I am trying to squeeze as much into mom’s short time in Paris as possible, which may not end up being the best thing for her back…but so far she’s being a trooper and pushing through. This morning, we left fairly early for Sacre Coeur. When we got there it was very pleasantly uncrowded. There was virtually no one else on the stairs, except of course for the annoying dudes who try to tie pieces of string on your arm and then make you pay for them. One of them reached for me and actually grabbed my wrist. I whipped my arm around and told him, “Je ne m’interesse pas!” firmly and in my best French accent. Ugh.
The inside of the church was just gorgeous, but you aren’t supposed to take pictures, so I was a good girl and didn’t. You also aren’t allowed to talk, and I think that I said this the first time that I visited Sacre Coeur, but I almost like it better than Notre Dame because you aren’t allowed to take pictures or talk. It makes it so much less touristy and much more like a church. And I learned that Sacre Coeur is actually a fairly recent addition to the Parisian skyline. Its cornerstone wasn’t laid until 1875, which is very modern compared to Notre Dame! Still, it is a beautiful work of art both inside and out. The ceiling is done in a very intricate mosaic, and the stained glass windows are stunning.
After touring the inside of the church, we walked around for a little bit in the neighborhood. Mom got a gift for a friend in a little gift shop, and then we wandered around the famous square with all of the artists. Then, we went back to Sacre Coeur and went down into the crypt. It was really cool down there, especially since I hadn’t been down there the first time I came to Sacre Coeur. There were displays of communion cups, priest habits, etc. both old and new. There were also statues of saints with places for you to pray to them and/or burn candles, but interestingly, there were two new statues of what I assume were two new saints. The statue labels said that they were made in 2005. There was also a cool monument to all the members of the clergy who gave their lives in World War II.
Then, we walked all the way back down the steps, which were much more crowded at this point, where yet another dude tried to tie a string on my wrist. I must just have “gullible” written on my face. Ugh again. We hopped back on the metro and rode it all the way to the Louvre. I have to say that I love how the metro literally pops up right in the basement of the museum. Mom and I went to lunch at the international food court down in the basement. We ended up choosing an Italian place because mom wasn’t that hungry, and their prix-fixe menu was hearty/sufficient enough where we could easily share it and both of us be full. I ended up being very helpful to the American couple behind us in line who spoke absolutely no French. I translated the whole menu for them, explained how the formules work and what you could pick with each one. I felt very helpful lol. I was also surprised that (a) they had come to France without even a small dictionary to help them and that (b) the menus had no translations into other languages even though they were located in one of the most visited museums in the world. Oh well. Mom and I enjoyed a terribly unhealthy, very un-French lunch of pizza, Coke, and chocolate ice cream before heading to the main entrance of the Louvre.
Mom decided that she wanted to see the Greek and Roman antiquities, which was great for me, because I’ve been to Louvre twice before, but I’ve never seen that exhibit. It turned out to be really fascinating. We both enjoyed looking at all of the intricately done statues in bronze, marble, and limestone. We also, of course, went to see the Winged Victory of Samothrace, which was beautiful. I also very sadly learned that part of it is a reconstruction from the 1800s. Darn. I had always thought that it was all original. We also managed to accidentally stumble upon the Venus de Milo, which I’m not sure why she’s so famous… There seemed to be many other more exquisitely done, more complete statues in the Greek and Roman exhibit than her, but hey, she was still pretty cool, even though she was armless.
Mom and I also saw the pre-classical Greek sculptures, which I really found fascinating, and they oddly seemed to resemble the heads on the Galapagos Islands. We wandered through the Italian painting exhibit at a fairly fast clip on our way to see the Mona Lisa (La Joconde in French). The poor woman…she was being mobbed on all sides by tacky tourists, completely unaware of anything about her other than the fact that she was famous. She is protected by intensely thick glass and is behind a rope, which is definitely a good thing because people were taking flash photos left and right even though the signs very explicitly say not to.
