Spring Break Part 2: Paris
Here is the second part of my spring break adventure in Paris. Enjoy!
I woke up very early. I also didn’t get much sleep. I was afraid of over sleeping and missing my alarm so I was up every hour to make sure that I didn’t. I got up, checked out, and went to St. Pancras Station to catch my train to Paris. I got there pretty early so I printed off my ticket and went over to Costa coffee and got breakfast. Afterward, I had to go through security and customs, which I should have expected since I’m going back to France. I got on my train, found my seat and settled in. What was really nice was that the guy who was supposed to sit next to me found another seat that was empty and sat there, so I got to spread out a bit. I slept for about half of the trip, which was nice. I needed that hour nap. Once I was awake, I pulled out my guide book and started trying to figure out where to go first. I didn’t get to finish planning before we arrived at Gare du Nord. When I got off the train, all I had to do was leave the station and walk about two minutes to my hostel. Unfortunately, I couldn’t check in for two more hours. So I put my stuff in a locker and had lunch at the hostel bar/restaurant. I finished my plan for the day which wasn’t much since I only had half a day. After I checked in and put my stuff in my room, I went out to pick up my Paris Pass. Afterwards, I went straight to the Musée d’Orsay.
This is a great museum. There was a great mix of art and there were more things here that I enjoyed more than I did at Tate Modern. I was a bit disappointed when I found out the Van Gogh exhibit didn’t open until after I left Paris. I really like Van Gogh’s paintings.
(My slightly illegal photos inside the Musée d'Orsay. You aren't supposed to take pictures in the but no one was around I was able to get these two.)
After a few hours, I decided to walk along the Seine River. I went all the way down near Notre Dame. For those of you who don’t know, that is a very long walk. I was searching for the Shakespeare and Co. bookstore. I did find it and I spent quite of bit of time in there.
It's a book lover's paradise and I think it was one of my favorite things that I saw in Paris. I wanted to buy a book but finding one proved to be a bit of challenge. I’m a very indecisive person so trying to narrow down my choices to one took a while. I found several I liked but I decided that I should buy something from the French Literature section. I ended up buying Around the World in 80 Days. I also got the book stamped so I will always know that I got it there. After I got my book, I went back to the hostel. I was so tired and very hungry. I had an easy first day but I know I will get a lot more done when I have a full day.
My first stop of the day was Arc de Triomphe!
(Unfortunately, there was construction going on so it kind of ruins the effect)
I found out I could go on top of it with my Paris Pass. So I did. There are so many stairs! I felt like I was dying when I reached the top. But it was worth it. The view from up there is great.
(Looking down the Champs-Élysées)
After Arc de Triomphe, I walked down the Champs-Élysées all the while with this song stuck in my head (you can thank my high school French teacher for introducing my class to that song. It's annoyingly catchy). During my walk, I was looking for Laudurée Macarons. I walked down part of it, walked across the street, and then back up in order to get there.
Laudurée is wonderful. But it’s pricey. This was the most expensive thing I ate in Paris but so worth it. I had café au lait and 4 mini macarons; salted caramel, chocolate, lemon, and raspberry.
They were so good! I wanted to buy some to take with me, but there was no way they would make it out of Paris unless it was in my stomach. I got myself a keychain instead. I continued my walk down the Champs-Élysées to the Jardin des Tuileries.
These gardens are outside the Louvre, which was my next stop.
I spent several hours in the Louvre. There is so much to see. You could come back every day and see something new. I did see the Mona Lisa. I was very underwhelmed. So much hype, so little painting. My favorite piece was the Cupid and Psyche statue. When I saw it, the sun was shining through the window and acted like a spotlight on it. It was beautiful.
By the time I left the Louvre, I was a bit overwhelmed by the amount of art I'd just seen. I stopped at a café for dinner near Pont Neuf. I had a ham and cheese omelet and a citron pressé, which is a glass of fresh squeezed lemon juice with a small carafe of water and some sugar that you can mix however you like.
Both were very good and I was able to enjoy looking at the Seine while I ate.
My first goal of the day was to take a boat cruise on the Seine. The cruise took me along the river and I got to see many landmarks, like the Eiffel Tower and Notre Dame, while listening to commentary about the history of Paris.
It was a good way to start the day and I got to see some places that I may not have seen on my own. While this is pretty touristy, it was still fun.
After the cruise, I went to Gare du Nord to pick up my friends from Point Loma, Heather and Candice, who were coming for the weekend. They’re studying in Florence, Italy and we made plans to meet up during my time in Paris. We went back to the hostel but we had to wait a little while before they could get checked in. So we had lunch and started to plan out our weekend.
Once they got checked in, we headed out to explore. Our first stop was Sacré-Cœur cathedral. We only saw it from a distance since it would require a lot of time to climb a hill to see it up close but it was really pretty.
(Left to Right: Heather, Candice, and me at Sacré-Cœur)
Next stop,Père Lachaise cemetery. When you think of cemeteries, you think creepy right? This one wasn’t. This one was pretty cool.
