As advertised, the TGV, or Train à Grande Vitesse, from
Marseilles to Paris goes really, really fast. In three
hours, we’ve covered the 750 km and were soon navigating the Paris metro for the first time on our way to
the IBIS Montmartre Hotel. By late afternoon, we make the rendezvous at the
Sacre Coeur with 10,000 of our best tourist friends. After our time on the
islands, the crush of humanity is daunting but nothing like what is to come.
Still, the hustle and bustle tells us Paris
is open for business.
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| Is that Dustin Hoffman working the snack bar on the TGV to Paris? |
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| Street performer at Sacre Coeur. |
Along the walk to Sacre Coeur, we see a placard promoting a
free performance of Antigone at an
outdoor theatre tonight! So, with baguette sandwiches and wine in the “sac à
dos,” we’re off to the performance. The actors switched back and forth from Italian,
French and Spanish rather than telling the story in the universal language –
American. Tant pis, but it was a beautiful May evening and a great introduction
to the city, and that’s what counted.
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| It was a fine performance of Antigone... But spoken in American would have been better! |
Tuesday morning and we’re off to pickup our Paris Museum Passes
and then have a bit of a walkabout. But before we walkabout, let’s examine the
size of this city.
The City of Paris
proper (the circular area with all the cool stuff in it) has two million people
stuffed inside along with 1 million dogs pooping on the sidewalks. The greater
metropolitan area has 12 million people (you can do the math on the number of
dogs) and covers 1,000 square miles. If you’ve been keeping up on the blog, you
know that this means greater Paris is 1/3 the
size of the entire island of Corsica but has
36 times the population. This place is really,
really big. Thankfully Paris
is mostly flat, so having walkabouts should be a breeze.
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| Paris is really, really big! The view from the Eiffel Tower. |
After our first walkabout, our legs feel like jelly. A look
at our handy tourist map shows how little of the circular area we covered. This
place is really, really big. That
night we vow to walk as little as possible in search of food. Around the corner
from the hotel we find an Irish bar where beer is served… mission accomplished.
Using my best French, I ask what beers are on tap. The bartender, using his
best Irish, asks me where I’m from. Using my best American, I reply, “The
States.” “All right then,” he says, “let’s stop pretending.” For the next three
hours, we have a hilarious time with the bartender, Tony, his Finnish wife, along
with a Paris
policeman (who is super funny), his Irish wife and Rudy, who is a friend to all.
Near the end of the night shots of savory liquor appear. Twenty minutes later
Natalie and I are glad the hotel is just around the corner. Sleep is going to
be a good thing.
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| The gang at the Irish Bar! |
The next morning…. STOP! Let’s depart from the chronological
format. Shall we?
Next up? Bike tours, museums, Versailles and funny things about Paris! Vas-y!
A couple we met in Corsica from Bozeman, recommended the Fat Tire Bike Tours
of Paris. We booked the day and night tours since each has a different focus. The
weather forecast was for sunny skies!
The day tour started… and continued… with a cold light rain.
Thin plastic ponchos helped make the 3.5-hour tour a success as we biked from
site to site with narration from Sam, our guide, along the way. We rested up at
the hotel for the night tour as the afternoon sun broke through pastel Parisian
clouds. The love affair between the sun and clouds ended just in time for our
evening bike ride. We rode through rain. We rode through sheets of rain. We
rode through sheets and buckets and torrents of rain. We did not stop. We did
not shop. We skipped the promised ice cream and no one complained. We did,
however, have some reprieve during the “boat ride on the Seine”
portion of the tour. Four hours later, the tour ended. In a weird way, although
our shoes “squished” with every step and our drenched clothes were glued to us,
we enjoyed the adventure and the other tourists we met.
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| Our day bike tour was damp. Our night tour was soaked! |
Paris
has more than its share of museums and monuments. Small, large, mainstream and
bizarre, you name it… Paris
has it. Here are a few observations:
1. Large museums, like the Louvre or d’Orsay, have lots and
lots of things in them and many of these things are outstanding. The problem is,
if you don’t hold a Doctorate in Museums—and
that’s 99.9999% of all adult visitors
and 150.3% of all child visitors—the plethora of outstanding things is simply
overwhelming. Another Renoir? Yawn… We actually found smaller museums, like the
Conciergerie—where the guillotine was trés busy during the revolution—to be
more informative and much more relaxing. Plus, smaller museums take less time,
making it easy to break the day up with a variety of adventures.
2. And because most of us do not hold Doctorates in Museums, we don’t know what to look at. So we are
trained to be attracted to certain objects like les mouches (flies) sur merde.