On our way out of the Louvre, mom got a cool glass vase that looked just like one that she had admired in one of the Greek exhibits and had teased about stealing. We hopped the metro back to our hotel, and on the way we stopped at a pharmacy where I had to reach back into my memory from high school French to be able to describe mom’s symptoms and ask the pharmacist to recommend something. Apparently, I was clear enough, because he was able to recommend two different things – a topical form of ibuprofen that’s illegal in the U.S. (shhhhhhh) and a pill, both of which are anti-inflammatory and painkillers. We also stopped at a French Starbucks! It was the nicest, largest Starbucks I had ever seen. It looked as though they had converted an old hotel lobby into the seating area, so the 19th century ceiling decorations, chandeliers, and mirrors were still there. Then we went back to the hotel where I took a massive nap while mom played around on the computer. We left for dinner a little earlier than normal so that we could go to the Galeries Lafayette, which is just down the street from us, because mom has been searching for a new handbag the whole time we’ve been here; plus she wanted to get something for Emily. We were successful on both counts! Mom found a really pretty new red handbag, and we got Emily a present (and no, I’m not going to say what it is in case Emily reads this…). The store itself was really cool inside. The center of the store had this massive dome, and there was painted relief work on all the floors. Next, we headed to dinner. I introduced mom to the wonders of Brioche Dorée for dinner where we both had sandwiches, dessert, drinks, and tea. Yum! Hopefully mom’s back feels better tomorrow…it needs to because we’re going to the impressionist museum (the Musée d’Orsay), and she’s been looking forward to this the whole time.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Versailles
Our day at Versailles started out really early because I was determined not to wait in line the way that we did at Notre Dame, so we actually left our hotel around 8:30 a.m. We hopped on the RER C, an overland train that goes through Paris, and made it to Versailles by 9:15ish. We didn’t have to wait in line at all to get in, breezed through the line to get an audioguide for mom, and started our tour. (Since I had just been to Versailles with the William and Mary group, I wasn’t interested in an audioguide.) I really got to appreciate the chateau more this time through because it wasn’t nearly as crowded as when I had been a few weeks ago. I was able to stop and admire the incredibly ornate decorations on every surface from the drapes to the walls to the ceiling to the furniture. Mom was also really impressed with the beautiful palace and its history.
We also had the chance to visit the newly-opened Dauphin and Dauphine’s apartments on the ground floor of the chateau. They were not nearly as ornate as the King and Queen’s rooms upstairs, but they were still pretty decked out. I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to go down there since I hadn’t had time on my last visit.
After the Dauphin’s apartments, we popped into the gift store where mom got a cute apron on sale. Then, we headed to the café for lunch, and both of us had sandwiches – mine was chicken, tomatoes, and lettuce on “English” bread as they called it while mom’s was ham and cheese on French bread. Next, we had a bit of a snaffoo trying to get to Marie Antoinette’s Trianon. Normally, you just enter through the gardens behind the Versailles palace; however, for some reason, Tuesdays are special. They are known as “Musical Waters in the Garden” (if you translate it into English), which, incidentally, means that you have to pay to enter the gardens so that you can enjoy the music with colored water in the fountains (???). Sadly, our Paris Museum Passes didn’t count for the gardens – only for the palace and Marie Antoinette’s Trianon – so we had to ask for directions on how to get to the Trianon without walking through the gardens. The man who gave us directions seemed to think that it was fairly close (he said 300 meters), but it was actually more like a mile away. Bahhhh. I was fine walking all the way there, but it definitely put a strain on mom’s already strained back. We did manage to make it to the Petit Trianon in fairly good time.
Actually, it turned out to be perfect timing, because we arrived just as a guided tour was beginning. I gladly asked for tickets for it, because it was free, and mom and I waited for the guide. The guided tour ended up being almost a private tour in the end. In the tour there was us, a French couple, and a family, and that was it! The tour guide was really informative and funny too, and even though the tour was completely in French, mom and I both really enjoyed it. She was able to understand parts of it, and what she couldn’t understand, I was easily able to translate for her as we walked from room to room. The best part of the tour was that it was actually in a part of the Trianon that visitors aren’t normally allowed to go in! When we signed up, we figured it was just a guided tour through the first floor where everyone else was, but it turned out to be a tour of the upper floors, the private rooms, and the entre-sol (where they squished two floors into the space of one floor on the sides of the building for the servants to live in). It was too cool!
On this tour, I feel like I learned a lot about Marie Antoinette and the misperceptions of her. She wasn’t as stupid as people make her out to be, and while she did have the Trianon outfitted for her to stay in and the little village built for her to play in, it was more because she hated the formalities of Versailles than anything else. At the Trianon, all regular manners were put aside (e.g. You didn’t have to stand when she entered the room), and because she was uber-private, you could only visit her at the Trianon if you were specially invited. You had to be handed a secret coin up at Versailles and then present it at the gates of the Trianon in order to be admitted.
After our fancy private tour, we did the regular tour before heading down the winding path through the English garden towards Marie Antoinette’s little village. Unfortunately, the only building available to go into is the dairy, and even then you can only sort of poke your head into it. The outsides of the building, however, were adorable, and there were beautiful flowers everywhere, even on the roofs! There was also a little foot bridge, tiny French gardens, and a cute pond with ducks. I can totally see why she’d prefer to be there than up at Versailles. It’s so much calmer and less pomp-and-circumstancey.
The long walk back to Versailles was just that – long, long, really long – and it was really hard on mom’s back, but we made it to the train station just as a train was leaving for Paris. Mom and I accidentally fell asleep on the train, but luckily, she woke up a few stops before we were supposed to get off, so she woke me up and we were able to get off at the right stop.
