Paris in green

Paris in blue

Paris in colour - Yellow

While I was away I decided to capture colours.

Last day in Paris

The day has come, our last day in Paris. We have gone from being wide eyed tourists to feeling quite comfortable with the way that things happen here, albeit a little tired from constantly translating everything with our little, but increasing, knowledge of French. Today I ordered our breakfast completely in French with my new vocabulary, I would love to stay here a little longer (living not as a tourist) to see how much I could pick up. It really is much easier being immersed in a language.

Etienne Marcel Metro station

So, what did we do today ... Firstly we took a trip out to Gare de Nord which is only a few metro stops away, to see how difficult it would be to traverse with our luggage. We came to the conclusion that we will brave the metro and hope there is not a rush hour at 7:30am to get to the train station to head to London tomorrow. We had an interesting encounter with a French man who thought he was charming, his words of "You are so beautiful, you are an angel" had us running to hide in a cafe. I don't think that was his intended outcome.

Centre Georges Pompidou

Our next stop was Centre Georges Pompidou which is the Paris modern art gallery. This is such an impressive building. It had much less crowds than the more well known galleries with the older art, which was quite a nice change. So we wandered for about 3 hours looking at artwork by Kandinsky, Picasso, Matisse, Pollock, and Warhol, to name a few. Some of Picasso's paintings were quite disturbing.  I think, apart from seeing the work of Van Gogh, this was my favourite gallery. It has been interesting to see the progression of artwork here in Paris from the very early religious art through to the new collections at the modern art gallery.

Andy Warhol

Pablo Picasso

We wandered home and Jane found a fabulous frivolous French frock. We are starting to get to know our way around but seem to keep coming across places that we thought were far away but are only a few streets away in reality. We keep saying that the place has been cursed by Harry Potter, streets move and time disappears.

Lastly, we went to a wine tasting session at O Chateau. It was fabulous. The French wine expert was named Pierre (I wonder if he made that up?)  And we tasted three different French wines. Pierre had nice things to say about everyone else's country in the room but sneered when he came to NZ. We think he felt threatened by our superior wines.

O Chateau wine tasting

So that is our last day. It has been grey and rainy today, but that is okay, it is our last day, and we know that Paris is sad to see us go (ha). Time for a last dinner before we try to squeeze the suitcases shut with all our fabulous French fare.

Day 7 - Paris

Chateau de Versailles ...

Today's outing was to visit the Palace of Versailles. It was a 40 min train trip out of the city. We had a lovely wander along the streets of Versailles (found a fabulous shoe shop) and then sat down to a coffee and petit dejeuner before making out way to the Palace.

I can't even capture the size of the Palace, it was huge! So here are the gates ...

We could not believe the opulence, each part of the palace you entered was breathtaking.

Each room you walked into was more regal and decorated than the next ...

And the garden surrounding the palace was just as outrageous ...

I wonder what it would be like for the people who grow up around all this opulence and excess. What is their understanding and value of beauty? Does this over abundance of art and buildings and sculpture blind you to the smaller things that may be left unnoticed in their shadow? 

Day 6 - Paris

There are not that many things left to cross off on our site seeing days. We started today with the Pantheon. it is a huge mausoleum with many of the famous important French people of history interred there. We caught the Metro out and wandered around the streets until we came across the Pantheon. The same thing happened that always happens for us in Paris - serendipity. We took a wrong turn and ended up right near the hotel I stayed last time I was here, was fun to see it again, we also came across the square where I had breakfast and in my memory it was quaint and quiet, in reality in tourist season, it is still quaint, but not so quiet. Once we found the Pantheon we went inside and it was not at all what I expected.  

Inside it was massive with full sized canvases on the walls and ceilings. The building had been both a church and a mausoleum. We found the stairs down into the crypt and it got quiet and cold. 

For Brett here is the place where Voltaire rests, the second Frenchman to be interred. He is across the aisle from Rousseau so I suppose that makes for interesting late night conversations. 

We left the Pantheon and made our way to the Champs Alysee. We walked the strip up to the Arc de Triomphe where we climbed the spiral stairs to the very top.

There was a magnificent 360 degree view of Paris, with something impressive every where you looked. The Eiffel Tower, Sacre Coeur, some strange square modern looking thing near the high rise towers and the many gold adorned towers - in every direction.

We finished our day with a trip to the Musee L'Orangerie to see Monet's waterlilly series. That made us catch our breath. To imagine that he spent so long painting those and that he made them for the space made us sit down in admiration and contemplation. I watched the faces of quite a few people as they walked into the white room with a huge painting covering the entirety of each wall. I recognised the same look many times - "Oh my goodness, are we really here?"

