Paris

Capital City #13

Our stay in Paris was marred, initially at least, by our difficulty in finding accommodation there for our week-long visit. After several requests through Airbnb expired or were declined, we ended up still accommodation-less on the morning we were due to arrive there. We had had similar difficulties finding accommodation in Berlin, with several hosts not responding or declining our requests, so in that case we had just selected an instant-book room the night before we arrived. We decided to do the same for Paris, so we booked a (relatively) cheap hotel for the night, and locked in an instant-book on Airbnb for a week from the following day – not our first choice, but we hoped it would suffice.

We would never find out. Shortly after we'd booked it, we got a call from the hostess, who said the listing wasn't meant to be instantly bookable – she was living in the apartment herself, and would have to move out and stay with her parents to accommodate us! We assured her we would cancel the booking, and try to find somewhere else to stay. What a quandary!

On the bus portion of our journey, from Lille to Paris, the bus had quite good wifi and a power socket – what a blessing! We spent a good half of the 3+ hour trip researching alternatives. Thinking outside the box, we ended up booking one place for the first 4 days, and requesting a second place for the last 3. Ingenious! Having learnt our lesson, we also sent out 4 simultaneous enquiries for the second booking, and 3 were declined, which made it an easy choice, and confirmed Paris as a terrible location for finding Airbnbs. As it turned out, the two places were quite close together, so on the day we shifted, we packed all our stuff up, walked for half an hour, checked into the new place and unpacked again. Easiest move ever!

Part of the reason for such a lengthy stay here was that we had designated Paris as the place where we would apply for our Russian visas. From the research leading up to our stay there, it sounded like it would be impossible to apply for a visa in any place we didn't have residency for over 90 days, so it seemed like the only option was to send our passports and applications back to New Zealand. Our stay in Paris was therefore further marred by the trauma, difficulty and stress (not to mention expense) of trying to make sure our application was perfect, and sending it off. It was far too traumatic to talk about it now, so instead – on to the unmarred parts of our visit!

On our first afternoon of sightseeing, we set out to stroll down the Champs-Elysees. We got distracted by the Winston Churchill avenue, though, which looked more interesting, so we wandered down there first. We've discovered that sightseeing doesn't always go according to plan, as the weather on the day and physical considerations all play a part you don't necessarily consider when planning ahead. This particular day, it was hot, and we passed a grand palais and a petit palais, both housing free museums. Figuring they would be shady and would also have free toilets, we decided to visit the succinctly titled Musee des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris in Le Petit Palais – turns out we were right on both counts! It housed a collection of fine art. It was fine. We also had lunch there, with John eating the best sandwich he thinks he's ever had. High praise!

We completed our mandatory walk on the Champs-Elysees afterward, and beheld many fancy shops with stuff we would never buy. We were privileged enough to see the Louis Vuitton store, which had a bit of a line outside to get in – we just stared through the windows at the various items, including handbags for around 3,000 euros. One worthwhile aspect of the avenue is the wideness of the paths – it accommodates the hordes of people admirably, unlike the narrower streets further out in the city. Our walk culminated in gazing at the massive Arc de Triomphe – the most impressive arch we've seen yet.

John in front of the Triumphal Arch

That night we had decided to have a social night, so 9 o'clock saw us hitting up the town in a crazy way – visiting my little brother and his friends in their hostel, that is. My little brother, who is 19 going on 20, has also been touring Europe, and we deliberately timed our visit to Paris to coincide with his. It was a bit strange to hear other New Zealand accents again! We had a great time, talking with him until midnight, when the hostel's communal area closed. It was reassuring to see they had avoided getting themselves killed, and it was just really nice again to have a good catch up with a loved one.

We saw a variety of sights during the rest of our time in Paris; most of them can be grouped into pairs.

Not this one, though. This is a sole obelisk, with John in front.

Two flea markets

We made sure to visit a couple of flea markets on the Saturday – a smaller one that was just packing up, and a really massive one you could spend all day at. I'm sure there are gems hidden amongst all the goods, but the first one reminded me of junky garage sale-type markets back home; as for the second, I felt it was kind of too big for its own good. Half of the wares seemed very samey – sneakers and t-shirts, mainly. This part generally had aggressive rap music playing at the stalls. The rest of the wares were antiques, including big items of furniture and overpriced smaller items. I confess, I preferred the smaller, more varied markets in Krakow, especially, as well as in Riga and Budapest.

