Paris

After visiting Paris we certainly understand why it is known as a city of great beauty and romance. It was interesting to see how different this city is from any of those we saw in Spain. The city layout is very structured (in stark contrasts to the winding streets of Andalucia) and, when viewed from the top of one of its many monuments, appears to have a sense of symmetry. We kept ourselves busy, especially throughout the first few days, and managed to see many of the great museums, churches, historical buildings and monuments. 

We began our first day by meeting Mary Kay at our hotel. Considering the fact that we had just come from an over-night train and she from an over-night flight (without sleep and jet-lagged) we really crammed a lot into the first day. We visited the Holocaust Memorial, Notre Dame, walked around the the smaller island of the Seine, had a nice dinner and ice cream, went to the Shakespeare & Co. bookstore, and finished the evening with a boat tour of the Seine. The lac

y stained glass windows of the Notre Dame were especially impressive, as we had seen nothing like that in the cathedrals of Spain. The boat tour was a great way to begin our stay in Paris because it gave us a feeling for the city overall. It is incredible that so many impressive sites all lie within a single city. It's no wonder that half of France lives in Paris, though this makes it even more amazing that everywhere is so clean and beautiful.

For our second day in Paris we visited the Arc du Triomphe. We were impressed to realize how large this monument is. We climbed to the top, for our first panoramic view of the city. We walked along the Champs Elysees and enjoyed a bit of people-watching. We spent the afternoon in the Rodin Museum. This museum is in a old house where Rodin once lived; the house

and gardens are beautiful alone and spectacular with Rodin's sculptures. It was fantastic to see some of Rodin's most well-known works, like The Thinker and The Burghers of Calais, along with smaller works that showed what an innovative artist he was. We walked around the surrounding area, past the Hopital d'Invalides. It's hard to believe that this palace-like, golden-domed building is basically the Parisian equivalent to a VA hospital. After having french onion soup and a quiche at a brasserie we went to the Eiffel Tower. Our timing could not have been better: we were able to ascend the tower just before sunset and stayed until dark, allowing us to have a fantastic view of the city during day and night. Interestingly, beneath the tower was some sort of concert/wake for the recently deceased Michael Jackson. We were somewhat shocked to learn that he had such an international following.

The next morning we visited the St. Chapelle Cathedral before checking out of our hotel. The walls seem to be composed more of stained glass than they are of stone; we enjoyed reading both German and Spanish descriptions of the windows. We

 then moved from our hotel to the apartment that we would be staying in for the remainder of the week. Having an apartment was a great idea because it allowed us to cook meals rather than always eating out and have a more comfortable place to relax. We were able to have more leisurely mornings and evenings and found a bakery called Bread and Roses that we fell in love with. The location was great: we were directly across the street from the Luxembourg gardens, so we had a great view and a great breeze. It also was a lot of fun to speculate about the people that normally lived in the apartment. We spent the afternoon in the Pompidou Center, which houses modern art, beginning with the post-impressionists such as Picasso and Matisse. The building itself is very contemporary; all of the pipes for water, air ducts, etc. are on the outside of the building rather than hidden behind walls, somewhat similar to the convention center in Houston.

Day 4. We spent several hours in the Musee d'Orsay, focusing especially on the floor of impressionist paintings. We took a scenic route back to the apartment when the museum closed, passing through an artsy area of the city that was filled with art galleries, fresh food markets, cafes, and boutiques. We had some of the most interesting ice cream & sorbet of the entire trip; the fresh mint ice cream was especially good! It was fun to see so many French people just getting off of work, chatting, shopping, and people-watching. 

On our fifth day in Paris we took a taxi to see the Sacre-Coure. The cathedral has an interesting history and is quite unique, but we found it much more attractive from a distance than when we actually ascended the hill. Perhaps the most exciting part of this experience was our taxi ride there. We had a female taxi driver who spoke a bit of English but had a deep, raspy voice and cursed about the traffic. She was very friendly to us and it was fantastic to see the city as we drove through it. 

That afternoon, we finally went to the Louvre! Just knowing that we were in such a world-renowned museum with so many masterpieces was wonderful. The old palace grounds alone are impressive and the glass pyramids in the center make it all seem somewhat ethereal. We were a bit annoyed by the fact that the museum was so full of people taking pictures of everything, but that wasn't enough of a distraction to take away from the art. It was great to be able to compare the artwork here to the many other museums we have visited throughout the summer and to be able to see why the Louvre is considered to have the greatest collection. Especially with the early Christian and Renaissance paintings, we were able to tell that even the lesser-known paintings here are superior those in many of the other museums we had seen. Unfortunately, the Louvre is so massive that it is overwhelming under any circumstance, but especially after having done so much sight-seeing in the past 6 weeks. We did see many of the greatest works: the Venus de Milo, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, and of course the Mona Lisa. We felt it appropriate to celebrate our day at the Louvre with a  fine French dinner. We did so at Chez Grammond's, a small restaurant down the street from our hotel. Chez Grammond and his wife have owned and operated this restaurant for 30 years and have never hired an employee. We read an article online praising the restaurant for having the freshest, most wholesome ingredients and traditional French cuisine. Sure enough, the tables were even decorated with wildflowers. It had a lot of character: the woman waited on us, wearing high heels and a The Doors t-shirt. She practically told us what we wanted to eat, but we were happy to agree. The food was delicious (especially Ian's duck and the Grand Marnier souffles)! There was only one other table filled and, as we were the last ones there, Chez Grammond himself came out to talk to us after closing the kitchen.

We were incredibly fortunate in terms of weather throughout the entire trip, especially considering the fact that rain was predicted nearly every day and we never really got rained on. However, we did choose a rather warm day to see Versaille. This palace undoubtedly outshines all those we had seen in Spain. Such extravagance! We decided to make it a bit more educational and listened to the audoguides in German and Spanish. The gardens are so large that it would take hours to see them all by foot, so we rented a golf cart and rode to a shady area in the back to eat the picnic we had brought with us. There happened to be some sort of military event going on at the time, so we even got to see small procession.

We finally decided we had seen enough museums and monuments and just wanted to walk around and BE in Paris. We walked around the Luxemburg gardens, sat and talked and ate crepes. Walking around the streets we saw the Observatory, an incredibly beautiful teaching hospital and the Sorbonne University. We did a little shopping (Lisa at a clothing store, Ian at the University's Philosophy bookstore). We saw a ballet in the Palais Garnier. This concert house is beautiful, and quite unique with a ceiling painted by Marc Chagall.

On our last full day in Paris we had a long brunch at our favorite Bread and Roses. We visited the Tulleries gardens, but found that we preferred the Luxemburg gardens. And we had another good French dinner, with a final order of Escargot.

On our final morning we went to a mass at St. Sulpice and got to hear a 30-minute organ concert afterwards. Cathedrals and organs certainly compliment one another to create a sublime feeling. Outside the church was a small ceramics market which was fun to browse. We had a picnic in the Luxemburg gardens before moving out of our apartment. We helped Mary Kay move into her new hotel and shared a final bottle of wine (and ice cream!). Then, it was finally time to head to the train station and board our 13-hour night train to Berlin.