Paris, France (Part 2)

Day 2 in Paris. It was a beautiful sunny morning so we got an early start in hopes of beating the crowds and were at the Eiffel Tower before it opened for the day.

Our first up-close view was amazing. I never realized the tower was this lovely bronze colour – I thought it was grey or black. Perhaps I have seen photos of it in colour before, but I must have thought they were in sepia-tone.

Unfortunately, it seemed that thousands of other people had also thought to get an early start at the tower that morning. The area below it was almost completely filled with a huge line that wound back and forth beneath the tower and seemed to lead multiple directions and split at merge somehow at random. We thought about standing in line, but I wasn’t even sure if we could find the back of the correct line. Not finding anyone to talk to about the issue, and not wanting to spend an hour and discover we were in the wrong line, we resigned ourselves to the fact that we would not go up the tower this visit. Note to self: next time, book tickets on-line ahead of time.

Actually, once we had decided not to stand in line I was feeling quite good about the day. We walked along the park in front of the tower to get our obligatory photos, and then we had a whole long and wonderful day in front of us to see other things.

After seeing the tower, we headed back to the Jardin des Tuileries and went to the Musee de l’Orangerie and the Musee d’Orsay. There we saw some fantastic paintings by renowned impressionist painters who worked in Paris in the late 19th/early 20th century. We couldn’t take photos, but they wouldn’t do justice anyway. We saw the eight huge Water Lilies paintings by Monet and dozens of other famous works by Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Gauguin, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Toulouse-Lautrec, and on and on. The Musee d’Orsay is a beautiful building as well, itself a work of art. Did I mention there was another huge line-up? We had our Museum Pass which was to get us in line-free, but there was so many people that there was a main line and then a second line for those who had such passes. Since the Museum Pass line up was about an hour’s wait, I shudder to think of the wait for those without it.

Chris in front of a window on the cafe floor of the Musee d’Orsay, which looks out across the Seine:

One of the odd things about our time in Paris was that we saw several places twice – once in the evening when we would walk by for the first time, and then once the next day when we went back to try and get in. This actually worked well for two reasons: we got to see the main sights lit up at night and in the day, and we managed to get into some places that we otherwise wouldn’t have. For example, the first night we walked past the Notre Dame Cathederal on our way to dinner. There was a mass in progress, so though we weren’t allowed to go on the whole tour, we were allowed to go into a viewing area on one side.  The best part was that we got to hear the pipe organ and the choir.

The next day we went back to go see the whole thing. Unfortunately, there was another massive line that we had not accounted for. So we walked around and looked at the building in the daylight, but we never actually got to go back inside. The lessons here: a) Do not try to see everything in Paris in 2 days; b) Remember there will be line-ups everywhere, for everything; c) Don’t got to Paris during a major holiday period unless you are very patiente, and d) Relax, you’ll have fun anyway.

After tromping around central Paris all morning, we took the metro to the neighbourhood of Montmartre and walked up way too many stairs to the top of the hill to see the Basilique du Sacre-Couer. It was another beautiful building, and mass was once again underway (basically, a type of non-stop mass has been underway there since 1919!) so we got to hear another amazing pipe organ.

Though my legs were exhausted, we walked up even more stairs to get to the top of the Basilica for the panoramic views. Despite the wobbly legs, it was worth it.

Then it was back down, down, down the winding stone steps all the way to the very spooky Crypt with its memorials and freezing stone chapels.

By the time we were finished our tour it was dark, and Montmartre was coming alive with crowds of tourists and locals alike. We stopped for a coffee and creme brulee at Les Deux Moulins (The 2 Windmills), the cafe where Amelie Poulain (of the adorable French movie “Amelie”, which I love) worked . It has completely capitalized on its film-fame and the place was overrun with tourists like ourselves, but it was still a fun stop.

And of course, no trip to Montmartre would be complete without stopping by the Moulin Rouge for a photo opp.

We were in the awkward time between museums closing and restaurants opening for dinner, so we went to a famous Paris department store called Bon Marche for some  window shopping. Chris got a saute pan and some nice socks.

After that we had a wonderful – though slightly awkward – dinner at a well-known brasserie called Lipps in the St. Germain neighbourhood. The head waiter was very formal and stiff, and although he clearly understood and spoke English (based on his interactions with other diners), he seemed to have decided to pretend he could do neither with us. Luckily one of the junior waiters took pity on us and was wonderful comic relief throughout the evening. Each time he brought us something we would exchange little jokes about his lack of English and our lack of French. We managed to guess our way through the menu and get some truly good food, including a roast chicken with some of the best pan gravy I have ever tasted, and enjoyed some excellent wine and people-watching in the bustling restaurant. Just before we finished our meal, we even had a slight “celebrity” encounter when a group of American women came to the table beside us and one of them was Jillian Michaels from The Biggest Loser.

To end the night and our last evening in Paris, we went back to the Eiffel Tower to see it lit up at night.

There was an embarassing incident where we got overly excited that we might be able to catch the last elevator to the second level but then had our hopes dashed when they wouldn’t let us through the metal detector with the saute pan we’d bought at Bon Marche and I got…shall we say…frustrated. However, Chris was patient with me and chalked it up to sore feet and hormones, and reassured me that it would be nicer to watch the lights twinkling at 11:00 from the ground, anyway.

He was right.

Two days was really just a starter for Paris, an introduction to a place that I would love to return to some day. Next time it must be in the spring or summer, and I must have more savings for a hotel (instead of hostel) and nice restaurants, more French practice before hand, and more time for patiently waiting in line. Still, it was an awfully great introduction.

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