Gargoyles galore, and more, day 3

Silly title, but the gargoyles on top of Notre Dame are wonderful to see up close.  This time Thomas spent the day with us, and on our last morning in Paris we arrived at Notre Dame well before the towers opened (in order to avoid the crowds) so that we could climb up and see the city from the gargoyle-vantage point.

Before climbing the towers, however, we walked around both outside and in.

Inside Notre Dame, lined up along the aisle, were nine new bells cast to celebrate the cathedrals' 850th anniversary.  Apparently the four that are there now, from Napoleon's time, have somehow degraded and fallen out of tune.  In the 17th century there were 20 bells, however all but one were melted for cannons during the revolution.  These new bells, meant to recreate the sound of the old 17th century bells, will be hoisted into the towers by Easter.

The tower opened at 10am, so we stood in line for it a little before, and soon started climbing.  As Julia says, Paris must have the densest concentration of tight, spiral, stone staircases in the world, and this one seemed to go up and up... We didn't count , and I think it's about 400 steps to the top of the south tower, but well worth it.

 

 

Just the "color" of Paris is beautiful, mostly defined by the limestone. 

Benjamin really wanted a French cap... looks good on him, n'est-ce pas?

After a break in a nearby café, we walked over to L'Île de la Cité.  Tucked behind the Palais de Justice on the island, is the Sainte-Chapelle, a beautiful Gothic cathedral built in the early 13th century.  The upper chapel is surrounded on all sides by stunning and huge stained glass windows (which are currently undergoing renovation, so one side was covered in scaffolding, but the space is still amazing)

The newly cleaned stained glass wall of the Sainte-Chapelle

 After seeing the chapel, we did a quick pass through the Conciergerie in the Palais de Justice, where hundreds of prisoners (including Marie Antoinette) were held during the revolution, before being sent to the guillotine.  Seeing the courtyard where the women prisoners waited before being loaded onto a cart which took them to their death was very sobering.

The gate of the Palais de Justice is
pretty impressive.

Benjamin was very excited when he saw the front of the
Palais de Justice:  he recognized it from  (the new)
Pink Panther movies with Inspector Clouseau.

After lunch the boys and girls split up:  Boys to Musée de l'Armée at Les Invalides (including Napoleon's tomb), and girls for a walk, and to the renowned Galeries Lafayette department store.

Here are a few shots from Les Invalides:

Outside the army museum. (Benjamin took this picture.)

In the courtyard.

 The tomb of Napoleon lies beneath the huge gilded dome, and the huge sarcophagus apparently contains six concentric coffins which house the emperor's remains.  Thomas reports it was all very bombastic.  The army museum itself had lots of swords and armor, to Benjamin's delight.

Panthéon

Julia and I meanwhile walked past the Panthéon (which looks more like St. Pauls's in London than the Pantheon in Rome), into Jardin du Luxembourg, then took the Métro up to the Opera (since it was close to the big department stores).

I should include here, that compared to Munich, there are a lot of beggars here, on the streets, outside of cafés, and even people who come onto the trains with small kids and walk along holding a cup and mumbling a sad story.  We saw many people sleeping in the Métro too.  It was hard to ignore them, but we weren't sure what to do.  I had always thought France had a good social safety net.  It's quite something to observe the range of wealth in this city.

The Opéra building is Palais Garnier, which is a stunning.

The Lafayette department store is a pretty impressive place.  The ground floor has some incredibly priced watches (like for 25k Euro) and jewelry (including a de Beers diamond section).

Looking up into the domed ceiling at Galeries Lafayette 

Julia and I found prices more in our ballpark a few floors up (and I bought her a cute spring skirt), then we had a tea break at the restaurant on their top floor -- which has a view!

View from the Galeries Lafayette.

We met the boys back at the apartment, and had a final dinner in Vins et Terroirs.

Ravioli in front, lamb in back...

Bouef bourguignon and baguette...

Four days in Paris was just about perfect.  It's a beautiful, interesting city, and, wow, they know how to make good food.  We'll miss the baguettes and pasteries!

Paris indoors, day 2

Or perhaps I should call this post "Paris dans la pluie" since it rained most of the time.  Ah well.  Good excuse to visit the museums and sit in cafés.

The Louvre is always busy, but we got there early (at 9:30 or so, which it seems is early enough by Parisian standards) and only waited in line a few minutes to get in.

