Disclosure: This is going to be a rather lenghty post and I don't believe I will use the copy and past function from Word becuase I don't have enough pateience today so therefore, please forgive any misspellings.
To start off our Saturday, Kelly and I took advantage of the snooze button on the alarm and didn't leave the hotel until about 11. I know, we are bad tourists, but our Eiffel tower excursion didn't get us home until midnight. We came up with a game plan and headed off to conquer the city. First stop, the Arc de Triomphe. We didn't want to pay 5 Euros to go inside it, so we took pictures from the safe side of the roundabout.
While we were standing there we hear a loud crash, see a hub cap roll across the street and there is a car skidding to a stop and a bumper with a license plate in the middle of the road. I'm not sure what happened exactly, but it was funny to see and made me happy our Opel was parked safely in her little spot. Kelly and I had to get a picture together to mark the occassion!
The street, Champs-Elysees is laid out with the Arc on one end and the Louvre on the other. It was built as a memorial Arc so that Napolean could ride his horses through it back to his palace at the other end (the Louvre). Champs-Elysees is one of the most famous, prestigious streets in the world with some rents at 1.1 million Euro per 1,000 sq ft. They also have stores such as the largest Adidas store, Europes' largest Gap store, Cartier, Louis Vuitton, Zara, and Disney. It is just a beautiful street with a long history dating back to 1616.
Another store on this street is Swaroski. So of course Kelly and I had to pop in! We found an AMAZING stair case that we will both someday have in our houses. It was crystals in the glass and with all of the bright lights, it just sparkled! I love all things shiny and this was no exception!
After Swaroski it started to rain, and rain, and Kelly and I are not a big fan of getting wet so we ducked into the Gap. I was able to find a few nice sweaters, all 75% off, so I invested further into warm clothes attire. It has already proven useful! After the Gap it was still raining so we hurried to the next metro station to jump on it to take us to the Louvre. I started reading the history of the Louvre and got so involved with it I couldn't pick out any history to include in the blog. Instead, here is a link to the site. I will say though, that it has nearly 35,000 objects dating back to Pre History until the 19th century that are displayed over 653,300 sq. ft. To say the least, you could spend an entire weekend in that place and still not see all of it.
Kelly and I have both previously been to the Louvre so we did not go in this time. We did take pictures of the outside though.
The below picture is a view from the "courtyard" of the Louvre to the Eiffle Tower. It is such a beautiful city!
The below picture is a view down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. A beautiful (and expensive) district.
After walking around the Louvre, we headed to Tiffany & Co. I was given a charm bracelet from there for my college graduation gift from my grandparents. I admit, I sometimes browse their website and discovered they sell Eiffel Tower charms. I informed my loving, patient mother that if I make it to Paris, I would be investing in one of those. She nodded so I took that as approval. On our adventure there, we walked by so many beautiful stores. DeBeers, Cartier, Chanel, Mikimoto Pearls and many, many more. Their window displays were amazing. The jewelry looked like something that you might see a princess wear...or at the Oscars. There were people actually in these stores as well. We continue past all of the amazing jewelry until we see the tale-tale blue sign. We head to the door, try to open it and it's locked. They had to buzz us in (unlike the gas station). Well, actually they had the scary looking door man open the door for us. This would be my second trip into the depths of this amazing store. The first time was when I was 17 and in DC for a field trip. I also found my $97,000 engagment ring that I'm holding out for...but I won't hold my breath. Anyways, he head downstairs to "cheap" sterling sliver charms and I find my Eiffle Tower, buy it and we head out. Our curiosity gets the best of us though because we decide to look around. We wander upstairs where they have the "bridal" collection. There were several couples up there as well. Oh the beauty of all that sparkles! Kelly and I head out before we bankrupt ourselves and go back to the direction of wisdom and museums. We grab a dessert at a cute bakery and map out our afternoon plans. I have a hankering to do a museum so we decide on the Musee d'Orsay (picture below).
On our we walk over a bridge that has all sorts of locks attached to it. It is a lock of love, as google informed us. Couples put a lock on the bridge signifying their unbreakable love. Very cute. If I ever succomb to this, I will be sure to engrave my lock ahead of time. Those look so much classier.
Now, back to the museum. It is housed in an old train station built between 1898 and 1900. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces (the largest in the world) by such painters such as Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986.
