Paris is full of history – centuries of it and you can see this everywhere in the buildings especially. The newer cafes and hotels sit at the bottom of the old buildings and are all tightly packed together. Cafe seats generally face the street (rue) in rows and there you can watch the world go by. Good coffee!!
We have “done” the museums and monuments – first a tour via the hop-on/off bus and then closer up. We visited: –
Le louvre – 135,000/140,000 pieces on display in this beautiful old palace – stunning tapestries, masterpieces (incuding Mona – the painting is much smaller than you expect and Venus de Milo and all the well known artists), elaborate furniture and Empress Josephines jewels – I especially fancied the 140,000 carat diamond – shame it would be too big for my finger!
Notre Dame cathedral – 12th century gothic – took 200 years to build! Listened to 6pm vespers.
Sainte Chapelle – incredible stained glass work includes the entire illuminated Bible “written” in glass
The Conciegerie – gothic halls once a palace in 14th century and then a prison in 15th century – used during revolution and has Marie Antionette’s cell recreated
Musee D’Orsay – imagine being in rooms full of Monet (world’s biggest collection), Renoir, Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Manet etc
Arc de Triomphe de L’Etoile – stunning 360 views from the top – giddy climb up spiral staircase first!
Pantheon – a church til 1791 then republican memorial and resting place of some famous parisians – you see the crypts (below) of Victor Hugo, the Curies, Alexandre Dumas, Rousseau …. There are stunning murals painted on the walls upstairs and also Foucault’s pendulum – an early experiment proving the world rotates and making science accessible to people way back when!
Eiffel Tower- a visit only- did not ascend- queues far too long for time we had – too hot to wait and we had great views from Arc de Triomphe.
Weatherwise very hot at times then sudden downpours.
Memories of Paris –
- architecture and the sense of history
- numerous cafes and good coffee
- narrow cobbed streets lined with old buildings – apartments – non-used wrought iron balconies
- tree-lined boulevards
- police cars with claxon horns everywhere
- shades of brown and grey – not a red roof in sight
- bicycles of the old style with baskets and scooters
- small european cars especially of the SMART kind
- being deferred to as a woman by waiters – nothing patriarchial here!
PS. Experienced the other “joys” of travel en route to Paris – security delay at Newark held the plane up for 1hr (70 passengers still to come) so we missed connection to Paris in Frankfurt (further slow security checks there too!!)