I also got a lot of commentary from Heather about the design/architecture of the grave stones and memorials, which was pretty interesting. Candice wanted to visit Jim Morrison’s grave (to get a picture for her mom). It took a bit of searching to find it, but thanks to my guide book, we found it pretty quickly. We also visited Chopin’s grave, since it was pretty close by. Lots of people must come here since there were flowers by his grave.
Up next, Notre Dame cathedral. Cue the "Bells of Notre Dame" song!
This has been on my bucket list for while so getting to see it in person was amazing. We took pictures out front and got in line to go inside. The inside is pretty amazing too. Lots of architecture commentary from Heather. What I found really impressive was the stained glass windows. They were very beautiful.
(Sorry for the poor quality. No flash photography inside)
I also had the song “God Help the Outcasts” from The Hunchback of Notre Dame stuck in my head while we were walking through there. Couldn’t help it, I pretty much think of that song whenever I think of Notre Dame.
After exploring Notre Dame, we started making our way towards the Tour Eiffel. We wanted to get there before it got dark so we would 1) climb up the stairs to see the view and 2) see it light up once it got dark. I forgot how long this walk was. By the time we got to the Musée d’Orsay, we were exhausted, our feet hurt, and we were only halfway there. We took a break there for a few minutes before continuing on. As we were leaving, we found a metro stop, which just so happened to be part of the line that goes to the Eiffel Tower. We hopped on and made it in a matter of minutes. By the time we got to the Eiffel Tower, it was starting to get dark and the lines for stairs were surprisingly long. Not only that, you had to pay to walk up. We decided not to go up. To quote Candice, “why would I pay money to walk up stairs? I’ve been doing that all day for free!” So we took turns taking pictures of each other in front of the tower and found a spot to watch it light up.
And near that spot, there just so happened to be a crêpe stand. So we decided to make that our dinner. Candice had a Nutella and banana crêpe, Heather had a crêpe with just Nutella, and I had one with sugar and lemon juice.
We sat in that park, ate our crêpes, and watched the tower light up and discussed what we wanted to do tomorrow. Since it was our last day we had to make it count and get to the last places on our lists. Once we finished our crêpes, we went back to our hostel. I went over to Heather and Candice’s room to hangout for a while. I brought my laptop and we watched Thor: The Dark World while we figured out the plan for Saturday.
I woke up with one of the worst migraines I’ve ever had. I had gotten hardly any sleep, my head was pounding, light hurt my eyes, and I felt like I was going to throw up. I’m not even sure how I managed to get dressed and make my way down to breakfast to meet Heather and Candice. According to the girls, I looked like death. They were probably right. They grabbed some bread and Nutella for later and we went back to their room, where they let me sleep for about an hour. The hour of sleep was just enough for me to be a functional human being and actually eat something and take something for my head before we went out. Our first stop for the day was the Louvre. Since we were short on time, our visit was more target oriented. There were things we had to see while we were here so we set out to find them. We found the Venus de Milo, Cupid and Psyche, and a few sculptures by Michelangelo. We saw the Mona Lisa, lots of Italian art. The one painting that we couldn’t find was The Raft of Medusa (Heather wanted to see it). We looked everywhere but couldn’t find it.
Our next stop was the Opera Garnier. This is where Phantom of the Opera supposedly took place.
We wandered around and we were pretty amazed. The inside is beautiful. We also got a peek inside the actually theater. They were rehearsing, so we couldn’t take pictures. But we really wanted to know what they were rehearsing. There were guys in skirts doing random things off to the side and they were hilarious but we had no clue what their purpose in this scene was. We never did find out what show it was.
After the Opera, we went to the Rodin museum and gardens. We only had to pay a euro to get in because we only wanted to see the gardens.
There were Rodin sculptures all around the garden and we used our time here as a chance to sit and relax. Candice and Heather had brought the extra bread and Nutella from breakfast, so we sat in the garden and ate while we enjoyed looking at the sculptures. I wish we could have seen what these garden’s look like in full bloom. Even so, they were very nice.
Our final stop was the Luxembourg Gardens. I don’t think I’ve seen a park so crowded. Then I remembered, it’s Saturday and it’s really nice outside. So everyone and their mother was there. We didn’t see much of the garden because we didn’t want to get caught up in the crowds and our feet were killing us.
We did make a loop around the fountain near the entrance we came in. It’s a very pretty park.
We went back to our hostel. We wanted to make sure we had our stuff packed and ready to go for the next morning. We had to be up early. Heather and Candice had to catch a flight back to Florence and I had to catch a train to Grenoble. With some helpful advice from the hostel staff, we were able to figure out when we had to leave and what metro lines we had to take. After we packed, we met downstairs in the restaurant for dinner.
I really enjoyed my time with them and I’m so glad I had them with me for part of my time in Paris. Paris stressed me out and the metro creeped me out. Having them there made exploring this city much more enjoyable.
So that's it for my spring break adventure. If you have questions about places I visited, places I stayed, etc. feel free to ask me. And I highly recommend that if you haven't tried taking a trip by yourself before, give it a shot. You may find it to be one of the best things you've ever done.
