Perusing Paris

On Saturday morning, Maggie and I left boarded the Eurostar train in London from St. Pancras rail station...

...we ate a light lunch while riding...

...and as were were riding along, we went underground for a time, under the English Channel, and then popped back up!  We were in France!

After riding a bit more, we arrived in Paris!

The Paris Nord Railstation

The Eurostar train we rode on

After taking a taxi to easily find our apartment where we are staying in Paris, we went for a walk down the street close to us.  These were some of my first sights...

 

 

We stopped at a little cafe and ordered crepes!  We also were in for a nice surprise.  We told this man, the man who made our crepes, that we had just come from London.  He said that that was a good place because many Bengalis live there.  My ears picked up on the word "Bengalis" and I asked if he was Bengali.  Sure enough, he had come from Bangladesh 3 years earlier!  I started speaking Bangla and his face lit up and he started laughing.  Both he and I could hardly believe that we were speaking Bangla to each other in the middle of Paris!

My ham, mushroom, cheese, and egg crepe.  Absolutely delicious!

That night, we went back to our apartment and planned our next day.  We had a lot on our list, as you can see...

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...and we didn't really think we could get it all accomplished.  But, we thought it was worth a shot to try to do it all.

The next morning, we got up before what seemed like most of the rest of Paris.  We left the apartment a little after 8 and walked the quiet streets to the Notre Dame Cathedral.  On the way we passed the Hotel de Ville, where the municipal court of Paris meets, and crossed the Seine River.

Hotel de Ville

We saw the outside of the Notre Dame Cathedral, but didn't go inside it yet.  We just took in the magnificent side and front view.

Next, we turned up the road and headed in the direction of the Sainte-Chapelle.

The Sainte-Chapel is famous for its stained glass windows.  There are twelve panels and a large rosette window that tell the Stories of the Bible.  Built in the mid 1200s, it used to home a relic of Jesus, His crown of thorns (but that is now kept at Notre Dame and only brought out on rare occasions.)

 

The stained glass was breath-taking.  I had to take several minutes to soak it all in before trying to figure out what the pictures meant.  Absolutely beautiful!

 As we walked back in the direction of Notre Dame, we had a stop for a little treat!

Being a Sunday, we decided we would like to attend mass at Notre Dame.  We chose the international service, thinking more of it would be in English.  We did have the Bible readings in English in the program and the priest spoke his short homily in English followed by French.  Other than that, it was all French.  I don't know French...except for the few words I can recall from my Togo days...or if it sounds a bit like the tad of Spanish I know...so much of the service, this Baptist girl was lost on what was happening.  It was a lovely service though and I am so glad we went!

Pictures of the inside of the Notre Dame Cathedral.

More pictures of the outside.

Gargoyles!

After a quick lunch in the park of Notre Dame, we transversed the small island Notre Dame is on (I think I forgot to mention that before.  Notre Dame, Sainte-Chapelle, and the Conciergerie are all on a little island surrounded by the Seine.).  We went to the Conciergerie which was used as a prison for opponents of the French Revolution before their march to the guillotine, most notably Maria Antoinette.  

There was a room with a list of everyone who died during the Revolution and Reign of Terror.  Can you see Louis XIV and Maria Antoinette name below?  I didn't take a picture of it, but Maximilien de Robespierre, the man who during the Reign of Terror sentenced many to the guillotine, also was sentenced as a traitor of the Republic and died by guillotine.

We got to visit where Maria Antoinette stayed.  This is where her room was and it is now a memorial to her.

Painting of her receiving her last rites and Communion.

Just around the corner, they had set up what her room probably looked like when she being held in it.

From there, we hopped on the metro and made our way to the Rodin Museum.

We saw several of Rodin's works in this museum dedicated to him, including his famous "The Thinker."

Then we began our walk to the Eiffel Tower!

We ate at a cafe close to the Eiffel tower and I had the Salad Nicoise (which I find dreadfully hard to pronounce).  I have this list of things I want to eat in Paris and this was on it.  Quite good! Phillipe the cook in Togo made Salad Nicoise and I have really liked it ever since--even the anchovies!

After dinner, we rode an elevator to the Summet of the Eiffel tower and had a spectacular view of the city!  We took two elevators, one to level 2 and then another one to the top.

This day was the last day of the Tour de France.  If you look real close, you can see the bicyclists going around the Arc de Triomphe.  There were making 10 laps between there and the Place de la Concorde before finishing the race.  How exciting!

After dark (or near dark), they have a lights show at the top of every hour.  The red, white, and blue where commemorating the Tour de France, I think.

Well, amazingly enough, we got everything we wanted to do that in that day done!  We could have helped Rick Steves write the travel book for that day, as well as it went!  What a great day!

The next day, we took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe.  It honors those who fought in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars specifically, but also memorializes those who fought in more recent conflicts.  It was built in the early 1800s by Napoleon to celebrate one of his victories.

Carving of Napoleon with Paris at his feet

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

The Arc de Triomphe is at one end of the famous street, Champs-Elysees.  We walked down this street known for fancy shopping, food  and period looking building fronts. It is also full of history.

We stopped partway on a bench and had the picnic snack we packed of Brie, salami, and hard bread (can't think of the technical term for it at the moment).

We also stopped and had coffee/tea, the famous mille-feuille (known in the US as a Napoleon.  It's name means 1000 leaves and comes from the pastry used in it), and bought some sweet brioche and macaroons to-go at Ladurees.  I had read about this place in a series of fiction books about a baker who goes to France, so I was excited to go in and see what I had read about.
 

We continued our walk down the Champs-Elysees.

Past the statue of Charles de Gaul.

And saw the seats that had been set up for the Tour de France the day before.

We came to the Place de la Concorde, which is the location of where the guillotine was during the French Revolution/Reign of Terror.

We stopped for a snack of our brioche and macaroons.  Yummy!

And crossed the river to get to the Orangerie Museum.

In the Orangerie, we saw Monet's water lily paintings.  He painted them for the Orangerie and they are huge!  The room is an oval and there is a long (like 18-24 foot) painting on each side of the oval.  He did one on water lilies and then another room has weeping willows.  Very stunning and magnificent!  

From there we went to the Louvre!

We saw Venus de Milo,

this paining I really liked showing the different scenes of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension all in one painting,

 
and, of course, the Mona Lisa!

The museum is also full, full, full of other paintings, sculptures, and ancient things.

Outside is the Tuileries Geirden with beautiful landscapes and flowers.

We took one more look at the Louvre stretching down the street.  It really is quite a long building.

Then, we returned to our Bengali friends located close to the Louvre for the famous croque-monsieur sandwich (ham in the middle and cheese on top) and a Nutella crepe.  Like everything else I've had in this city...délicieux!

This morning, we were eventually headed to Normandy on a train, but we fit in one more sight before going.  The Sacré-Coeur de Montmartre is a church that is up on a hill with many steps leading up to it, so it provided a lovely view of the city.

Right by the train station was a little bakery, so we couldn't resist a croissant and beignet.

We rode the train for about 2.5 hours to Bayeux, a town close to the Normandy beaches.  It was a beautiful town full of pretty flowers and the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Bayeux, which is the original home of the Bayeux tapestry.  I don't know much about the tapestry, but it is really famous.  The outside of the church was something else!

Our D-Day tour started shortly after arriving in Bayeux.  There will be a separate blog dedicated to this coming soon.  
After our tour, we boarded the train back to Paris and enjoyed quiche lorraine and Normandy Apple tart.

I have one more day left in Paris tomorrow!  I've got a few more sights and things to eat left on my list before leaving!