By the way, I tried to get a bit more high tech this time with the blog. If you click on this picture, it should take you to a web album so you can see all of the pictures from the trip. If it doesn't work, please let me know!!
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| Paris July 08 |
One of Marco's good friends from Peru, Arturo, and his wife Flavie live in Paris. (Flavie is French.) Unfortunately, they were in Peru for a month of vacation, but they graciously offered us their apartment for our trip. So with Arturo's great directions, we arrived at the metro station which was literally about 50 yards from their place! They live in the 11th Arrondissement, which means they are pretty close to all of the major attractions in the city. They had left the keys with neighbors, these two old French ladies that lived downstairs and spoke very little English. Marco bravely called them when we arrived and communicated well enough for them to let us in. The building is one of those old (maybe 18th century) typically French structures. You pass through a huge wooden door from the main street onto this lovely little courtyard. Up about 4 flights of stairs, we rang the doorbell and met the two "Madames". They spoke to us only in French and I did my best to recall a few words from all of the years of studying in school. Eventually we got into the apartment and it was just what you would imagine. They are remodeling everything, but it is a lovely place with all of the charm and character that you would expect of a Parisian apartment. We felt so lucky and thankful to be able to stay there.
So, we dropped our backpacks and headed out to enjoy our first afternoon in Paris. Although Marco had been there once before, it was my first time and I was pretty excited. We hopped back on the Metro and ended up getting off at Place de la Concorde. It's a big "square" between a few of the monuments and from there I got my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower. We walked around a bit just to take it all in. We were getting pretty hungry as we hadn't eaten much all day, so we ventured off to find a restaurant. We ended up in a middle eastern restaurant, where the food was just average, but we still had a nice experience. Unfortunately, it did rain a bit, but it was nothing like Ireland. :o) It was much warmer and I guess for some reason we didn't mind the rain so much being on vacation. After dinner we strolled down the Champs Elysees and I got to see the Arc de Triomphe! We then headed back to the apartment to try and get some rest for the busy days ahead.
Friday morning we woke up and went for breakfast at a local cafe. We had the traditional croissants and coffee (hot chocolate for Marco!) and it was absolutely delicious. At this point I guess I should go ahead and admit that we ate our way across Paris. We had so many croissants, pastries, baguettes and crepes that it is hard to even describe. There were crepe stands all over the city where you could get a fresh crepe to order and I lost track of how many we had with Nutella (chocolate) and bananas! Luckily, we did SO much walking that we didn't put on too much weight. Seriously, by the end of each day our legs were so tired that we would just fall into bed. Anyway, after breakfast we took a train to Versailles, which is a massive palace on the outskirts of Paris. It was originally built by some rich Italian guy, then one of the King Louis' bought it as a vacation home. it was actually the seat of government at one time, but that was never permanent. Over the centuries they added on to the main building, built new buildings and put in a huge garden that is immaculately manicured. It's actually more like a park than a garden. There are fountains, pools, mazes.....just beautiful. And the weather was gorgeous.....I actually got a pretty good sunburn on my shoulders, but I was just happy to have sunshine! We bought ham & cheese baguettes for lunch and sat out in the gardens to enjoy the weather. We then took a guided tour in the afternoon which was great. It was so fun to hear stories about the history of the place and the people who lived there. One of the kings at one time had a thing for clocks. This pair of scientists built a very special clock for him back in the 1700's and they designed it so that it would keep time until the year 9,999! It still works and is accurate.....just amazing. There are just too many interesting facts to share in this blog, but it's a must see if you ever get to Paris.
So, we headed back to the train station to go back to the city. About 5 minutes into the trip, the train stopped. The conductor made an announcement in French that we couldn't understand, but we picked up that there had been some sort of accident on the line involving a person. They said it would be a few minutes delay, but about 30 minutes later and with a train full of sweaty passengers they announced that we should all get off the train. Like a herd of cows we all followed the crowd, not really knowing what to do. We were not close to any other stations. They instructed us to walk to a bus that was several blocks away and from there who knew what would happen. We packed into the bus like sardines.....seriously, it was such a funny site! About 10 minutes later, we arrived at another train station, where we were able to find our way back to the city. As we exited the metro station near the apartment, there was a group of people asking us to sign a petition. We waved our hands to indicate we don't speak French and one guy looked at Marco and said "Hablas espanol?" Turns out he was from Argentina, so they had a nice conversation in Spanish. Apparently there is a big thing happening in the EU right now where they are trying to deport a lot of immigrants, so the petition was to protect the rights of those people. He said since we lived in Europe we could sign, so we added our names to the list to help the cause. This guy also told us that there was a good "latin" club somewhere in the city where the food and dancing was supposed to be good the next night, so we made a plan to check it out. Then it was back to the apartment for a shower before we headed out to find dinner.
