After a few stressful weeks at work and some weekends of bad weather and bad luck (including my bike getting stolen) in Düsseldorf, Laura and I were ready to do some traveling again. We spent the last weekend (Aug 8-10) in Paris and had a wonderful time. The weekend began early on Friday morning, with our flight out of Düsseldorf boarding at 5:50am. A brief 50 minute flight had us on the ground at Paris-Orly Airport. From there we caught a bus to the Hotel des Invalides area and walked the remaining block to what was supposed to have been our hotel… more on that in a bit. We dropped off our bags because it was too early to check into our room, and after declining the offer of upgrading our room (at a cost of 20€ per night), we hopped on the Metro and headed off to start our sightseeing at the Louvre.
The Louvre was, in short, incredible. Probably the most comprehensive and certainly most famous collection of paintings, sculptures, and other art in the world. We were cruising through at a quick pace and were doing good just to hit most of the highpoints in a bit under 4 hours. Of course we saw the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo, Winged Victory / Nike of Samothrace, and the other major attractions. We were blown away by the size of some of the paintings – couldn’t fathom how an artist can keep the overall picture in mind while creating lifelike details (even the toes were perfect!) on a painting some 15 x 40 feet in size. Incredible. Luckily, since we’d arrived very soon after they opened, we beat the majority of the crowds. By the time we left the museum at around 1pm, it was getting very chaotic and difficult to get near anything of note.
Exiting the Louvre puts you into a park that runs several city blocks up until the Place de la Concorde, which is a busy traffic roundabout that begins the famous Champs-Élysées. We continued along the Champs-Élysées, which eventually turns from a tree lined boulevard to a busy, posh shopping district before running into the Arc de Triumph. We stopped in a few stores along the way and even got to check out an exhibit of race cars from Renault and pose alongside of two of the most obnoxious drivers in Formula 1. We opted not to go to the top of the Arc de Triumph, as we knew we’d be heading to the Eiffel Tower later that night. So we caught a Metro back to our hotel… or so we thought.
Arriving at the hotel, we met a different gentleman working behind the desk and he began looking for the booking of our room. Some 10-15 minutes later he told us that there had been a problem with our room that a repairman had been unable to fix that morning and that there were no longer any rooms available for us. Gee, thanks… why didn’t they mention it that morning when they tried to pawn a more expensive room off on us? Oh, but no worry – they’d taken the liberty of calling a taxi for us to take us to another hotel that was clear across town and nowhere near as close to a Metro stop. Laura was livid, and I was pretty ticked myself. The clerk wouldn’t even discuss offering us a discount on our rate or admit what an inconvenience this would be for us. Buyer beware: Best Western Eiffel Tower / Invalides will put you out on your rear without a second thought.
So after a 45 minute cab ride with a lunatic driver who spoke just as little French as she did English or anything else, we finally got to the other hotel. It was… marginally acceptable. It had air conditioning, it was 3 blocks or so from a Metro stop, and it didn’t look like anyone had been murdered there recently. Fine, we’ll take it. We get unpacked and head out for a quick bite of dinner before heading to the Eiffel Tower.
It may seem a bit cliché or cheesy, but the Eiffel Tower is pretty impressive. Looking up at the top from the base, did NOTHING to calm my irrational fear of heights. The hour and a half long wait to get our elevator passes didn’t help much either. Eventually, we made our way onto the elevator and rode up to the second tier (the first tier is a restaurant, if I’m remembering correctly). After wandering around the gift shops and snapping plenty of pictures from this level, I agreed to ride up to the top with Laura. Another hour long line… finally we got on the elevator. Well, I ended up being fine with it and I’m glad I went up. Despite the fact that it was quite cold and windy at the top, the views were completely worth it. Before long I was leaning out with my camera through the wire mesh to shoot photos of the ant-people below. No worries. By this time the sun was setting and all the lights in Paris were starting to come on. It was a very impressive view and as cheesy as it sounds, pretty romantic. By the time we rode back down, the tower was completely lit up with blue lights and every few minutes would twinkle with hundreds of sparkling strobe lights, which to be honest were a bit annoying. We walked back towards the Metro station, stopping for crepes and ice cream and at least another 2 dozen photos (I shot 352 photos on Friday). Just as we were getting to the Metro stop, the battery on my camera died and I had to admit that despite the fact that Laura reminded me several times, I forgot to pack the charger. We’d have to make due with her point-n-shoot the rest of the trip.
Saturday started with a trip to the St. Germain de Pres area of town for a proper American breakfast at Breakfast in America. Sausage, eggs and pancakes for me, an omelet and bacon for Laura – both with bottomless cups of coffee (refills are otherwise unheard of in Europe) – heavenly. From there we walked to Notre Dame, which is easily the most impressive cathedral in Europe. It’s MASSIVE. Unfortunately, most of the interior pictures didn’t come out well due to the dim lighting. We snapped another few pictures outside and then did a little shopping. From there we went to check out the Conciergerie, which was at different times used as a residence for royalty, as a meeting place for government, and most famously as a prison during the French Revolution. We got to check out the jail cell that Marie Antionette spent her last days in, the chapel that was built to honor her, and learned quite a bit about the history of the guillotine and beheadings in general. Next was a stroll along the river Seinne and a quick lunch.
Next up was the Musée d’Orsay – another decent sized museum that houses works from Van Gogh, Monet, Manet, and many others. By this time we were both getting pretty tired and thirsty, so we walked back across the river to the Park neighboring the Louvre and spent an hour or two just laying on a park bench in the shade and sitting by the fountain watching ducks – giving our brains and our bodies rest for a bit. Later that night, we headed to Le Marais and had dinner at a tiny little restaurant on a narrow street – cheese fondue, steak, and salads. A good night’s sleep back at the hotel finished out Saturday.
Sunday morning we slept in a bit, checked out, and took our time getting over to Montmartre – a hilltop neighborhood on the highest point in Paris. After breakfast outside at a cafe, we headed up the steep narrow streets towards the summit. There happened to be a mountain bike race going on in this part of town that morning, so every few minutes we’d have to stop walking to let bikers go zipping by down the streets and in some cases, stairways. A bit more shopping and then more cathedral-gawking. First up was the less-famous St. Pierre de Montmartre which gave us a chance to have a quiet Sunday morning worship before heading back out into the crowds. Sacré Cœur was next, and it was very crowded, but impressive – with a commanding view of the city and some of the more interesting architecture of the trip.
After that, we were off to Hotel les Invalides, which was actually a hospital built to house wounded soldiers of French wars – later turned into a museum of French military history. It was an impressive collection, but honestly, there’s only so many guns, swords, and cannon barrels a person can look at before they all blur together. We lost interest in the museum portion and headed off to the Chapel and Napoleon’s Tomb. They were pretty impressive, but by this point, both Laura and I were loosing steam and ready to call it quits on sightseeing. A long walk back to the Metro, quick ride to the hotel to fetch our bags, and a bus ride back to the airport and the trip was over.
All in all, it was a great trip from a sightseeing perspective. Sure we had some poor customer service at a few points, but overall it worked out okay (Best Western did end up crediting 25€ back to our account with their apologies for the inconvenience). I ended up catching a cold which got progressively worse through the week, with me finally taking a day off work on Thursday to recover. Thanks to that, all 180 of the pictures (from a total of more than 450 taken) are online now in the gallery. Now we’re looking forward to a quiet weekend at ‘home’ here in Düsseldorf.
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