One such object is the Mona Lisa. I can’t be sure, but I’m pretty certain it’s
NOT the best painting of the 300,000 (really) in the museum. I’m also pretty sure
the Venus de Milo is not the best sculpture. Mon Dieu, she doesn’t even have
arms!
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| Quick! Take a picture of the Mona Lisa before it's too late! The other paintings in the room are clearly inferior. |
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| It was a close call, but I too managed to get a photo of the Moaning Lisa... as you can see here! It's a lot smaller than I thought. |
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| The Venus de Milo is also much smaller than I had imagined... |
3. Going to the top of the Eiffel
Tower, Notre Dame and the Arc de
Triomphe is fun and each view clearly illustrates that Paris is really,
really big. And if you’re a pick pocket, you’ll find the very top of the Eiffel Tower
even more fun!
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| I've been sitting here on Notre Dame for 900 years. I am SO DONE with this place! |
4. Security policies are variable. At the d’Orsay, you have
to check your rucksack but can take your camera in. However, the camera police
are at the ready to wag a finger and say, “Non!” should you try to take a
photo. On the other hand, many people get their rucksacks through and hundreds
are sneaking photos. I tried to snap one shot and received a good wagging. At
the Louvre? Rucksacks are fine! Photos? Take as many as you want! But try to
eat ONE PIECE OF CHOCOLATE and watch out! I did… and failed. I wanted to give
that Monet a chocolate moustache SO BAD! So, when in Paris, be prepared to be flexible to
accommodate a seemingly incomprehensible security net.
5. Monuments are not created equal. The Arc de Triomphe
certainly makes a point. And then there’s Napoleon’s Tomb. It’s enormous! Some might say it’s gigantesque! Like Paris, it’s really, really big. I can’t be sure, but I think someone, even in
death, was compensating for a certain shortcoming in life.
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| Now THAT'S a tomb! |
And then there’s Versailles…
The French try to put a good face on the three Louis’ (14th,
15th and 16th), but the enormity of their opulence and power is a wee bit on
display at the Palace. Look at it this way, Versailles
was an escape for royalty from an increasingly hostile Paris. But for Louis XIV, Versailles and its 10,000 inhabitants
(royalty and servants) became too much. To alleviate his suffering, he commissioned
the Grand Trianon, another palace at the opposite end of the Versailles grounds, to be built. With the
Versailles grounds being 2,000 acres, or about half the size of my home town,
Moscow, Idaho, the Trianon was a good place to be… unless you were Louis XVI… for
whom there was ultimately no good place to be.
Well, if Louis XIV found the Palace crowded then, he should try it now!
Canned sardines have it better. The Trianon was much more relaxing; there was
virtually no one else there.
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| Mooo! Moooooo! Inside Versailles |
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| Meanwhile, you can hear a pin drop at the Grand Trianon. |
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| Italian Ice Cream at Versailles makes everything good. |
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| Versailles is really, really big! |
And now… a few notes on Paris…
1. The weather in Paris
in May can be quite nice. At least it was the week before we arrived. Other
than the first day and our Versailles
day, our stay has been cool, cloudy and with varying amounts of rain. This is
not necessarily a bad thing. We can only imagine moving about the crowded city
on a hot, muggy July day. Nope, that’s not a warm steamy crêpe you’re smelling!
So, we’ve rejoiced in the cool weather… mostly.
2. Getting around Paris
is super easy via the Metro. It’s quick to learn to use and is inexpensive and
efficient. We had just one really screwy morning, and that was because a Metro
line was unexpectedly shut down. Again, we’re glad we weren’t using it in July.
Nope, that’s not fresh camembert you’re smelling!
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| After another walkabout... Natalie on the Metro with jelly legs. |
3. People are forever losing their gold rings along the sidewalks!
In fact, one day early on during our visit, a woman picked up a gold band right
in front of us! She gave it to me saying she doesn’t wear jewelry. What good Parisian
luck I have! As I walked away, she asked if I could give her a Euro or two for
coffee. As I reached into my pocket, a woman behind me—whom Natalie could see—waved
her hands in effect saying, “No!” I
handed back the ring and thus escaped the scam just in time. We were approached
by two more women within 10 minutes… and a few days later by a man… doing the
“ring drop.”
5. Paris
is the second most expensive city in the world. We agree. We sat down at Les Deux Magots, a very touristy café, just yesterday but left before ordering two beers… two beers for
$28.00. But if you look around you’ll find ways to have fun and live well.
Besides, people are throwing gold rings all over the place!
From Paris… À
Trés Bientôt!