Now, Lebanese food is one of our favorites, so before our trip I had researched all of our options. Restaurants in Ireland are pretty disappointing, so we thought this was our big chance to have some really good food. We found our way to this place that had gotten rave reviews and got a table. And that's when everything went downhill. After this trip we both can say without hesitation that the service in France is terrible. The stereotype of French people being rude holds true. (The nicest people we met were immigrants from other countries) Once we got a look at the menus, we were surprised at the high prices, but decided it was worth it for a good meal. I ordered a chicken kebob meal and Marco ordered a beef dish. When mine arrived, it had the wrong side orders, so I had to send it back. Then, one look at Marco's dish and we weren't convinced that it was beef. I tasted it and was pretty sure it was lamb, which he doesn't care for. So, we called the waiter back (who didn't speak any English) and tried to explain the problem. He insisted it was beef and then sent another guy to insist that it was beef. Needless to say, this meal ended up to be a huge disappointment. Oh well, I guess that's all part of the adventure! After dinner we made our way to an area called Chatelet, where there is a pretty good nightlife. Lots of restaurants and clubs and it was really fun just to walk around. Then it was back to the apartment to collapse into bed.
Saturday morning we again went for a typical breakfast at a cafe near the Louvre Museum. We then ventured over to the museum, which is so huge that there's just no way to see it all. So, we made a tiny list of things we wanted to see and set off. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa, which was surprisingly small compared to what I expected. And there was such a huge crowd around it that you couldn't get close or get a decent picture. But at least we saw it. We saw lots of paintings by famous artists and of course the Venus de Milo sculpture. We ventured through an exhibit on Egypt and also Napoleon's apartment. It was a really neat experience to see all of this history, but totally overwhelming. We went up and down so many stairs that I felt like we were back at Machu Picchu! Which brings up an interesting point......now we know how the French stay so skinny! They walk everywhere and there are stairs everywhere.
After the Louvre, we headed off to find lunch. We ended up having wood-fired pizza at a sidewalk cafe that was decent. We then decided to take the metro to Sacre Coeur, which is a big church at the top of a hill. Once we reached the neighborhood, we saw that you could take a shuttle or a funicular. We thought we would be troopers and take the stairs. I don't know how many there were, but my legs were like jello about halfway up. I just kept convincing myself that I would totally deserve another crepe after that. :o) Once we reached the top, we found that the church was absolutely beautiful and the view was spectacular. They say it's the best view in Paris because you can see the whole city from there.
We then decided to go home and rest because we had grand intentions of going out for a bit of dancing in the evening. We took a pretty good nap and felt the energy return! Marco then took me to the Montparnasse building, which is one of the only tall buildings in Paris. You take the elevator about 59 floors and have a rooftop view of the city. The sun was just going down, so it was a pretty spectacular view! We then ventured over to an area called the "Latin Quarter", which is also known for it's nightlife. This turned out to be our favorite place because of the energy and the relaxed atmosphere. We ended up sitting down for dinner at an outdoor cafe in true European style.....at 11pm! The place was packed and it was really fun just to watch people and enjoy the beautiful evening. Unfortunately, the food was again disappointing, but the experience made up for it. We then set off to try and find the latin dance place that the guy from Argentina told us about. After about 20 minutes of walking we decided we were just too tired and headed in for the evening.
Sunday morning we found a nice bakery and just bought our pastries and baguette to go. We had seen most of the big things on our "list", so we thought we would just take the day a bit slower. We walked around just to see different parts of the city. We did go back to the Champs Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe since I hadn't gotten any pictures before. We decided to go to Les Invalides, which was originally built as a "hotel"for injured war veterans. It's more like a palace and is now a museum and he place of Napoleon's tomb. It ended up being a really neat experience that we were both glad we didn't miss. They had a whole section of the museum devoted to World War I and II, which was fascinating. Lots of history and great artifacts that we both enjoyed. At the tomb of Napoleon, they have on display one of the coats and hats that he is normally pictured in. It was surprising how small the coat was! I mean, it seemed like it was made for a child. Such a small, but powerful man. We then made our way back to the neighborhood near the apartment. We found a great little cafe that was packed with people having "happy hour"on a Sunday. We had a drink and a couple of appetizers and a nice time people watching again. We then found a nice little restaurant where we had our last meal. It was an Italian place so we had a pizza and some pasta. One interesting note is that most of the pizzas on the menu had a large fried egg in the middle. We decided to order our pizza without the egg. :) Then it was back to the apartment, with a pit stop for our last crepe on the way back!
Monday morning we got up early to clean the apartment and pack our things. We had to take the metro to get back to the bus station to get back to the airport. We thought we were leaving really early just to be safe and it was a good thing we did! Monday morning rush hour on the metro is a bit crazy! We were again packed in like sardines and it took us longer than we expected. But we made it to the airport for the flight back to Shannon. The bus to Galway got us home around 5pm and it was nice to be back in our fair little town. Our house was pretty stuffy after being closed up for 5 days, but luckily today it has been sunny all day so we let in all the fresh air. I also did about 6 loads of laundry, which took most of the day!
Now it's back to our normal routine for a few weeks. This adventure was so much fun that we just can't wait to go to Switzerland in August!!!!!