This above picture has a story, one that ends in black and blue marks on one of us and the other practically rolling on the wet ground laughing. I will give you a moment to guess. Ready for the answer? Here is the story: Kelly took a very similar picture and I got jealous and decided I wanted one too. So I climb up on the wet, slick stone to pose for my picture with the Louvre in the background. So classic right? Well in addittion to the fountains in the courtyard area there are also two larger-than-life pyramids (so I thought anyways). The larger pyramid can be seen in my picture and the smaller one is behind and a bit to the left of from where this picture was taken. Kelly didn't like the prespective of my picture so she started backing up to get a better picture and I thought she would have noticed the gian 10 ft pyramid behind her when we walked in, but apparently she missed it. She was stepping backwards, I don't really grasp what is happening until Kelly is leaning over, trying to regain her balance slowly rolling down the pyramid landing on the wet ground silently. She tried to break her fall with her arm but it just caught the edge of the glass pyramid and she had a bruise forming by dinner. It all happened in such slow motion. I wanted to run to her, but I was on a wet stone and hear of falling into the fountain on my right, so as a bad friend, I was blamed for not warning her that a giant, stationary pyramid was behind her. I am laughing so hard as I write this, I am tearing up. Kelly isn't happy that I still get such a chuckle out of it, but it was too funny.
Now, back on to serious tour business: This is another picture of the Louvre. The skies are nasty grey, just waiting to keep raining on us. We see a man selling umbrellas for 5 Euro each, we end up walking away with 2 for 7 Euro. I consider that a decent deal. Happy to report though, we did not need those umbrellas because it didn't rain anymore. Murphey's law I guess.
The below picture is a view from the "courtyard" of the Louvre to the Eiffle Tower. It is such a beautiful city!
The below picture is a view down the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe. A beautiful (and expensive) district.
After walking around the Louvre, we headed to Tiffany & Co. I was given a charm bracelet from there for my college graduation gift from my grandparents. I admit, I sometimes browse their website and discovered they sell Eiffel Tower charms. I informed my loving, patient mother that if I make it to Paris, I would be investing in one of those. She nodded so I took that as approval. On our adventure there, we walked by so many beautiful stores. DeBeers, Cartier, Chanel, Mikimoto Pearls and many, many more. Their window displays were amazing. The jewelry looked like something that you might see a princess wear...or at the Oscars. There were people actually in these stores as well. We continue past all of the amazing jewelry until we see the tale-tale blue sign. We head to the door, try to open it and it's locked. They had to buzz us in (unlike the gas station). Well, actually they had the scary looking door man open the door for us. This would be my second trip into the depths of this amazing store. The first time was when I was 17 and in DC for a field trip. I also found my $97,000 engagment ring that I'm holding out for...but I won't hold my breath. Anyways, he head downstairs to "cheap" sterling sliver charms and I find my Eiffle Tower, buy it and we head out. Our curiosity gets the best of us though because we decide to look around. We wander upstairs where they have the "bridal" collection. There were several couples up there as well. Oh the beauty of all that sparkles! Kelly and I head out before we bankrupt ourselves and go back to the direction of wisdom and museums. We grab a dessert at a cute bakery and map out our afternoon plans. I have a hankering to do a museum so we decide on the Musee d'Orsay (picture below).
On our we walk over a bridge that has all sorts of locks attached to it. It is a lock of love, as google informed us. Couples put a lock on the bridge signifying their unbreakable love. Very cute. If I ever succomb to this, I will be sure to engrave my lock ahead of time. Those look so much classier.
Now, back to the museum. It is housed in an old train station built between 1898 and 1900. It holds mainly French art dating from 1848 to 1915, including paintings, sculptures, furniture, and photography, and is probably best known for its extensive collection of impressionist and post-impressionist masterpieces (the largest in the world) by such painters such as Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, Cezanne, Seurat, Gauguin and Van Gogh. Many of these works were held at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume prior to the museum's opening in 1986.
That was plagerized from Wikipedia. Here is a picture we took of one of Van Gogh's work, The Church at Auvers .
And one of his self portraits:
The museum was a big, wide open space, very much like a train station. It was an enjoyable experience compared to a cramped museum with painting after painting. Of course the museum was also undergoing renovations so things were a bit different than normal but it was still a great experience. They also have 86 paintings by Monet which we enjoyed looking at as well. In addition to the traditional paintings and sculptures they had antique furniture and a beautiful hall that overlooked the river. Once again, in my fascination with lighting fixtures, I had to take a picture of what the Europeans do so well, elegance.
It was getting late and the museum would be closing soon, as told by the giant clock, so we headed out. It was a quick trip around, but suitable enough for me and Kelly.
