Paris - Friday, July 15, 2016

Woke up to my phone buzzing at 4:30am - the wi-fi finally came back on!  The bad news was that we had multiple missed phone calls and messages checking to see if we were ok because of the terror attack in Nice the night before.  We had gone to bed after the fireworks without even turning on the TV (we didn't really watch TV except for the soccer games - they spoke too fast in French for us to catch much anyway).  We returned massages and emails, making sure everyone knew we were nowhere near Nice and then started off our last full day in Paris with the hop on-hop off bus tour.  The open-top double decker bus makes a loop around the main tourist attraction in center city so we got another look at the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre, the Opera Garnier, Champs Elysees, and the Place de la Concorde before hopping off at Notre Dame.  Dad wanted to see the back side of Notre Dame plus Ile de St. Louis, the smaller island next to Ile de la Cite, so we parted ways again and Margo and I headed for the Catacombs.  It was probably a half hour walk through the Latin Quarter and Saint Germaine neighborhoods to get to the entrance of the tour, so we stopped for a croissant and some coffee and tried to read the French newspaper to see what happened in Nice.  When we got to the Catacombs entrance, we knew we were in for a wait - the line was all the way around the block!  Margo stayed in line while I went in search of a public restroom and a place to buy stamps and mail a few postcards.  When I got back, she had moved further than I thought she would so we were hopeful that the wait wouldn't be too bad.  But then a few group tours showed up and they were let in first, and some people had timed tickets they bought on the internet, so the line stagnated for an hour or so.  Margo's explorations to the front of the line let us know that there are only 200 people allowed in the Catacombs at any one time, so they could only let people in as others exited a mile away.  This was, by far, the longest we had had to wait for anything on the trip, but we finally got in and got to see what it was all about.  According to the audio tour, much of the passageways in the Catacombs date back to the building of much of Paris - the stone was quarried from underground in blocks in order to construct many of the buildings.  The quarried areas didn't have much use after that until the public health crisis with the sewers and the growing population of the city forced a decision to dig up all of the cemeteries and move the bones to be stored in the old quarry tunnels.  It is estimated that over 6 million sets of bones are held in the Catacombs passageways.  Each section is marked with the cemetery from which the bones were relocated, and they are all stacked very neatly - mostly arm and leg bones and skulls were visible - with some placed in designs, like a heart shape or an X made of skulls.  The walk through the passageways was about a mile long, and by the time we emerged from the tunnels and back into the daylight, we were ready to head home for dinner.  We had eaten all of our meals in Paris at cafes and bistros, but my Dad and stepmom wanted to take us out to a restaurant to thank us for helping navigate the city and plan out where we went each day.  They chose a place called Le Clos des Gourmets, on Avenue Rapp near the Eiffel Tower and Champ de Mars.  They had a nice fixed price 3 course menu, a starter, entree, and dessert, and we all split a bottle of Chardonnay.  I had fresh sardine filets marinated in lime juice, a ricotta and courgette (zucchini) lasagne, and a fresh melon gazpacho.  All of it was wonderful!  Margo chose the Caesar salad, pan roasted chicken and potatoes, and Camembert and bread for dessert.  Dad and Ellen both had the Caesar salad and cod with chorizo on top of cuttlefish ink risotto, with strawberry shortcake and poached peach desserts.  What a wonderful way to end such a fantastic vacation!  In the morning, we will all be leaving Paris, Margo and I for our flights home, first from Charles de Gaulle to Reykjavik and then on to Dulles, and Dad and Ellen will take the train to Avignon for 2 days before flying from Marseille to Amsterdam to Minneapolis to Denver. 

