Paris, Je t’aime

With the previous day’s terrible travel experience all but forgotten, Kevin and I set out bright and early to explore some of the city while waiting for our friends Katie and John to arrive.  We decided to start off at Notre Dame as it was a short 10 minute walk from our hotel (and we already knew how to find it as we were wandering around near it lost the day before).  First things first, coffee and a croissant as one of the touristy cafés right near Notre Dame.  I got to practice my French when ordering and considering the waiter responded in French, it apparently wasn’t so bad that he needed to switch to English to understand me.

As we were walking towards Notre Dame, I warned Kevin of the obnoxious gypsy children that swarmed everywhere like ants on watermelon and told him just to yell Va t’en! or something along those lines at them.  However, as we wandered around the cathedral, we didn’t see a single soul.  Apparently, gypsies are not poor enough to need to beg in the winter when it is snowing.   Although the weather (and the slush seeping into my Pumas) was making us freeze our bollocks off, it was perfect for a photographer like me who can not stand having people in her picture and will wait 10 minutes, hoping to be able to snap a people free photo.

Huzzah!  No gypsies in site!

I have an obsession with gargoyles.

By the time we had made it around front, Kevin was already annoyed at how many pictures I had taken and how long it took me to line up “the perfect shot”.  Plus, Japan had invaded  and there was about 1 million dollars worth of photo equipment ruining my pictures, so I snapped just a few more photos and we were on our way to the next stop – The Louvre.

Kevin’s coat is perfect for perspective when taking pictures.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Charlemagne

On the way to the Louvre, we had to continue across the Seine, and so I decided to take Kevin over Pont Neuf.  While its name implies that it is a New Bridge, it is actually the oldest still standing Bridge across the Seine.   in 1577, King Henry III made the decision to build a new bridge spanning the river as the bridge near Notre Dame was congested.  The original intention was to build houses along the bridge, and thus the bridge was widened.  However, no such houses were ever built.

 

A short walk from Pont Neuf and we arrived at the Louvre.  Kevin is not in any means a fan of art and since the Louvre is completely overwhelming, we decided just to walk around the outside, inner courtyard.  Kevin’s main concern was finding spots he recognized from Da Vinci Code and mine was avoiding the people who were harassing me to sign some stupid petition.  (They were awful.  One even called me a Cocotte!)

L’arc de Triomphe du Carrousel comissioned by Napoléon to commemorate his military victories

Today, the Louvre houses an extensive collection of art, including the overrated Mona Lisa.  However, it was at one point a royal palace.  First used for this purpose in the 13th century, it occupies the site of a former fortress.  If my memory serves me correctly from the last time I was in the Louvre in high school, you can see the foundation of the old fort in the basement of one of the wings (perhaps the medieval wing?).  The palace was renovated and added to over the years until it became the extensive building that it is today.   It was during the French Revolution that the decision to make the palace a museum was made.  It originally housed roughly 500 paintings seized from the monarchy after their untimely demise at the hands of the revolutionaries.  Today, it houses  over 380,000 pieces of art. If you are in Paris for a few days, its well worth the trip, but personally, I would rather go to Musee d’Orsay or Musee Rodin. 

Next stop on the Lester walking tour of Paris was L’arc de Triomphe by way of the Tuileries and Place de La Concorde.  Again, it was amazing how dead it was.  There was hardly a person in site.  Granted, Tuileries is best seen in the summer when the plants are actually alive and there are flowers blooming, but you’d at least think some people would be out and about…

Tuileries

While Place de la Concorde may not appear to be much, it appeals to those of us who are familiar with the history of the French Revolution.  Even the readers who don’t spend their free time reading biographies of French/English monarchs or history books like myself will have heard of the extensive use of the guillotine during the French Revolution.  Originally constructed in 1755, the large public square was called Place Louis XV in honor of the king at the time.  However, during the Revolution, it was renamed Place de la Revolution and a large guillotine was erected.  In front of cheering crowds, King Louis XVI, his wife Marie Antoinette, and his mistress Madame du Barry were beheaded. In the aftermath of the “Reign of Terror, several high profile executions also took place.

Executed at Place de La Concorde after the fall of the monarchy was  chemist and my personal hero Antoine Lavoisier,who is considered by many to be the Father of Modern Chemistry and the first person to discover the Law of Conservation of Mass ( leading to one of my favorite aspects of chemistry – stoichiometry). Lavoisier had the misfortune to not only help foreign born scientists and mathematicians during the Reign of Terror but to belittle Marat’s prism invention and thus when Marat became a leading political leader, he exacted his revenge.   Also executed was Maximilien  Robespierre.  It seems that even the former leader of the revolution who ultimately called for the execution of Louis XVI was not safe in the aftermath. 

 

Today, the Place de La Concorde lacks the gruesome guillotine, but instead has an obelisk from the reign of Ramses II that once stood outside Luxor Temple.  Given to the French in 1833 by the Egyptian government along with an additional obelisk too large to move, it was placed at the site of the former guillotine in Place de La Concorde.  (The other obelisk was given back to the Egyptian people in the 1990’s and still stands at Luxor Temple today.)

 

Leading off from the Place de La Concorde is Champs d’Elysees, otherwise known as “insane road leading to L’Arc du Triomphe that I would never ever ever drive on for fear of death” 

After dodging all the obnoxious tourists who were fouling up my pictures, we decided to head back to the hotel by way of the Opera House (the setting for my favorite Broadway play).  However, we stupidly decided to use the walking GPS that Kevin borrowed from his friend that took us to a random hotel named Paris Opera rather than the actual opera house.  After a few wrong turns, we managed to find it and snap a few pictures before heading back to the hotel to await our friends.

 

Due to our mishap with the GPS, we were late arriving back at the hotel and thought John and Katie might have beaten us there.  However, we soon found out that their luggage was being held hostage by French baggage handlers due to a strike.  Luckily for me, I was not affected the day before because the strike was taking from from 10-2 each day.  This may seem strange to some, but anyone who has ever been to France will be aware of the fact that the French don’t do anything before 10.  We had been waiting for John and Katie for lunch, but as they were going to be a few more hours at least, we set off for some food.  We had the good fortune to be close to the Latin Quarter, and thus we set out in search of a delicious gyro.  The gyros there are delicious and the best I have had outside of Greece.  Gyros from the Latin Quarter are on my list of “Things not to be missed in Paris.”

After a quick walk through Isle St. Michel, we headed back to the hotel and finally met up with our friends Katie and John. John and Kevin had a joyful reunion full of hugging and scotch drinking and then we headed out to Rue Mouffetard for some dinner.  Katie found us a delicious little place that appeared to be a favorite of the locals.  Kevin and John completely embarrassed us with their loud behavior – so all in all a normal night. We enjoyed some stellar food.  Katie and I had one of the best bottles of Cotes du Rhone I have ever had,  stuffed artichokes, Duck Confit and homemade chocolate mousse which were all to die for.  This was not the kind of place one whipped out a camera at, so you will have to take my word on the deliciousness of the food.