charismatic megafauna since 1985

Paris, second half

Day 3

This was another full day; I left the hostel around 930 and didn’t get back until about 2100. My first stop was Versailles, crazy big palace of Louises the XIV, XV, and XVI. It’s outside Paris, but it’s easy to get to on the RER (not sure what that stands for). Again the Museum Pass made it easy to get it, although I didn’t really notice a line. The palace is beautiful; Rick Steves said that it cost roughly half of France’s GDP for a year (at the time it was built) and entire industries were created to build and appoint it. It’s big, but actually smaller than I expected from what everyone had told me about it. I wasn’t disappointed, just surprised. I was also surprised by the gardens. Even with most of plants dead or gone for the winter, it’s a spectacle. It’s also massive; I walked over to the smaller palace that was made so that Louis XIV could get away from his palace (Versailles) that he made to get away from Paris, and it took me about 20 minutes of solid walking. And that’s not even particularly far through the garden.

After walking around there for a couple hours, I took the train back to the Paris metropolitan area. I tried to hit up the Sewer Tour, but for reasons that are unknown to me it was closed. None of the signs on the little office were enlightening. Slightly bummed, I walked over to my next stop, the Kluny Museum. I only wanted to see one piece, so I breezed through everything until I got to what I wanted: The Lady and the Unicorn. It’s a series of incredible tapestries picturing a lion, monkey, unicorn and lady. 5 of the 6 picture representations of the 5 senses; the last one has the woman exiting some kind of tent-like structure. Tracy Chevalier, who went to my high school, wrote a book about it as a thematic sequel to Girl with a Pearl Earring. I sat and just looked at them for a while but eventually the school children on a trip distracted me enough that I moved on with my life.

Nearby was the Police Museum, which I stopped in at to pick up some information for my father. I can understand how someone could not know about it. It’s not labeled at all outside the building and the building itself doesn’t have a number on it. Across the river I toured Ste. Chapel since I missed it on my Historic Paris tour. Its claim to fame is the chapel composed solely of stained-glass windows. Over 1000 scenes are pictured from Genesis to the end of the world. It was designed to hold the crown of thorns, but that lives at Notre Dame and gets exhibited only twice a year.

I went back to Notre Dame, too, to go up to the top. This was the only time I had to wait in line for anything since it doesn’t have priority access for Museum Pass holders. It’s a spectacular view from the top and unlike a view from the top of the Eiffel Tower, included the Eiffel Tower. Much like the Duomo, the only way to the top is a set of big spiral staircases. Sometimes I worry about whether I’m getting enough exercise, but then I think about all the walking and stairs I climbed during my five weeks. I’ll probably start exercising for real again when I get back home.

After stopping in at the Centre Pompidou and verifying that it still crashed my computer, I walked back down the Seine to check it out at night. I didn’t think it was anything special, but the sparkling Eiffel Tower certainly was. They put lights all over the Eiffel Tower (I think for the Y2K celebrations) and once an hour at night they light them up so that it looks like the tower is sparkling. It’s not fancy, but seeing the whole structure flashing is awe-inspiring.

My last stop for the night was back up in the Montmartre arondisment. In the Red Light district is a little hotel that’s (so it claims) reviving the tradition of absinthe. Having missed out on the absinthe bar in Barcelona I vowed that I’d get to the one in Paris. I had the bar to myself so I just sat around, drinking my glass of absinthe and doing stuff on the internet (woo free wireless). I didn’t hallucinate, but I did get pretty tipsy. Absinthe is anywhere from 160- to 190-proof, making it the strongest liquor I’ve ever tried. Even with sugar and water in there it’s still strong. After a couple sips I didn’t even mind the licorice smell (which normally I hate).

The frustration for the day was coming back to find that the rest of my bread and cereal had disappeared. I’m not sure if someone ate it or threw it away mistakenly but I was definitely frustrated. Luckily they left the peanut butter so not all was lost.

Day 4

I didn’t do too much on my last real day, deciding that I’d just take it easy. I only had a couple more things on my Paris to-do list and I managed to get them all by around lunchtime.

First stop: Promenade Planté. It’s a 2-mile long park on an old train track above the city. I didn’t walk the whole two miles, the mile or so I did walk was very pretty. You can look into the tops of people’s homes (most have their curtains shut for that reason) and out into the city. It’s not quite high enough to have a view of the whole city but you can see pretty far down individual streets.

It lets out not too far from my next stop: the Bastille. It’s a monument with a golden winged figure at the top. I looked at it for a bit and took a couple pictures before moving on to the Picasso Museum. It’s pieces from his collection. It doesn’t have any of the really famous pieces, but it shows the progression of his style well. It also had a lot of sculpture which I vaguely knew about but hadn’t seen before.

I didn’t do anything real in the afternoon. I wandered around for a bit, hung out at a café to do internet stuff and watch rugby, read some books (finally finishing History of Sexuality vol. 1 after 5 weeks), made dinner and went to sleep.

This is probably my last blog post abut my trip. I’ll be travelling to Amsterdam on Sunday (from where I’ll likely post this) but won’t be doing anything spectacular since I need to be at the airport around 930 or 1000 on Monday morning to check in, check my bag, and get to the gate for my flight back. Soon this space will be back to the random nonsense that was on here before but I’ll try to keep up the story of my life even when I’m not travelling around. Thanks for reading!