Two museums

We selected two further museums to visit, the Louvre and the Musee d'Orsay, spending about 3 hours at each. In neither case was it long enough. As expected, the Louvre was massive, but our strategy was to see certain items and sections, and not naively attempt to cover the whole thing. The Mona Lisa was appropriately enigmatic but still not my favourite artwork; we also saw The Coronation of Napoleon, the Winged Victory of Samothrace, the Seated Scribe, and other famous pieces that didn't really look all that different to scores of other paintings/statues from the same period. We definitely had an interesting and enjoyable time there; I'm just not sure why certain pieces of art gain such prestige when we saw plenty of other art that looked just as good, to my untrained eye. We also saw the interior of the Louvre palace (which houses the museum), worthy of note as well as the art it contains – very impressive!

Lol at this dude's mo' in the Louvre

The Musee d'Orsay was smaller in scale, and I preferred the styles of art here – we focused on the naturalism, realism, symbolism and impressionism areas. We saw some of Monet's waterlilies paintings, Rodin's “the Thinker”, and briefly glanced at Van Gogh's self-portrait.

Two churches

We also visited a couple of (free) churches; the grander Notre Dame, and the more beautiful Sacre-Coeur. Each time, we seemed to time our visits with some sort of ethereal singing during the service, by a group of nuns at the latter; it really enhanced the atmosphere of the buildings as we walked round in hushed silence.

Quasimodo's hood

Our own church service on Sunday was not as formal, and it was in English, but I'm afraid we didn't really appreciate it much. The repetitive choruses, all in the same key, made it seem like we were singing the same song for the entire half hour at the end, and the preacher misstated some parts of Scripture, and didn't seem to preach from the Bible as a whole very well. On the positive side, it was an afternoon service, so we didn't have to get up early for it!

Two patisseries

To avoid doing just seeing touristy buildings and museums, we also visited a couple of patisseries, as well as several boulangeries around the place, to sample local French food! They were delicious. We tended to get a baguette for lunch and just eat it plain, it was so tasty, and so fresh, sometimes even still warm when we bought it. As for the amazing sweet baked goods we bought from the patisseries, we decided they were fine for a special treat, but would NOT be good to get used to.

Two gardens

We experienced some of the natural beauty in Paris by strolling through le Jardin des Tuileries, right by the Louvre, and le Jardin du Luxembourg. In the latter, we felt somewhat out of place walking through, as everyone else was either running with gym gear on or sitting in one of the numerous chairs dotted around the place, chatting, reading or resting. It looked like an ideal place to relax – presumably a good place to get fit, too.

Some of le Jardin du Luxembourg

Two cameras

Since our last camera broke, we'd been using cellphone cameras, which kind of work for what we want to use it for, but don't really do justice to some of the scenes. We got a replacement camera in Paris, so you should see some more and better photos from this point on.

Versailles

On our last full day in Paris, we took a day trip out to Versailles. It was interesting to learn about another royal family and the history of the palace, and it sure was impressive. I think we both preferred Schonbrunn, still, as I found the rooms and grounds there to be prettier, but Versailles was just as fancy, and vast, with grounds so big it would be impossible to explore them on foot in a day.

 fancy

 The Hall of Mirrors!

some of the grounds

highly manicured gardens

Eiffel Tower

We had one last task to accomplish before leaving Paris; we felt it would be remiss of us not to visit the Eiffel Tower. So on our last evening, we took the elevator up (as the stairs closed at 6pm) and experienced the fun and view from the second floor, as well as from the platform right up the top. Surprisingly, it was John who suffered more from vertigo up the top, not loving being too close to the edge for too long.

The Tower was bigger than we expected! Look at those tiny people!

Selfie at the top

Thus our long, comprehensive visit to Paris concluded. We had experienced buskers on subway trains for the first time, playing a quick song or two between stops, which made us thankful we didn't have a headache to exacerbate; we also noted the lack of escalators in many of the subways – a bit backward of them; and we encountered more weird people here than anywhere else, I think. We also really enjoyed the prestigious attractions Paris had to offer, at not too precipitous a price.

An instragammy pic John accidentally took while exploring our new camera's settings. Goodbye, Paris!