Paris

Saturday, December 4 - Sunday, December 5 2010

Non, nous ne habitons pas à Paris…  We thought it would be appropriate to speak a little French when starting out the Paris blog. :) Unfortunately that’s the only semi-relevant French phrase that came to mind.  It means, “No, we do not live in Paris”.  Accurate statement?  Yes.  Necessary?  Of course not.  However, it’s a decent introduction to the same topic -- Dave did actually flex the tiniest of his French muscles when ordering lunch on our first day in Paris.  “Je voudrais du vin rouge et de la pizza” and we received red wine and pizza.  Maybe this French thing isn’t as hard as we thought? :)

The previous mentioned snowstorm in last week’s blog turned out to be one of the biggest in Western/Northern Europe in the last 100 years (it actually killed 12 people in Poland, from exposure).  Less importantly, it also caused much disruption to travel plans around Europe.  We were a bit nervous about what could go wrong with the weather, but what are you going to do?  Our train was scheduled to leave early Saturday morning and even though there was still a good amount of snow in the tracks, we were only delayed by 30 minutes or so.

…And the snow continued -- we arrived in Paris to freezing, snowy weather.  We walked 30 minutes to our hotel, admiring the waterfront of the Seine River and immediately starting to reminisce of our previous trips (Ang had been to Paris on a high school trip and Dave made a short stop for work a few years back).  We checked into our quaint little hotel and ate a delicious lunch, as mentioned in the intro above, before setting off to explore the city.

In an effort to conserve vacation days, we only booked the weekend to spend in Paris, knowing it’s so close and we’ll be able to easily come back on other weekend trips.  Since we had reserved all of Sunday to conquer the Musée Du Louvre (it’s free admission to most museums in Europe on the first Sunday of each month), we basically had Saturday afternoon and evening to experience as much of everything else as possible.  Where to begin?

 We started with a trip to Cathedrale Notre Dame.  Even after seeing a handful of other cathedrals in the last few months, Notre Dame is still incredibly impressive.  What else can you say?  Unfortunately the bell tower was closed due to snow…we’ll have to climb it next time. 

  

We continued our journey westward enjoying the architecture and landmarks along the way.  If you enjoy grand architecture, Paris is definitely the place for you.

  

And if you don’t mind being asked for money every 5 minutes, you’ll also fit in nicely.  We don’t mind that as much as being scammed though!  On our way to the Jardin des Tuileries, we came across a woman who, out of nowhere, bent over in front of us and picked up a large gold ring -- what appeared to be a wedding ring.  Our first thought was sympathy for whoever lost their ring!  The woman, who of course spoke very little English, acted surprised as well.  She proceeded to check out the ring, try it on, and happened to notice (and point out to us) that it was 12 carat gold.  We looked at her in confusion thinking, where do you take a lost ring in Paris?  She displayed that the ring did not fit her fingers and insisted that we take the ring, as it was our “lucky day” and a “great souvenir from Paris”.   Lady, we don’t need this ring—plus it obviously belongs to someone!  We stand there still confused as she congratulates us and walks away… and of course 20 seconds later comes back mumbling something about change for a coffee and something to eat.  Uhh, sorry we don’t have any change for you.  “Your lucky day, can you spare any change?”  We say, “just take the ring—you found it,” but she doesn’t like that response and tells us it’s now our ring.  Finally Ang says something about us turning the ring in to the police.  The lady immediately drops that act, grabs the ring from Ang and walks away.  Pathetic.  We tried to brush the whole thing off and did for the most part.  We just hate to see (let alone experience) people trying to take advantage of other people – so annoying!

Musée d'Orsay

Musée de l'Orangerie

With that drama behind us, we decided to dabble in the arts.  We’re in Paris after all, right?  If we aren’t impressed by art here, then there is little hope for us.  We first tried to go to the Musée d'Orsay as it was highly recommended by a couple of co-workers.  When we saw the long line we figured it was best not to waste 30+ minutes trying to get in.  Our next try was the Musée de l'Orangerie, which was rated as the top museum in Paris, according to Trip Advisor.  Luckily there was no line, so we thought, sure why not?

Honestly?  The art ranged from pretty good to really bad, relatively speaking of course (but since we are the ones writing this, it’s relative to us :) ).  We’ll sum it up with a few picture examples.

