food and some other stuff: Trip Report: Day 6: Paris

I was probably most excited about this part of the trip. PARIS!! I had never been to Paris. People either seem to love it or feel like it's overrated, so a quick train trip and one overnight seemed like a good way to get a first impression and see which side I fell on. (Spoiler: love.)

We took a very fast, very quiet train early in the morning.

And when we got out of the train everyone was speaking French!

We stayed in a Holiday Inn in the Latin Quarter just a few blocks from Notre Dame. It was an absolutely stellar location.

This was the square outside our hotel. I couldn't get over how thoroughly Paris turned out to be exactly what I expected. It looks just like Paris! Everywhere you look!

OMG the Seine.

We arrived at sort of a weird time - late morning but not quite lunch - and had a rough initial time trying to find a place to eat. Finally we found a restaurant that was open where I could get a sandwich and Mom could get an omelet, which was perfect. Then we walked up to look at Notre Dame.

Notre Dame makes Westminster Abbey look frankly kind of pathetic. We were going to walk to the top, but it was very, very windy and cold and we couldn't face standing in the outdoor line. Shortly thereafter we had to buy scarves at a tourist shop.

Look, it's me taking the above picture of Notre Dame! It's like a paradox!

I feel like maybe you weren't supposed to take pictures inside because I took none, but my mom took one. Rebel?

After this we went on Rick Steves' walking tour of Historical Paris, in the freezing cold wind.

It's just a really impressive church, no matter how long you look at it.

The walking tour took us on small twisty streets of the Latin Quarter, which were right behind our hotel.

And then back up to the Seine.

The line was crazy at the Louvre so we decided to put it off for a while.

We did go inside the gift shop, though, where you can buy these small Venus de Milo statues. Ben bought me one when he was there in high school and its been on my bookcase ever since! Surely he didn't pay 119 euros for it in 1995. That seems a little excessive.

We went over to the Orangerie, a smaller art gallery my friend Sheila had told me to be sure and check out. It has two huge rooms devoted only to Monet's Water Lilies.

It was definitely worth seeing!

In Paris even the litter is fancy.

At this point we were near starvation. We trudged back through the park to the Louvre and, once through security, located a small restaurant that was closing up for the day. They let us have a bottle of wine and a piece of chocolate cake, though, which was exactly what we needed.

The janitorial staff at the Louvre is on strike and they were all sitting in a circle pounding on drums and blowing whistles in the lobby here. It was very noisy and had apparently been going on for weeks.

The Louvre is the only museum I've ever visited where when they say "you could spend an entire day and not see everything," it's the truth. Ben and I covered the Prado in an hour, for example. But this thing really is enormous and impossible to take in. So, like everyone else, we headed for the highlights.

We had to be sure and visit the Sully branch because, you know, Sully.

This was my favorite thing. I was more excited about seeing the Winged Victory than the other big two famous Louvre things.

It really is amazing.

I took a picture of this weird ghost angel painting from the 1200s because I knew Ben would be delighted by it.

Ah, the Mona Lisa. So peaceful. I've always heard how it's smaller than you'd expect, so it was actually bigger than I expected it to be.

Immediately across from it there is this giant, intricate painting nobody cares about, which we found amusing.

There were not many people around the Venus de Milo at all, though.

We walked through and looked at a bunch of Egyptian stuff.

And Napoleon's apartments.

And then we tried to leave but could not figure out how to get out of this courtyard.

But finally we managed!

We got dinner at Les Deux Magots, which Rick Steves said was famous as a hangout of Hemingway et. al. in the 1920s. We had tried a different bistro just next door but it was very loud, very hot, and the menu was weird with a bunch of snacks and no main dishes. So we escaped and went next door, which turned out to be a good decision.

I got duck breast. I've been into duck recently, for the first time in my life. (Don't think about how cute they are.)

And mom got beef stew. We were both very impressed with the deliciousness of our food.

Then we decided: Well, here it is, our only chance to see the Eiffel Tower lit up at night. It doesn't look that far on the map, maybe only a mile. That's just twenty minutes walk, right? It will be fine.

It took FOREVER. And we had already walked about 8 miles that day. But finally we caught a distant glimpse, and then turned back toward the hotel.

We probably should have gotten a cab, because soon we both had to pee so badly we were eyeing dumpsters and alleyways. I thought we could make it if we just pushed through, but Mom insisted we stop for tea and dessert at this little place. FINE. I will eat creme brulee in Paris if I have to.