Paris

Paris. What more can be said about the place? I’ve been only once, ten years prior, with my family instead of my girlfriend. At 13 years old, that would have been odd to have a girl with me back then. Because both Sarah and I had previously visited here, we could pick and choose what to see. There were the obvious tourist spots to hit: Louvre, La tour Eiffel, Champs Elysees, Sacre Couer, etc. Sarah wanted to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower the most, and I was more than happy to oblige.

First, we had to find our hostel. I bought two tourist passes, giving us two days of unlimited travel on Paris transportation. And I ordered them en francais – the lady even understood me. I find that I learned a great deal studying the language from the age of 12 to 20. Over the next two days, I used it more than I probably ever will again. After getting to the metro stop we were instructed to go in order to find our hostel, we were a bit lost. A nice Frenchman stopped us on the street and tried to help us, even going to ask a few other people where the road was that we needed to find. It wasn’t that hard after we had our directions, and we dropped our stuff and headed towards the metro.

It was going to be lunch (dejeuner) and then Notre Dame. We ate at a restaurant by the side of the road – ordering in French again. Notre Dame was crowded, swelling with tourists. I sometimes forget that thousands of other people are in the same city as myself, looking to go to the same places. It didn’t take too long to get in, and we took a quick lap, stopping to admire the pristine stain glass windows adorning the walls of the cathedral. It was quite the view to take in. No sign of the hunchback, the story that probably made this place more famous than it should be. Not to take away from the luster of it at all.

With the weather seeming quite decent, our next stop was the tour Eiffel. This was after going to the Louvre and realizing that we could go for free after 6 PM on Friday night. Unfortunately, we left and saw that it was raining. We killed time, rode the metro to l’Arc de Triomphe, stopped for a bite to eat at a café, and then when the weather cleared, moseyed over to the Eiffel Tower. To nobody’s surprise, it was quite crowded, and the wait to get up to the top was a miserable experience. It started to rain, and the rain mixing with high winds you get a few hundred feet in the air made it quite cold. Not helping me was the fact I had left any kind of cold weather clothing I had with my luggage. Fortunately, by the time things cleared up, we were at the top, able to see all of Paris. Definitely a worthwhile wait.

The rest of our first day was dinner, then both crashing back at the hostel, ready for another day of Paris.

Day two was going to start at Versailles. The massive palace built by Louis XIV (I think), it was the one thing I really wanted to see. And it was worth it. After going to Hampton Court a few days before, Sarah and I decided that going into the palace wasn’t all that worth it. It was going to be nothing more than Hampton Court times 10. More of the same ridiculousness of that time period. But a walk around the Versailles Gardens, along with being free, was much more relaxing. No lines to wait in, no people to walk through, and no hassles. Once we were satisfied with a couple of hours spent there, it was time for Sacre Couer.

I wasn’t sure if I had been there before (turns out I had), but it was another mob scene. People were everywhere, snapping pictures and watching the street performers. The view from the top made the hassle worthwhile, and after just 20 minutes there, moved along to the Louvre.

This was another spot the two of us had seen already. So it wasn’t going to be a long stroll. Plus, I don’t really like art all that much. You see something like the Mona Lisa, and it just screams overrated. The painting is great and all, but I prefer the large paintings done by the French, such as Lady Liberty leading the People or the painting of the Wedding at Cana. Stuff like that is much more inspiring, as you wonder how someone can paint something that big. We walked around for about an hour total, trying to hit the big displays: the Code of Hammurabi, Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, and a few other works of art. It was definitely time well spent, and as a bonus, free of charge.

That was the essence of our whirlwind trip of Paris. Tomorrow morning was a train ride to Interlaken, where we would get a day and a half of the Swiss Alps.