Paris - Thursday, July 14, 2016 - Bastille Day

Bastille Day - July 14th - France's national holiday celebrating the French revolution and the fall of the Bastille prison.  We kicked off the French holiday with an early start for breakfast and waiting in line for the Eiffel Tower to open.  We weren't able to buy tickets online for the tower, which was our original plan, but the website listed Bastille Day as one of the least busy days of the summer so we decided to try it out.  What a good move!  We got there around 8:30am for its 9am opening and there were already about 30 people waiting to go through security.  There's a gate on the other side too - the Seine side; we were on the Champ de Mars side - so when they opened, there was a longer line to wait in to buy tickets.  We waited about 20 minutes, but when we got to the ticket office, they told us that we were in the line for the elevator only, and we wanted to climb the steps to the 2nd level before taking the elevator to the top.  So over to the south pillar we went, where there was absolutely no line!  It's 628 steps up to the 2nd level of the tower, but we stopped at the first level to admire the view and look at the displays about the tower's history and construction.  The tower, designed and built by Gustave Eiffel for the 1889 World's Fair, was only supposed to stand for 20 years and then be torn down, but it became such a symbol of the city that it stayed.  Eiffel was a magnificent engineer, conducting many experiments, often using the tower to test wind resistance and gravity.  He designed the tower's wrought iron to withstand the wind, allowing the structure to sway up to 60cm/23in - within the last decade, Paris had a storm that buffeted the tower with 213km/hr winds (132mph) and it only swayed 10cm from vertical, even after 127 years!  The view was even better from the 2nd level, where there used to be a spiral staircase leading all the way to the top, but it was dismantled several years ago and the pieces auctioned off.  From there, we bought our elevator tickets to the top observation deck - what a view!  You can see all of Paris, 360 degrees around.  Just stunning!  We could pick out many of the locations we'd already visited, like the Arc de Triomphe and Sacre Coeur.  By about 10:45, we were ready to head back down, but I kept looking at the Arc de Triomphe because that's where the huge military parade begins on Bastille Day at 11am, and I was thinking maybe we should stay to see if we could see it.  We also knew there was a flyover of military planes to start the parade so I started fiddling with my phone to see if I could find out when that would happen.  Suddenly Margo starts shaking my arm, almost hard enough for me to drop my phone, yelling "You're missing it! You're missing it!"  I looked up and got my camera started quickly enough to video the 5 fighter jets streaking over the Arc de Triomphe, trailing blue, white, and red smoke in honor of the French flag!  They were followed shortly thereafter by all of the sets of military aircraft we had seen a few days before on their practice run for the parade.  Just think - if we had gotten in the correct line to buy our tickets on the ground, we would have been on our way down already and would have missed it!

So, what to do with the rest of the day?  Hard to believe it, but we were running out of things on our list of "to-do".  Dad and Ellen hadn't gone with us when we went to Montmartre and Sacre Coeur, and we were interested in going back again, so that's where we went.  We stopped for lunch before getting on the funiculaire to take us up the slope, and then we split up - Dad and Ellen heading for Sacre Coeur and Margo and I heading for the Place de Tertre, an artists' plaza nearby.  When we had visited earlier in the week, one of the artists had approached us and wanted to sketch us, but we didn't have enough time.  After thinking about it some more, we thought that would be a really unique souvenir to bring home with us, so we went looking for someone to draw us.  It didn't take long to meet Sandro, a Swiss artist and art instructor, who wanted to sketch us together in pastels.  We agreed and chatted with him throughout the process - he asked us if we were able to be married in the States, and we told him that we were, and then he told us about how long he had been working in Paris doing sketches, when we wasn't teaching in Geneva.  I'll be honest - he was a great guy, but the picture didn't really look anything like us, but we bought it anyway - it's a good story to tell.  Then we checked out some of the shops and other artist stalls before meeting back up with Dad and Ellen.  We decided to make it an early trip home because there were fireworks for Bastille Day at the Eiffel Tower at 11pm, and we wanted to relax a little before then.

When it was time to go find a spot to watch the fireworks, we got to see just how many people had the same idea - no surprise there.  We figured if we could find a spot on the esplanade along the Seine, we'd have a good vantage point, and we were right.  The crowd was joyful and happy, with some of them singing the Marseillaise to pass some time, and many of them drinking - there is apparently no such thing as an open container law in Paris.  Shortly after 11, the lights illuminating the tower switched to blue, white, and red, and we knew the show was about to start.  Lasting 35 minutes, this was one probably the best fireworks display I've ever seen in person.  The Eiffel tower was lit in ever-changing colors while fireworks shot out in all directions from the tower itself and from a barge on the Seine.  So much color and spectacle!  Once it was over, the crowd dispersed in a very orderly fashion, stacking their trash by the receptacles and walking home or to the Metro.  This was the latest night we'd had in Paris, and I was definitely ready to go to sleep by the time we got back to the flat!