When Kelly was here a few years ago a friend, who used to be a tour guide in the city, recommended a fun restaurant to her and her family. We decided to set out in search of it again. It is in the Montmarte district so we hopped on the metro and headed that way. Well, we were 30 minutes early and walked in on them eating dinner. Whoops. So we knew Moulin Rouge wasn't too far away and headed that way. We also found a cute gallery displaying original works of art by various local painters. I would have loved to spend money there, but I have to draw the line somehwere. We kept walking downhill until we found it and took some pictures:
We didn't want to look desperate by showing back up at the restaurant at exactly 7 so we tried to play it cool and went to an Australian bar for a beer. At about 7:30 we decided we were too tired to walk uphill so we hopped on the metro again and rode the one stop. That public transportation and sure be handy! By the time we got there the place was PACKED. We luckily squeezed in becuase there were only two of us. You have to hang your jacket in a certain area because there isn't room at the table for personal belongings. Kelly then decides she has to go to the restroom before we sit down. I don't want to stand in the jacket hallway like a wierdo so I head to the table. To sit down at this table, one side is against a wall on a bench and the other has chairs and you have to stand on the chair and step over the table to get to the bench. Kelly warned me about this and we decided she would step over. I think she did the bathroom stunt on purpose although she won't admit it. I head to the table, alone, and the waiter moves the chair, offers me his hand, and that is how I got pressued into stepping over a table in a really crowded restaurant in Paris. I was mad at Kelly. After I'm squeezed back into place between the table and the wall, they ask if we want red or white and cheese or meat. Those are the menu choices. Red or white wine and cheese or meat fondue. The wine is served in baby bottles because, from what I've read, you have to pay at tax for all wine served in glasses. We get our baby bottles and the fondue and enjoy our dinner.
We were seated between a French group of 3 and a very loud, singing group from Spain? The rest of the restaurant was filled with American girls. They looked young, and drunk. I have no idea what they were doing in the city in February, but they were having a good time and I guess that is what is important. We didn't loiter for too long and then we headed back to the hotel for bed. It had been a long day and we were exhausted!
And one of his self portraits:
The museum was a big, wide open space, very much like a train station. It was an enjoyable experience compared to a cramped museum with painting after painting. Of course the museum was also undergoing renovations so things were a bit different than normal but it was still a great experience. They also have 86 paintings by Monet which we enjoyed looking at as well. In addition to the traditional paintings and sculptures they had antique furniture and a beautiful hall that overlooked the river. Once again, in my fascination with lighting fixtures, I had to take a picture of what the Europeans do so well, elegance.
It was getting late and the museum would be closing soon, as told by the giant clock, so we headed out. It was a quick trip around, but suitable enough for me and Kelly.
When Kelly was here a few years ago a friend, who used to be a tour guide in the city, recommended a fun restaurant to her and her family. We decided to set out in search of it again. It is in the Montmarte district so we hopped on the metro and headed that way. Well, we were 30 minutes early and walked in on them eating dinner. Whoops. So we knew Moulin Rouge wasn't too far away and headed that way. We also found a cute gallery displaying original works of art by various local painters. I would have loved to spend money there, but I have to draw the line somehwere. We kept walking downhill until we found it and took some pictures:
We didn't want to look desperate by showing back up at the restaurant at exactly 7 so we tried to play it cool and went to an Australian bar for a beer. At about 7:30 we decided we were too tired to walk uphill so we hopped on the metro again and rode the one stop. That public transportation and sure be handy! By the time we got there the place was PACKED. We luckily squeezed in becuase there were only two of us. You have to hang your jacket in a certain area because there isn't room at the table for personal belongings. Kelly then decides she has to go to the restroom before we sit down. I don't want to stand in the jacket hallway like a wierdo so I head to the table. To sit down at this table, one side is against a wall on a bench and the other has chairs and you have to stand on the chair and step over the table to get to the bench. Kelly warned me about this and we decided she would step over. I think she did the bathroom stunt on purpose although she won't admit it. I head to the table, alone, and the waiter moves the chair, offers me his hand, and that is how I got pressued into stepping over a table in a really crowded restaurant in Paris. I was mad at Kelly. After I'm squeezed back into place between the table and the wall, they ask if we want red or white and cheese or meat. Those are the menu choices. Red or white wine and cheese or meat fondue. The wine is served in baby bottles because, from what I've read, you have to pay at tax for all wine served in glasses. We get our baby bottles and the fondue and enjoy our dinner.
We were seated between a French group of 3 and a very loud, singing group from Spain? The rest of the restaurant was filled with American girls. They looked young, and drunk. I have no idea what they were doing in the city in February, but they were having a good time and I guess that is what is important. We didn't loiter for too long and then we headed back to the hotel for bed. It had been a long day and we were exhausted! That finishes up our Saturday in Paris. Congratulations on making through the entire posting! I appreciate the patience!
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