Sunday, April 12, 2015

Paris, France

Paris was lovely. 

In a lot of ways I think we had all romanticized it in our heads, so there was definitely the potential for disappointment. However, the city really delivered, and we packed a lot into 3.5 days there. 

My cousin, Emily, and one of my best friends, Veronica, flew into Glasgow April 2nd and 1st, respectively. Saturday, the 4th, we flew from Glasgow to Paris CDG Airport, with Easy Jet. I was a little nervous flying with a budget airline after what just went down with Germanwings, but our flight was smooth and of course, fine, and after just an hour and 20 minutes, we found ourselves in Paris! 

I've divided our time in Paris into five categories. Transportation (the most exciting one should be first, obviously), hostel, food, sights, and people. 

Transportion:
After asking around for information at the airport, we were soon on an RER train to Gare du Nord train station. Paris has a complex web of both metro and RER trains. I much preferred metro so that is what we took for the most part. By the end I actually enjoyed hopping from metro to metro, and the last day and a half I didn't even need a map. 

Hostel: Located in Montmartre, our hostel, Perfect Hostel Paris, was just a short walk from Gare du Nord train station, and we settled in easily, happy to ditch our heavy hiking backpacks. We had a private room and we loved our wee balcony with its view of the narrow Montmartre streets and the quaint houses. The staff was friendly, and the people who worked the front desk spoke English. One lady in particular was helpful in answering all the questions I had when we first arrived. And one man was very lazy and unhelpful, but so it goes. A sweet old gentleman also served us a breakfast of pain au chocolat and baguettes, orange juice, and coffee every morning. That brings me to my next category.

Food: the FOOD. The food, the food, the food. We ate a lot, obviously. That's a big part of being in Paris. The thing about Paris is the restaurants are expensive (but yes, on a student budget, everything is expensive). However, the street food is relatively cheap, and there are patisseries and boulangeries all over selling all kinds of cheap fresh baked goods (often still warm), including baguettes as long as my arm for 1€. I can't count how many people I saw walking down the street with an armful of baguettes they'd just picked up from their favorite bakery. We had crepes in one of the bistros that are scattered across Montmartre, I had French onion soup in St. Germaine, and we ate a few times at our neighbourhood kebab shop, which was open until midnight. The kebab reminded me of döner, which I have craved ever since leaving Germany almost 4 years ago. The kebab man may have declared us family by the end of our stay. Another big thing we wanted to try was Ladurèe macarons. They are the original macaron, and, in my opinion, the best. My favorites were the salted caramel and the orange blossom, which tasted like springtime.