Paris - Wednesday, July 13, 2016

Versailles - the vast palace and gardens of Louis XIV, Louis XV, Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette.  It's southwest of Paris so we had to take an RER train out of center city to get there - about a 35 minute ride once we were on the train.  When you arrive in the village of Versailles, it's another 10-15 minute walk to get to the golden gates that face the town.  The grounds and gardens open at 8am, so there were people walking their dogs and jogging on the paths.  We did a preliminary scouting trip to see the other side of the palace and to get the layout of the gardens, but then went back to wait in line.  The place gets crazy-busy in the summer - over 10 million people visit Versailles each year - and that was apparent as we toured the rooms of the palace.  No expense was spared on the opulence of the place, that's for sure.  Marble staircases, colorful textiled walls with matching window dressings, embroidered borders on the walls, fancy furniture (although not particularly comfortable, I would bet) and plenty of portraits and other artwork.  Margo overheard one of the guided tour guides say that the reason the beds were so small/short was because the monarchs didn't sleep laying down - they sat up in bed!  I can just picture Marie Antoinette in her big poofy dress sitting up in bed so she didn't mess up her hair overnight! 

For me, the real star attraction of Versailles was the grounds themselves, not the palace, although that was impressive.  The gardens of Versailles are populated with numerous elaborate fountains (which, unfortunately, only are turned on for the days when they have fountain shows), meticulous flower gardens, tall hedge mazes, and lots of wooded areas.  In the center of the grounds, is the grand canal, an enormous cross-shaped pool - when I say enormous, I mean it was 3.5 km to the other end of it!  (Dawnie, that's 2.17 miles)  And I don't think that distance includes the detour around one arm of the cross to get to the far side.  Margo and I opted to rent bicycles to explore the grounds and the canal further; Dad and Ellen decided to walk.  We agreed to meet in an hour, and it was a good thing, because it took us that long to get all the way around the canal and back again.  Of course, we didn't just stick to the route directly adjacent to the canal - we had to wander through the wooded paths a little too.  It was rough riding over a brick paved path, but we got to see the pastures on the far end of the grounds, filled with sheep, horses, and cows.  We rode back down the other side of the grand canal and around the front end, where we could get a good look at the Apollo fountain and the temporary installation, Waterfall by Olafur Eliasson, an Icelandic-Danish artist.  We saw a picture of it in Time magazine before our trip.  When looking at it head-on you can't really see the mechanisms that pump water up several stories from the canal below and allow it to cascade back down, so the waterfall appears to come out of nowhere, dropping from the sky.  But we saw the scaffolding prior to the palace opening when we walked through the gardens, and you could see it from the sides and the back. 

Having explored the grounds a bit, we filled out the rest of the day touring the Grand Trianon, Petit Trianon, and Marie Antoinette's private village.  Louis XIV had this smaller palace built so he could escape the royal court and spend time with his mistress, but Napoleon also lived here, and Charles de Gaulle also used it as president of France.  Lots of pink marble here and more gardens, but nothing as elaborate as the main palace.  The Petit Trianon was given to Marie Antoinette as a gift by Louis XVI, and that's where she preferred to spend her time, although she also had a private residence nearby, which was under renovations, but it was surrounded by a quaint little village of cottages, a mill, and a farm with goats, chickens and rabbits.  By then we were pretty worn out - we spent 8.5 hours at Versailles that day - so we started back toward the main palace and the exit, but we got turned around and a little lost wandering the paths so it took a bit longer than we would have liked - a lot of "you can't get there from here" going on!  Finally, we got back to the train station and were on our way back to the flat and some dinner!

