Paris, May 13-15, 2008

  Paris, Île-de-France, France
Tuesday, May 13, 2008

When people ask what was our favorite part of the trip, we say Paris and the Cinque Terre. Paris is a fabulous city and we could go back many times and see something new each time. Our hotel was in the 6th "arrondissement" and we couldn't have picked a better location. We didn't waste any time getting to the sights in Paris. As soon as we checked in we headed for the Catacombs.

Catacoms, don't touch anything

This was pretty creepy place. We were below ground where the early Persians stacked the bones of millions of people. More bones than you could imagine, Jen didn't want to touch anything. Aaron kept taking photos and testing different settings on the camera. Many of them didn't come out because it was too dark.

After that, we headed for the great symbol of Paris, the Eiffel Tower.

Tower

This was a fun and classical tourist experience. We rode the lift to the second level (we didn't go all the way to the top).

Tower

Then we walked down the stairs, just to give ourselves a little exercise.

Our friend John Cozzi (the man who made the cup cakes for our wedding reception) was working in Paris that week and we met up with him for dinner every night we were there.

John's former apartment (above the shop)

He showed us his former apartment in Paris and took us to one of his favorite restaurants where they only had one thing on the menu - steak with a flavorful sauce! Delicious!

The next day we took a walking tour of Paris guided by a podcast Jen downloaded on our iPod. The tour started at the Notre Dame where there are actual gypsies begging for money out front. This is an incredibly moving place and it is hard to put into words what it is like inside. This church took almost 200 years to build and it is amazing that people invested their entire lives in its construction. Jen gave an offering to Joan of Arc.

St. Joan

Behind Notre Dame

The bell tower line was long so we decided to come back later. We stopped at Shakespeare and Company for some light reading. This is an English language book store that Hemingway and James Joice frequented during their stay in Paris. Even today writers can rent the apartments above the book store for cheap and borrow books from the shop.

English Language Bookstore

The walking tour took us past the oldest tree in Paris

Oldest tree

and ended at the end of Ile del la Cite. Now it was time to tackle one of the larges museums in the world, the Louvre.

Louve

There was so much art to appreciate here that we almost missed the fact that we were in a palace and needed to look at the building too.

Ceiling at Louvre

We were surprised that they let you take photos of the art in this museum, but they do and we did.

Yo mamma

Jen has never been impressed with the Whistler's mother painting, but Aaron wanted a picture. We saw the Venus de Milo, which was amazing, both in stature (she is a size 14 you know) and in the crowd she draws.

Venus squarred

But the crowd was nothing compared to the crowd around another Venus, that is the Mona Lisa.

Mona where?

We didn't get a photo of this painting, we just got the post card.

The day wasn't over after the Louvre. So we went back to the Notre Dame to climb the bell tower. We got to the top and had first hand views of the fun gargoyles that guard the tower.

Crushing your head

Then it started to rain. This was a pretty amazing experience and we got to see the gargoyle rain spouts in action.

Gargoil at work

We also made some friends as we were hiding out in the shelter of the bell tower.

Top of ND

It continued to rain into the night. We met John again and he took us to another fabulous restaurant. Jen was feeling adventurous and tried the Tartar de Boeuf (steak tartar).

Tartar de boeuf

It was really good and Jen didn't get sick, so we'd call the experiment with raw meat a success.

We got up early the next day, got breakfast at a local market and ate in the garden of a the Cluny museum that was near our hotel. We then made our way to the Arc De Triomphe via the metro.

At the Arch de Triomphe

We climbed to the top of this monument too. Then we strolled down the fancy Camps Elysees (the grand boulevard of Paris with lots of designer shops). The boulevard ended at the beginning of the impressively large gardens that lead up to the Louvre.

Fountain with Merpeople

Our next museum was the Orsay Museum which is housed in a former train station. Aaron found a sculpture he could be a part of.

3 stooges

We again had dinner with John that night and then said good bye to our friend. We had to wake up early in the morning to catch our train to Lyon then on to Annecy.