from our hotel as well.

As you can see from the map above, the Seine winds right through the center of Paris. Apartments and houses line the river along with most of the major museums and attractions including the Eiffel Tower, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay, the University, the National Library, the Tracadero and the Museum of Modern Art among others. There were vendors that sold everything from postcards to flowers to miniature Eiffel Towers all along the Seine. Of course, you can't forget about all the artists selling their paintings and drawings all along the banks. If you don't live at the water, then you can live on the water. There were many old houseboats that lined the river. They even kept small gardens on their boats! It was very different when we were here. The recent storms had flooded the Seine and had left visible damage. You could still see where the water was higher than normal by several feet.

Here are some views along the river:

There are a few other pictures we thought you would enjoy of Paris. Don't worry, there are only a few! The first is a restaurant near the hotel called The Lescure. It was a small cafe that basically had a few fares each evening. They were 4 or 5 course meals and you sat at a big picnic table with everyone else. I think they put all the Americans together! We met two girls from San Francisco that worked for a software company. Of course Katie got the duck! Unfortunately, her dessert was not the Cr�me Brule' I had!

The other pictures are just of typical street scenes around hotel, around town and along the Champs Elysees.

Well, it's that time. Our last full day in Paris. We leave for Rome early tomorrow morning. So what do you do on your last day? What Katie didn't know until we got to Paris was that we were going to eat lunch at the Jules Verne which is on the second level of the Eiffel Tower. We started the morning walking along the river with plans to see Napoleon's tomb. By the time we arrived, we only had about an hour and a half before we our reservations for lunch. As we mentioned above, it was an incredible place. We especially enjoyed all the Armour in the museum.

We ended up having to literally run to the Eiffel Tower to make our reservation. You usually have to book a table months in advance. I got lucky with our reservations so we didn't want to chance losing our place! We arrived at the base of the tower and couldn't figure out how to get to the restaurant. We saw elevators going up, but nothing going to the Jules Verne. Finally, in one corner, we saw a small sign the pointed to an entrance at one of the legs of the base. There was no one there and the door was locked. We thought we had missed our lunch! Finally someone came down to let us in. We had a private elevator up the Eiffel Tower. I have to say that as we went up, it was a little scary. All you see is the skeleton of the framework passing by and it moves very quickly. Also, you don't go straight up, you move at an angle like the leg of the tower.

Finally, we arrived. It was fantastic. As soon as we walked in, we knew this would be special. The first thing we saw was all the different views of Paris. The entire restaurant was completely surrounded in glass. We arrived at our seat which was right next to a window overlooking the Seine. You could see all of Paris from here.

Hmmm...what to order? There were so many things to choose from. It was very continental, so most of the dishes were the type where you had to look for your food on the plate. We finally decided to get the "Taste of Jules Verne" which was a sampling of most of the fare they had that day over 6 or 7 courses. It included fish, venison and a lot of stuff we didn't even recognize. But, in the spirit of the day, we ate everything. Afterwards, they brought out trays of desserts and cheeses, again, most of which we never heard of. A true Parisian experience!

We met some of the nicest people here as well. The maitre' d was great. He was a little more relaxed than most people we had met in Paris. Katie asked for the restroom and he said with a straight face "You have to go back down to the ground level." So Katie was convinced that was what she had to do and started to walk out. He stopped her and led her to the bathrooms as they laughed. We also met a grandmother and her granddaughter sitting next to us. It turns out, the granddaughter had just turned 14 and her grandmother had taken her here on her fourth birthday. What a great tradition! We took pictures for each other and looked at the picture she had from their first visit.

We finished our meal and the maitre' d introduced us to the head chef who signed a menu for us to take back and took pictures with us. We then spent almost an hour taking pictures and video of the views from the restaurant. They also assume that you spent enough money on a meal here that you have free admission to the rest of the Eiffel Tower, so we went outside and took in the full view. We, of course, were both too chicken to go to the top level. We spent the rest of the day here taking in the sights, thinking about all we had done up until now and looking forward to our trip to Rome.

What a great way to top off our visit to Paris I guess you know by now that with all I wrote about this, there are going to be a lot of pictures! Sorry! Oh well...this is as good as it gets, so relax and enjoy!

Thanks for visiting Paris with us!!