Tuesday, July 12, 2016

New day, new museum to see.  Dad didn’t want to do two big museums on consecutive days but we read that Tuesdays are one of the busiest days at Versailles so we decided to go for the Musee d’Orsay today instead.  The d’Orsay was originally a train station and was almost demolished in the 1970s after it fell out of use, but someone had the bright idea that this would be a great place to house all of the Impressionist art in the city and the d’Orsay was born.  When you walk in on the ground level, you get to overlook a central sculpture gallery, surrounded by smaller gallery rooms of paintings, divided by artist, style, time frame, etc.  Dad and Ellen went straight for the 5^th floor Impressionist gallery, while Margo and I started at the bottom and worked our way up.  On the first floor we admired works by Manet, Cezanne, Degas, and Toulouse-Lautrec, before moving on to the 2^nd level.  There we were greeted by Rodin’s sculpture The Gates of Hell, and then were on to see Gauguin and Van Gogh.  I didn’t know that they had a version of Starry Night here (I also didn’t know that Van Gogh painted more than one), but there it was, along with one of his self-portraits.  When we finally made it to the 5^th floor, we were overwhelmed with the works of Monet – Blue Water Lilies, in particular – Manet, Cussatt, Renoir, Pissaro, and more Cezanne and Degas.  Fascinating to look at all of them and to listen to the audio tour interpretation of many of them.  I think I liked this museum more than I liked the Louvre, maybe because there were just so many different things to see there.  The d’Orsay was a much easier and more satisfying experience because of the continuity of its artwork.

Second stop for the day – the Opera Garnier.  Napoleon III wanted to build a grand opera house for Paris and held a design contest to choose the architect, and Charles Garnier, then unknown, won the contest anonymously.  He started the project in 1861 and finished in 1875, but unfortunately, Napoleon III dies before its completion and never got to see the final product or sit in the emperor’s box.  We gathered in the ground floor rotunda for our guided tour and were led up the grand staircase, richly decorated with various types of marble and statuary, as well as many large mirrors where the rich and important season ticket holders could make sure they looked good before passing the entrance for the common people.  Inside the auditorium itself, everything is decorated in a deep red and gold color scheme, with a massive chandelier hanging from the ceiling.  Part of the chandelier once fell and killed a woman sitting in her seat below, which is what inspired Gaston Leroux to write The Phantom of the Opera about the Palais Garnier.  It seems that we Americans are far more familiar with the Phantom’s story from Andrew Lloyd Webber’s musical than the French are themselves.  Surrounding the chandelier is a brightly colored ceiling painted in the 1960s by Marc Chagall, which replaced the original ceiling.  Many people think the Chagall ceiling is too different and out of place in the opera house, but I liked it better than the original.  Our guide pointed out the Emperor’s box, and close to it, the infamous Box 5, reserved for the Phantom of the Opera, and led us through the Salon du Soleil, the Salon de la Lune, and the Salon du Glacier, before sending us off to explore on our own if we wanted.  The last thing we did was admire the exquisitely constructed mosaic marble tile floors and ceilings – what a task it must have been to put them together, piece by piece, not to mention the cutting of all of the little pieces.  The tour guide was right when she said that the place was “priceless” – there would be no way we could build a structure such as this today. 

Paris – Monday, July 11, 2016

La Louvre, with its glass pyramid greeting you…4 levels, 700 meters long – that’s almost half a mile.  It’s so big, one guide book tip said it would take 4 months to see it all.  You have to pick and choose what you’re going to spend your time on there, so we went for the big name stuff first.  The entrance hall is 2 levels below the street – up the steps into the Denon wing, past the sculpture Winged Victory, and into the European section, straight to the Italian paintings to see the Mona Lisa.  I’d heard she’s small, but she wasn’t as small as I’d thought she’d be – closer to poster-sized, but maybe not quite.  The painting is behind a glass barrier with people pressed in several layers deep to catch a glimpse of the DaVinci masterpiece.  I’m glad we got there as the museum opened because the room gets even more crowded as the day wears on.  From there we took in the European decorative arts and many more paintings, then through the galleries Egyptian, Greek, and Roman antiquities, including the Venus de Milo.  Three hours was enough for us, so off we went up the Champs Elysees to see the famous street.  We had to duck down a side street to find a more reasonable place to eat lunch, but after that we made a beeline for the Arc de Triomphe, Napoleon’s monument to his troops and all of their great military victories, especially the Battle of Austerlitz.  The Arc is 165 feet tall, 130 feet wide – the biggest triumphal arch in the world.  The French national parades start and end at the Arc with a moment of silence.  There’s also a Tomb of the Unknown Soldier there with a ceremony each day to light a flame of remembrance.  We climbed the 284 steps up to the observation deck at the top and got a stunning view of the city in all directions.  We also got an eye-opening view of what Paris traffic is like in the circle surrounding the Arc – what a madhouse, but somehow it works. 