Sites:
We packed a lot into a few days. I hope I didn't rush the other girls TOO much, but I'm not one to sit around when there is a city to be explored!
Sacré Cœur was lovely, and only a 5 minute walk from our hostel. The stairs up to the top were intense, but well worth it. The first time we were there we entered the church and walked around it in a kind of cattle chute, elbow to elbow with thousands of other people. The last time, we went up early to watch the sunrise, and the interior was peaceful and nearly empty except for a few people praying. Basilicas are meant to be 24 hour places of prayer, so there were people there praying even at 6:30 a.m.
Notre-Dame Cathédrale: Walking out of the metro and seeing Notre-Dame right in front of my eyes may be my favorite moment from my time in Paris. We were there on Easter Sunday, and it was nothing short of breath-taking.
The River Seine: The river was lovely and the many bridges that crossed it each had their own unique design and character. I especially loved a wee park of an island we found as we walked along the banks. There were also many vendors who opened up their little shops alongside it.
The Louvre: We decided to skip this museum. I know, I know. But the queues were unending, and most people I've spoken to who've traveled in Paris tell me it simply wasn't worth it. Plus I'm not about to pay to see a room full of hands scrambling to get the best picture of Mona. I am a big fan of Impressionism, so there were two other museums I was more interested in seeing: Musée de l'Orangerie, and Musée d'Orsay. However, we did enjoy the Louvre's courtyards and the Tuilleries-the gardens that connect the Louvre to one of the other museums we went to.
Musée de l'Orangerie: The big draw here was "the water lilies room." The museum has 8 massive canvases from Monet's "Water Lilies" series, and they are beautifully displayed in two pristine sunlit oval rooms, just as Monet wanted them to be displayed. We started in the basement with the Paul Guillame collection, which included works by Monet, Manet, Cézzane, and Sisley. This collection should definitely not be overlooked when visiting the museum. But then we went upstairs, and I spent some time getting blissfully lost in Monet. 
Musée d'Orsay: We had a long queue here, but this museum, along with Musée de l'Orangerie, was free because it was the first Sunday of the month. Housed in a beautiful old train station, the architecture itself was enough to make the queue worth it. I especially loved the post-impressionist and neo-impressionist galleries, as well as the extensive impressionist gallery on the top floor. I've never seen so many Monets in my life. Okay, yes, I am a Monet fangirl, but I promise his name will not be mentioned again in this post.
The Eiffel Tower: We got off the Metro at Trocadéro where we had a beautiful view of the tower. The queue was already extensive even though we arrived before it opened. We walked up the stairs instead of taking the lift, though, so we queued for a much shorter time than the lazier people. The tower did not disappoint. I especially loved the first floor, where there are clear windows tilted inward that you can lean against and feel like you may fall forward at any moment. We had a beautiful sunny day for it too; the views were incredible. At nighttime we sat in Champ du Mars, the long park in front of the tower, and enjoyed the light show.
Avenue des Champs-Élysées: 
Coming out of the metro and seeing the Arc de Triomphe seperated from me only by a busy traffic circle was another surreal moment. We enjoyed walking down the avenue, especially because our time there ended with macarons and Café Viennois (coffee)!
Versailles: Versailles was a little bit disappointing, but only because of all the people inside the Chateau! The intricate design and endless gold filigree were still stunning.  The gardens were not quite at their prime, and some of the fountains weren't turned on yet, but we did find a nice pond with a fountain show set to classical music that was very nice. We spent nearly an hour sitting on the grass nearby, soaking up the sun and the music.
Shakespeare and Company Bookshop: I've wanted to go to this little bookshop (located just across the Seine from Notre Dame) for a long time. Somehow, in the excitement of being at Notre Dame, I completely forgot about the shop when we were there! I decided I needed to go back though, because I knew I would've regretted not going. The shop was quaint and just as I'd seen it pictured. The inside was crowded, but they still had some nice reading areas and a wee library upstairs. The black dog that's become a kind of mascot for the shop in recent years was running around inside, and the entire staff seemed to be British rather than French, which surprised me. I ended up breaking down and buying a really nice copy of F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Flappers and Philosophers," which has the Shakespeare and Company stamp inside it and is now my most prized possession. A big part of why I wanted to go to Paris was to see what it was that drew in Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Ezra Pound, T.S. Eliot, and more of my favorite authors, so it felt right to pick up one of their works while in the city. Hopefully I can draw new inspiration from it.

People:
The people were generally lovely. We'd heard so much about rude Parisians who hate tourists, but we had no experience with this. The people in the shops always tried their best to kindly explain things to us in English, even if they didn't speak it well. Maybe they moaned and groaned behind our backs, but as long as it stayed behind our backs I was fine with it. The elderly man at our hostel served us with a sweet "voilà!" every morning, and the kebab man loved us and ran out for hugs and high fives whenever we passed. One old lady rattled off a lot of brisk French when I asked her a question on the RER. I think she expected far too much of me, but I don't think she was trying to be rude.

That was our time in Paris, in a nutshell! We had fantastic weather, which was such a blessing. I did most of the planning for the trip, so I was nervous how everything would turn out, but the first leg of our journey was definitely a success.

I am currently sitting on a train bound for the wee city of Bruges, Belgium. We spent the last three nights in Brussels, where I ate mainly street food, and enjoyed some fantastic architecture and more clear blue skies–but more on that soon. We've been traveling with Eurail passes. We have a flexi-pass for the Benelux-France region, and so far have had no issues using it. I'm always nervous I'll wake up and we'll be in Frankfurt or Warsaw, which I might actually be fine with. But so far we've stayed on track. Keep us in your prayers!

Cheers, 

Carrie Wagler


No comments:

Post a Comment