Day 3
Rained and snowed today – not hard but constant precipitation of some sort – and the day started off warmer than yesterday but got colder. We got a late start due to jet lag issues, but still managed to have a full day. Remember when we said that the metro was ‘easy peasee’? Well, perhaps we spoke too soon. Yes, it can be easy, however, when doing multiple transfers, it can be quite tricky. Let’s just say that more than once we’ve gotten on the wrong train and many ‘heated discussions’ have taken place because of it. Truly though, the metro has been a source of fun and adventure, and it really makes things cheap and easy to get to.
We visited the Arc de Triomphe – a monument that honours all the French who fought and died in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The monument itself is very impressive in detail and sheer size; it stands 50m tall and 45m wide. At the base of the monument 12 radiating streets begin, like spokes on a wheel. Let’s just say that this intersection is quite difficult to navigate on foot and I’d image much worse if in a vehicle. Somehow the Parisians do it, and never do you hear a honking horn.
We wandered around Champs-Elysees, one of the streets radiating out from the Arc – a beautiful tree-lined street with many French monuments on it. Paris is truly beautiful – both of us have really been taken by it’s beautiful architecture and feel of openness despite every road being packed with apartments/shops/people. The people of the past really knew how to build beautifully. I often wonder how a city as old as this keeps up with the infrastructure so well, when a new city like Toronto seems to have so much difficulty. Perhaps it is due to tourism dollars. Whatever it is, Toronto and the GTA should take note.
Ahh, then the Eiffel Tower. We were both amazed by the immensity of it – we climbed to the first level, but due to the poor weather (rain and high winds) we did not go higher.
See pics here.
Day 4
Kristin’s email got hacked yesterday. That was the end of going onto the internet in Paris – we were too afraid that the connection was not secure. So, apologies if anyone got any strange spam email from Kristin – she didn’t send it. This is also one of the reasons that we haven’t been posting anything……the other is that we’ve been plain busy night and day, but we’llget to that later….
We got up early and made our way to Paris’ main train station where we would be leaving from in a couple of days to take the chunnel to London. Having never been there, we wanted to make sure that we got our tickets and knew where to go and the logistics of the trip. From our studio apartment in Bastille, we only had to take one metro line to get there (no transfers), which would make Thursday’s trip with all our luggage a bit simpler. Walking into the main train station was like going back in time – we could visualize how it was ‘back in the day’ – and felt like we were in an old movie watching the big board flicker with the changing arrivals and departures. After a somewhat confusing discussion with the ticket seller, we had our tickets (Expensive: 100 euros each!!) for Thursday, departing at 9:13am.
Then, off to the Palace of Versailles for the day. Versailles is at one of the terminus’ of the metro station, and is quite far from the centre of Paris, so it took a while to get there. We lucked out – no rain today – the sun actually peeked through for a bit and we saw some blue sky. Still cold though!
The Palace was the centre of political power in the 1600’s until the royal family was forced back into the capital in the late 1700’s. As an aside, the Palace of Versailles was built because it was felt that the Louvre Palace was too small to live in any longer (the Louvre is HUGE, so huge). We are so happy we decided to visit this palace – it truly was a highlight of the Paris segment of our trip. The rooms are massive, every ceiling is painted with elaborate scenes (most of which depict women with little or no clothes), and every surface is carved and or painted as ornately as possible. It is hard to imagine that people actually lived and functioned in such extravagant conditions.
After a quick grocery store run (oh yeah, did I mention how cheap wine is here??!!) we ate dinner back at our apartment, and had a much needed break for our feet (even though it is only day 4, our feet are already feeling the number of kilometres we’ve been walking) we ventured out in the evening to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. It did not disappoint! Coming out of the underground of the metro, we were immediately awed by the lighted tower – it is truly stunning. And, it gets better….every hour, the tower ‘sparkles’ for about 5 minutes, with thousands of mini lights flickering on and off all over it. Yeah, a bit of extravagance, and perhaps a lot of energy for this to all take place, but we have to admit, it was quite a sight to see!
See pics here.
Kristin
Great pictures, loved the police having a smoke in their riot gear??!!
Catacombs are awesome.