Example #1 -- pretty good!  Yes, it’s a little bit interpretive but there was some nice detail on the light hitting the glass on the table, which demonstrates some skill.

 Example #2 – really bad!  First of all, what is it?  More importantly why is it?  What is this story the artist is trying to tell here?  In 2 years we’ll ask our now-8-month-old niece, Kamryn, to paint a picture of “a lady with no face surrounded by dogs/llamas and a mermaid, all looking upwards” and she’ll be able to knock this out of the park.  Maybe we resent it because it seems lazy and non-skillful -- anyone could paint that!  Ok, enough ranting.

Example #3 – pretty good!  There were actually two large oval rooms with Monet’s Water Lilies.  While they were a little too “impressionist” for our taste, the display itself was quite impressive and the one with the trees (picture on the right, below) looks pretty real when you stand further away.

There you go, Art 101 with the Vissers. :)

Next stop: Eiffel Tower.   But first, more of that grand architecture along the way!

Who could argue that the Eiffel Tower isn’t one of the most impressive and attractive monuments in the world?  The design is captivating and the size up-close is awe-inspiring.  Unfortunately the snowfall had also closed the top of the tower, but we spent plenty of time admiring the monument from the ground (as you can see with the time/lighting progression in our photos).  We also managed a quick stop to the Arc De Triomphe before making it back to the tower for the cool light show, which is every hour on the hour after dusk (video below)!

 

Quick side note: After we missed out on a performance of Handel’s Messiah at a Zurich Church the weekend we were there (simply due to not knowing about it), we vowed to check each city we go to ahead of time and see if there are any concerts of interest.  We happened to find one and it was scheduled for 8:00pm Saturday evening.  We looked at our watches and realized we needed to get moving from the Eiffel Tower to get there in time.  On the way there we quickly moseyed through the Champs-Elysées Christmas market…

As for the concert?  It was a 30-piece choir performing with 4 soloists and a 7-piece “string-tette” (whatever you call them).  The venue was a small church, which made it even more intimate and enjoyable.  Below is a little video sample – quite soothing!

After the concert it was off to bed, but not before one more visit to Notre Dame on our way back to our hotel, named Hotel De Notre Dame.

Sunday was officially “Louvre Day”.  It opened at 9 and we made it there a little after 10.  Even though the line looked painfully long, it actually only took about 30 minutes to get in.  After dropping off our coats and luggage we officially had 7 hours to tackle one of the biggest museums in the world.  Lucky for you, with the power of modern technology, we were able to catalog the entire museum so you can enjoy everything we did!  Just kidding.  Actually, we heard that if you were to spend just 3 minutes looking at each item in the Louvre it would take you 3 weeks to complete!  No thanks.  We are pleased to say that we did indeed conquer the Louvre in just under 7 hours.  We definitely saw everything, but were nowhere close to appreciating it all.  It helped that the captions were all in French or else we might have actually lost time learning more. ;)  Anyway, it’s worth a visit if you are ever in Paris and we can now give recommendations on what sections to stick to in order to shorten your time there. :) Here are our highlights:

The glass pyramid (main entrance)...

 

A rare inclusion of American history...

 

Crazy, ancient, tiny writing...

 

A real mummy!

HUGE paintings with so much going on you need 5 minutes to check it all out...

  

 Conan O’Brien (at least Dave thinks so)...

 

Jay Vander Pol (we both think so)...

 

And of course the Mona Lisa, in the flesh.  (Secured behind a glass case, roped off 10 feet away from the closest tourist with security guards keeping eye on everyone.)

 

Dave also loved a lot of the Dutch and German paintings that reminded us of “The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross” (unfortunately we don’t have a picture).  Must be in the blood…

So there you have it -- your abbreviated version of the Louvre.  We conquered every floor, every wing, every room.  We left the Louvre a little before 6pm to find some dinner (we powered through 7 hours with no lunch) and caught our 7pm train back to Geneva.  Fun times in Paris, indeed!

Oh, and a quick update on our office Snowman.  After our stretch of snow last week, it warmed up into the 50s the last few days.  Here are the remains of Mr. Snowman -- it wasn't a pretty sight…