Also in the same gallery we came across a room with Picasso paintings along one side and Matisse along the other. Random Renoir, Cezanne, and so many others stretching out before you. Talk about excess! Enough already it is just showing off! 

A leisurely wander home and now it is 6:30pm and we are pooped. We mentioned today that people are always talking about going tramping and how far they have walked - the Milford Track and so on. I don't think that has a patch on surviving site seeing in Paris!

Day 5 - Paris

Well today we went to Monet's garden. It was c'est magnifique.

We began by navigating the Metro to Gare Saint Lazare where we met our guide, Kit, and hopped on the bus for Vernon. We travelled out to Normandy and it was nice to leave the city and all those people who smoke constantly behind. Fresh air had never felt so good!

When we got to Vernon we got on our bikes and went into the village to buy supplies - bread, cheese, and fruit (oh, and some cider). It was such fun, I managed to buy my fruit without using any English. I wonder what they think of French in an Aussie/kiwi accent?

We ate our lunch by the banks of the Seine River. It was just so beautiful, the sky is pastel blue with fluffy white clouds. It is lovely and warm and a family of geese wandered past to see what we were doing. Jane and I toasted with wonder and our constant statement of "We're in France!"

We rode our bikes from Vernon to Giverny to visit Monet's garden. We had two hours wandering about admiring the place that inspired so much of Monet's work, and the place that he called home. 

We learned all about the difference between impressionists and what came before them and after. We were told that Monet was born around the time that photography was invented. This made sense to me, if photography could capture realism then artists were free to interpret what they saw rather than capture it for posterity. Apparently Monet was about capturing the subject, rather than painting a narrative (well, that is what I learnt after an hour on the tour, I'm sure there is more to it than that). 

We rode back to the train station and continued back to our apartment near Sentier Metro Station. We are getting quite good at being Kiwis/Aussies/ whatever I am in Paris. We plant our feet firmly, bend slightly at the knees, and when people push past us, we hold our ground - take that. It is a dog eat dog world here and we started out being polite but found that we needed to just get our hands dirty and get in the game or we would be at the back of the queue. 

We ended the evening with a cocktail at a cafe around the corner. Could life be any better than this?

Day 4 - Paris

We planned to take it easy today, somehow that didn't happen. We braved our first ever Metro ride and caught the train out to Sacre Coeur in the 18th arrondissement. It was a real treat to look around a different part of Paris. The Basilica was quite impressive sitting up on the highest point of Paris. You could see the whole of the city spread out before you.

Behind the Basilica there were some markets and cobble stone streets of gift shops and cafes. The day turned out to be rather warm as we wandered along and took in the sites and sounds.

We then caught the train back to the musee D'Orsay and spent a couple of hours soaking up the impressionists, and my favourite, Van Gogh. I can never tire of his paintings! But my feet were tiring by this time.

We walked through the gardens toward the Louvre on the way home and were captivated by the beauty of the spring flowers, luscious grass and people relaxing.

We wandered home looking in different shops as we went. We were so exhausted we didn't even bother with tea. We just bought some bread and cheese and went home. Where I can now tell you, the both of us will be snoring very soon indeed.

Day 3 - Paris

We had a wonderful day today. We had planned to do so much and ended up taking a lot of time to do a little in the day time and covered a lot at night.

We started out heading to Notre Dame. We had a lovely wander along the direction we thought we should go in, stopped for breakfast, checked the map - we had been walking in completely the wrong direction. So after a lovely croissant we turned around and continued the other way. Notre Dame was amazing however so crowded, but still peaceful.

We had all sorts of plans for other things to do, but that was about all we managed to fit in. Then on to the night's activities. We had a tour booked which started out at the Eiffel Tower for dinner, an hour boat cruise along the Seine and ending up at Moulin Rouge.

If you ever get the chance, you just have to go to the Moulin Rouge show! Talk about a spectacle. We didn't know what was going to happen next - dancing, snakes, Dr Suess esk costumes, acrobatics, ponies, juggling - we thought we had entered a strange new world where we didn't actually understand what was going on. It was truly amazing.

Day 2 - Paris

I'm sitting here and it is 8:15pm. It is still light and I am wondering how it is so late when I am still full of energy. Where did the day go! It was action packed.

We headed off towards the Louvre in the morning and stopped at a cafe for breakfast. Ordering completely in French we felt very clever (we had crepes and coffee).

We came across the Louvre and Jane had the same reaction to it as I did the first time I came across it. Completely breathtaking. It stops you in your tracks. Thank goodness for the Paris pass as there was already a long queue and we walked straight in! We spent about two hours in the Louvre and almost looked everywhere. There is just so much. We kept going until we got weary.