As soon as we were in, we headed for the Mona Lisa, since I knew (from 6 years ago) that the room she's in is usually mobbed.  We were in luck.  We got up close to her without much problem, and even walked around to different angles to experience her famous eyes following us :-)

The ceilings in many halls of the Palais du Louvre
are astounding.

Looking down one of the many hallways.

A view outside the Louvre, simply
from an inside gallery.

The kids wanted to see the ancient Egypt exhibits.

 There are some amazingly old and beautiful artifacts there.  We especially liked the sarcophagi.

By the time we left, around noon, the entrance lobby under the glass pyramid was much busier!

Julia and I had a delicious lunch (at Vins et Terroirs) while Benjamin was happy enough with another baguette while we took a break in our apartment.

Yes, that's water...

Next stop, the Musée d'Orsay.  I love the fact that it used to be a train station, and was renovated into this beautiful space.  No pictures are allowed, but I snuck one from the top of the stairs (as did most every other tourist) looking out onto the huge hall.

A view through the clock at the top of the museum

The building houses the extensive and fabulous collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces:  Monet, Manet, Renoir, Degas, Pissarro, van Gogh, to name just a few.  It's really astounding how many world-famous, absolutely gorgeous paintings are in there.

A little bit of strolling in the rain,

then gathering some dinner for the kids to eat on their own...

since Thomas and I went out for a nice dinner (at L'Epigramme).  It was Valentine's Day, after all.

Wow, the French do know how to eat -- it looked so simple, and tasted divine.

The rain had stopped by early evening, and we saw the moon through the breaking clouds as we strolled the Seine (yes, lovely) after dinner.

The Eiffel tower is gently lit all night, but at the top of every hour it "sparkles" with a crazy dance of bright lights
 for a five minute show.  It's really quite eye catching, and a still photo doesn't begin to do it justice.

In the other direction, more peacefully lit, Notre Dame.

Paris from on high, day 1

During the kids' February school vacation, we used the very good excuse of Thomas having a work colleague in Paris to justify four days in the beautiful city...  

Tuesday 2/12, we took an early TGV directly from Munich to Paris (at times, in France, hitting 320 km/h!) and arrived in plenty of time to settle into our little rental apartment near St. Michel then hit the Catacombs (see earlier post).
For our first full day, Wednesday, the kids and I did a tour of  Paris "high points" (literally and figuratively).  First stop, naturally, la tour Eiffel.

View on the way up, in the elevator

Palais de Chaillot, et Jardins du Trocadéro,
seen from the top of the Eiffel tower. 

View to the east.  The big golden dome is on Les Invalides.
Too bad it was misty.

We took the stairs part way down.

On the way back to the apartment, we stopped at the nearby Paul boulangerie for a mid-morning coffee plus.  Man, the French know how to do pastries.

These macarons were to die for.

We walked around "our" neighborhood in the Latin quarter for a little, taking in the atmosphere of cafés, restaurants, and, well, touristy souvenir shops.  The streets are narrow but lovely.



After lunch (simply baguette from a nearby boulangerie, and St. Albray cheese from the grocery... yum) we headed to L'Arc de Triomphe.

Luckily it wasn't too crowded on top

284 steps up to the top in a tight spiral.

View from atop L'Arc de Triomphe,
down the Champs Élysées

Instead of taking the Métro, we decided to walk from L'Arc de Triomphe down the famous Champs Élysées. There are some pretty fancy stores along there, but I loved simply looking at the architecture of the buildings.

It didn't take us long to walk the couple kilometers to the Place de la Concord.  

As we kept walking towards our flat at St. Michel, we strolled through the beautiful (even in winter) Jardin des Tuileries to the Louvre.  What an absolutely gorgeous walk.  

Looking through the Tuileries garden, towards the Louvre.

L'Arc de Triomphe du Carroussel, in front of the Palais du Louvre

I love the Louvre, simply for the building itself...

Our visit inside the Louvre was planned for the next day, since rain was forecast, so we headed over the Pont des Arts pedestrian bridge.  Its simple mesh side fences are chock-full of love locks -- which actually looks very cool.

 We met Thomas, and went for a dinner of fabulous Breton galettes (savory buckwheat flour crêpes) and then wheat flour dessert crêpes (with house-made caramel au beurre salé...)

A pretty satisfying first full day, en tout cas.  

(The one frustrating thing, however, was the fact that my language ability seemed totally blocked:  my French used to be quite fluent, but this first day, when I tried to speak, my words came out half-French half-German, and I ended up totally tongue tied.  Arg!  It got a little better by the end of our time there -- and then of course I ended up trying to speak French the first day back in Germany...)