A Full Day in Paris
Trip Start
Apr 03, 2007
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33
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Trip End
Jun 16, 2007
Paris, France
Thursday, May 3, 2007
After going to the Gare du Lyon train station to book my reservation on a train to Switzerland tomorrow, I headed over to the Musee d'Orsay. It's housed inside a former train station, and the inside of the museum is impressive. Even more impressive is the art, which takes over where the Louvre left off and covers 1840-early 1900's. Within that period, all the major impressionist and post-impressionist era painters are included. There's room after room of Renoir, Monet, Manet, Degas, Gaugin, Van Gogh, Whistler, and just about any other big name painter you can think of. The most instantly recognizable paintings were "Whistler's Mother", and "Woman with Umbrella turned to the Left"
"Whistler's Mother"
. The Van Gogh room was popular as usual, but overall the museum wasn't too crowded. I spent a few hours there, and was able to cover most of it. Unlike the Louvre, the Orsay is not so overwhelming and much more manageable within a single session. I really enjoyed it.Around mid-afternoon, I walked several blocks from the Orsay to the Musee Rodin. My favorite part of the Musee Rodin is the gardens around it. It's actually quite secluded for where it's at in Central Paris. There's a really nice rose garden after the entrance, and a nice grassy area with fountains out in back of the museum. It's a great place to chill out for awhile on a sunny day and get away from the noise of the city for awhile. Famous Rodin sculptures such as "The Thinker" are scattered about the grounds. Inside, there's hundreds more of Rodin's works, virtually all of them human forms (a few are of parts of humans, such as hands). He really captured the human spirit in his works. Since they were all by the same artist, it lacked the variety of the works in the Glyptotek in Copenhagen, but I'd still recommend a visit if you're in Paris. It's a very "French" experience.
Just across the street from the Musee Rodin is the Hotel des Invalides, a giant hotel built by Louis XIV to house his wounded soldiers
Armor inside Musee de l'Armee
. Today, it houses Napoleon's Tomb and the Musee de l'Armee. The actual tomb of Napoleon Bonaparte certainly fits the man in its ostentation. It's huge and can be viewed from all sides. It's also directly beneath a huge golden dome, and has the names of his battle victories etched all around it. The Musee de l'Armee was interesting, especially the armory. I've never seen so many sets of armor, gauntlets, swords, shields, halberds, crossbows. As far as medieval weapons, you name it, and they've got hundreds of them. Again, knowing French would have helped to read the descriptions, but just seeing them was well worth it. They also had a cool collection of Japanese samurai gear and swords.The last place I went today was to walk up the hill past my hostel to Sacre Coeur. Meaning "Sacred Heart", it's a really unique church perched right up on top of the tallest hill in Paris. The view from there is like the view from Pittock Mansion in Portland, best view of the city (without going up a tower). The walk up there was a good one, through the Montmartre neighborhood. There were a couple guys at the top that were practicing their golf driving. They weren't hitting a real ball, but a piece of cork, I think. Anyway, wasn't expecting to see that. By the time I reached Sacre Coeur, it had closed, but I did get to see the outside and check out the view from up there (along with several hundred other tourists that must have come up there another way - the walk up there was practically deserted until I came around a corner at the top and there were hundreds of people)
Dome above Napoleon's tomb
.When I got back to my hostel, I met some more backpackers: Dave from Connecticut, Aaron from Ottawa, Canada, and Vicki from Quebec. Vicki is doing an around-the-world trip and just got in from Moscow, Russia, where she had ridden the Trans-Siberian Express from Mongolia. Before that, she spent about 3 weeks in China. She said she loved Mongolia, where she got to stay in a yurt among the nomads. She also did some incredible hiking in China, she said she climbed 50,000 steps up a mountain, and her legs were sore for days. After Paris, her next stop is Burkina Faso in Africa. I got to talk to her for awhile about her travels in Russia and China (both places I'd like to visit some day). Wow, sounds like quite the trip.
Overall, I really enjoyed my stay in Paris and in France in general. Sure, a few of the French people I dealt with seemed bored to have to deal with another tourist, but overall people weren't rude, and I had no problem getting around just as in the other countries. The incident, although not pleasant, I count as a lesson learned. The girl from Argentina seemed to take it surprisingly well, and didn't really seem to mind having to stay in Paris a few more days. As I write this, I'm traveling on a fast TGV train towards Bern, Switzerland. I'm not sure the exact speed, but it's definitely the fastest I've ever traveled on land (150 MPH+). Next update will be from Interlaken!