We then jumped on the hop on hop off bus for the 9 stop tour. It was a really good idea as it helped us to see what we wanted to go back to and explore further. We sat at the Arc de Triomphe for quite a while and marvelled at how the traffic works here. It seemed to our untrained eyes to be complete choas but somehow it worked.

Now it is time to go out again for dinner and I must admit I am pooped.

Day 1 - Paris

Part two of my adventure begins. 

I left San Francisco at 9:30pm at night and arrived ten hours later in Paris at 5:00pm the next day. Some how I lost an evening so by the time I eventually went to bed in Paris I had been awake for something like 30 hours. I can be forgiven for my mad eyes and giggles. Jane and I found each other very easily at the airport and after the appropriate squeals of actually being in Paris we caught the bus to the Opera in the city and then a taxi to our apartment. Jane found the apartment on airbnb and it is fabulous! Right in the 2nd arrondissement, near really vibrant cafe culture and very cute. 

As soon as we had settled our things in we went for a walk down the cobble stone streets. It is all so very beautiful around this part and we kept nudging each other with statements of - 'we're in Paris!'

We had dinner at the cafe on the corner of our street, goats cheese and salted caramelised butter sauce - my goodness! It was delicious. Washed down with the wine as suggested by our very helpful waiter. 

Creative parking

A tight squeeze in Paris

There has been a lot of talk this morning about the ability of men and women to park due to the news item about the Mayor in Triberg, Germany creating parking spaces especially for women as they cannot park as well as men.

German mayor defends 'women only' parking spaces >>

It made me think of this picture I took when I was in Paris a couple of years ago. I was intrigued as to how this car got into this spot, and how they were going to get out. And now I wonder if the creative parker was male or female.

Paris, the city of love

I have my computer set up to scroll through my photos as I work in the background. I had taken an expansive photo of the courtyard outside the Louvre and when it came on my screen I noticed that I had captured this couple in the city of love. So I had to edit the photo and crop it down to make them the focus.

Spooky

Since today is spent mostly sitting at the airport or on a plane I thought I would cheat and post one of my favourite pictures from Paris. It is not an iconic picture but it tells a story.

Some how I had got myself a little lost when walking around Paris. I would walk from the early morning through to evening so I had covered a lot of ground. I was trying to get back to the hotel before dark but dark was coming quickly, especially with the grey skies. I finally found my way to a little alley way behind Notre Dame, it all looked so different and scary in the night, I took a photo as I walked along the deserted dark street listening for footsteps, and looking for the hunchback in the clock tower.

Paris day 3

Well my last day in Paris has come along. My aim today was just to have no aim and to wander aimlessly around the streets. This was a treat. In the morning I found a street - Rue de mouffetard, which was the quaint, romantic little Parisian street of my imagination. There were beautiful little shops and street markets with people walking around with baskets full of bread sticks. I thought I would take photos today of things that were iconic for me while in Paris. The first photo above depicts the bikes that are available all over Paris. Apparently people pay a yearly fee and they can use their card to unlock a bike from any location and ride it to another.

While I was out wandering, I heard the sound of Jazz music and went to investigate. These two were playing their music in the middle of one of the bridges across the Seine. It was a magical experience.
I took this photo of the chairs because, as someone living in NZ or Australia we are used to our space. All the cafes have the chairs crammed next to one another with no personal space at all. It is also interesting how they line them up outside the cafe and people sit in a line with their coffee or wine watching the world go past.
I had to take a last photo of the Eiffel Tower...

And lastly, my last glass of wine before heading to the Gare de Nord to catch the Eurostar to London... A very tasty bordeaux.

Paris day 2 - art everywhere

I went for a walk to find the modern art museum and found this man on the way. He had created this huge work of art on the footpath and was mumbling to himself as he slid around it adding parts. He had a lovely little dog wrapped up in his pile of belongings on the path. It is interesting to see everyone with dogs here. They walk through the shopping mall with them. It is not strange to see a woman looking at designer label clothing in a high end store with a dog in tow! And it is not strange to see a homeless person huddled against the cold cuddling with their dog. I'm see lots of juxtapositions. Today's photos are around the theme of art that I've noticed with the old contrasting with the new.



It is amazing how well dressed everyone is in Paris, they all look like they have stepped out of a vogue photo shoot. I feel considerably underdressed :). For the first time ever while on holiday I got up in the morning and thought I better put on a full face of makeup! And the men are so stylish, with as many different looks as the women, and they are willingly shopping !!