By then is was mid-afternoon – we headed back towards the flat, but not before we saw military aircraft flying in formation, a few at a time, over the Arc de Triomphe and down the Champs Elysees.  We weren’t sure why, but figured to had something to do with Bastille Day being on Thursday.  The first set of planes were fighter jets, much like the Blue Angels or the Thunderbirds at home.  There was an AWACs plane, a C-130 transport plane, and an air-refueling jet, among others.  After we watched several sets go by, we continued on our way to the Pont de l’Alma bridge.  Off to one side, I saw what looked like the flame of the Statue of Liberty, so we went to investigate.  That’s exactly what it was – the Flame of Liberty – marking a memorial for the street tunnel below where Princess Diana died in a car crash in Paris.  Our last stop for the day was the Musee de les Egouts de Paris – the museum of the Paris sewer system!  Here we got to walk through several hundred yards of sewer tunnels, reading about the development, evolution, and history of the oldest and longest underground sewer system in the world.  It was kind of stinky in there, but it was interesting and informative.  We could see where the Metro trains run, compared to the sewer lines (the Metro is under the sewers), and how they have engineered it to prevent it from overflowing into the Seine when the water level rises like it did last month with the flooding they had here.  We also got a look at the kinds of equipment they use to clean the sewer lines, from dredges to rolling balls almost as big as the pipes, that push the sand and sediment out of the way.  We didn’t see any sewer rats, but you could buy one at the museum’s gift shop at the end of the tour.  We declined. ;-)

Paris - July 10, 2016

This morning we went back to the Saint Germaine area to check out the Luxembourg Gardens and Palace and the Saint Sulpice church, where my stepmom was going to go to mass.  Our exploration of the church and its restored paintings was regularly disrupted by the incessant squeaking of my shoes on the polished stone floor!  No one else seemed to have this issue, so I had to resort to tip toeing all around to lessen the noise.  We stayed for the 15 minute organ recital prior to the start of mass and then Margo, dad, and I left to go look at the Gardens.  This is supposed to be one of Paris’ most treasured parks, and judging by the number of people there jogging, walking, and sailing toy boats in the fountain, it’s not hard to see why.  Dad wanted to go back to the church after mass to listen to more organ recital music, but Margo and I wanted to explore some more so we made plans to meet up later on in the afternoon.  One of the places we wanted to see was the Opera Garnier, which is supposed to be beautifully restored inside.  There was supposed to be a guided tour offered at 2:30, but they were closed for the day to set up for a concert that evening.  Our next option was to go see the Montmartre area, home of the Moulin Rouge.  As we exited the metro station, we immediately saw the Moulin Rouge club and its iconic red windmill.  For something like 140 euros, you can have dinner there and see the can-can show.  Instead of that, we hopped Le Petit Train de Montmartre, a tram that takes you all around the neighborhood, including to Sacre Coeur.  We hopped off at the top of the butte to take a closer look at the basilica on the top of the hill – the view was quite spectacular.  We also browsed through the artsy neighborhood nearby that is home to a Salvador Dali exhibition.  The next train that showed up was off duty, and another wasn’t coming for another 20 minutes, so we took the funiculaire ride down the hill (think Pittsburgh incline) and headed back to the flat early to type up this blog.  Wouldn’t you know it, we got off the 13 train and as we were headed for the exit, we realized that dad and Ellen were right in front of us, headed home at exactly the same time!  They had made their way to the Montparnasse tower, a modern skyscraper with a view from the 56^th floor to rival that of Sacre Coeur.  Tomorrow we plan to tackle the Louvre, with Versailles scheduled for Tuesday! 

Also, tonight is the Euro Cup championships in Saint-Denis, just north of Paris.  France is playing Portugal for the title and man is it a BIG deal!  Everywhere we look there are both Portugal and France fans wearing their flags, faces painted.  It's standing room only at all of the cafes and bistros with TVs showing the game.  We're going to watch as soon as we get in, but we won't have to in order to know when there's a score - we'll be able to hear it all around us!