We went back to the hotel briefly and then headed out to dinner. We ended up at an Italian place where we were the only people in the restaurant the entire time we ate, with the exception of this awkward teenage dude who came in and ate spaghetti and a Coke by himself in a corner. I had a pesto penne pasta, and mom had a tomato-based pasta. We also split a chocolat liegois for dessert (chocolate and vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, sprinkles, and hot fudge). Yumm! Back at the hotel, we bought 24 hours of internet (yay!) and took turns checking things online – email, facebook, etc. I really miss having regular internet access, and I don’t know how people managed before. How did they know the weather before they headed out? Or how did they check directions to a museum? I guess guidebooks or newspapers? Idk…
We also had the chance to visit the newly-opened Dauphin and Dauphine’s apartments on the ground floor of the chateau. They were not nearly as ornate as the King and Queen’s rooms upstairs, but they were still pretty decked out. I greatly enjoyed the opportunity to go down there since I hadn’t had time on my last visit.
After the Dauphin’s apartments, we popped into the gift store where mom got a cute apron on sale. Then, we headed to the café for lunch, and both of us had sandwiches – mine was chicken, tomatoes, and lettuce on “English” bread as they called it while mom’s was ham and cheese on French bread. Next, we had a bit of a snaffoo trying to get to Marie Antoinette’s Trianon. Normally, you just enter through the gardens behind the Versailles palace; however, for some reason, Tuesdays are special. They are known as “Musical Waters in the Garden” (if you translate it into English), which, incidentally, means that you have to pay to enter the gardens so that you can enjoy the music with colored water in the fountains (???). Sadly, our Paris Museum Passes didn’t count for the gardens – only for the palace and Marie Antoinette’s Trianon – so we had to ask for directions on how to get to the Trianon without walking through the gardens. The man who gave us directions seemed to think that it was fairly close (he said 300 meters), but it was actually more like a mile away. Bahhhh. I was fine walking all the way there, but it definitely put a strain on mom’s already strained back. We did manage to make it to the Petit Trianon in fairly good time.
Actually, it turned out to be perfect timing, because we arrived just as a guided tour was beginning. I gladly asked for tickets for it, because it was free, and mom and I waited for the guide. The guided tour ended up being almost a private tour in the end. In the tour there was us, a French couple, and a family, and that was it! The tour guide was really informative and funny too, and even though the tour was completely in French, mom and I both really enjoyed it. She was able to understand parts of it, and what she couldn’t understand, I was easily able to translate for her as we walked from room to room. The best part of the tour was that it was actually in a part of the Trianon that visitors aren’t normally allowed to go in! When we signed up, we figured it was just a guided tour through the first floor where everyone else was, but it turned out to be a tour of the upper floors, the private rooms, and the entre-sol (where they squished two floors into the space of one floor on the sides of the building for the servants to live in). It was too cool!
On this tour, I feel like I learned a lot about Marie Antoinette and the misperceptions of her. She wasn’t as stupid as people make her out to be, and while she did have the Trianon outfitted for her to stay in and the little village built for her to play in, it was more because she hated the formalities of Versailles than anything else. At the Trianon, all regular manners were put aside (e.g. You didn’t have to stand when she entered the room), and because she was uber-private, you could only visit her at the Trianon if you were specially invited. You had to be handed a secret coin up at Versailles and then present it at the gates of the Trianon in order to be admitted.
After our fancy private tour, we did the regular tour before heading down the winding path through the English garden towards Marie Antoinette’s little village. Unfortunately, the only building available to go into is the dairy, and even then you can only sort of poke your head into it. The outsides of the building, however, were adorable, and there were beautiful flowers everywhere, even on the roofs! There was also a little foot bridge, tiny French gardens, and a cute pond with ducks. I can totally see why she’d prefer to be there than up at Versailles. It’s so much calmer and less pomp-and-circumstancey.
The long walk back to Versailles was just that – long, long, really long – and it was really hard on mom’s back, but we made it to the train station just as a train was leaving for Paris. Mom and I accidentally fell asleep on the train, but luckily, she woke up a few stops before we were supposed to get off, so she woke me up and we were able to get off at the right stop.
We went back to the hotel briefly and then headed out to dinner. We ended up at an Italian place where we were the only people in the restaurant the entire time we ate, with the exception of this awkward teenage dude who came in and ate spaghetti and a Coke by himself in a corner. I had a pesto penne pasta, and mom had a tomato-based pasta. We also split a chocolat liegois for dessert (chocolate and vanilla ice cream with whipped cream, sprinkles, and hot fudge). Yumm! Back at the hotel, we bought 24 hours of internet (yay!) and took turns checking things online – email, facebook, etc. I really miss having regular internet access, and I don’t know how people managed before. How did they know the weather before they headed out? Or how did they check directions to a museum? I guess guidebooks or newspapers? Idk…
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