Our first full day in Paris was definitely a full day packed with fun and wondering around. We started in the morning taking the metro down to The Catacombs. On our way to the Metro we walked through a farmers market of some sort. I’m not sure if it happened every day or just on Wednesday but it was really cool! It was under the train tracks, which provided shelter from the rain. I was so impressed! I would love to go back just to go to that market and actually buy some stuff, but we were on our way to the Catacombs and couldn’t really buy anything that’d we’d have to haul around the rest of the day. Here’s a small video of walking through the market. It’s really fast, but it’s something.
We finally made it to the Catacombs; I really didn’t know what to expect. I had seen a few pictures through the years, but never really paid attention. I had no idea I would have to go down so many stairs! I felt so dizzy after descending that lovely spiral of 83 or so steps. I actually was most worried about the smell, but surprisingly to me it did not smell even a little. I guess those bones have been down there long enough to not be smelly, but still, in my mind being that far underground with thousands of bones it should have been smelly and I should have seen a rat or two, but I didn’t see any and I guess that makes sense, nothing for them to eat. It was really fascinating to see how the bones were arranged in different ways and categories. There was a guided tour happening that we ran into, the guide yelled at a couple people who had glommed onto the group, but I managed to stay out of his sight and still listened to some of his stories. I don’t remember them now, but I remember thinking it was quite interesting and that if I did this again I would like to have the guide to tell me more about what I’m looking at rather than just wandering aimlessly and not fully appreciating what I was looking at. It was really neat and I would do it again.
The top left picture is one of the hallways we walked down, that’s my backpack with reflective tape you can see. Some of the hallways were really short, but none so short that I had to duck, just Brad. The picture of the picture is a part of the Catacombs that people aren’t allowed to walk through, but this photographer was given permission to go down and take pictures. I think that part would have been immensely more interesting! I guess back in the day people would go down there and visit their dead and dress them and change their clothes and stuff. Creepy and yet so respectful! A couple pictures below are of carvings that are quite detailed, it’s amazing! I love seeing what people are able to accomplish, especially so long ago!
The next stop was Notre Dame. Not much to say about this. It was beautiful and magnificent. But I can’t really add anything that someone else hasn’t already said about Notre Dame. I chased a few birds, at which point Brad told me that it was probably against some law about tormenting the birds (I don’t think there is such a law, but I stopped anyway). The grounds were beautiful and we took a short rest and had a small snack and some of our yummy Gini soda. I wish we could have figured out how to go up, but we never did find the entrance to go up…so we just moved on.
We searched for a store that was supposed to carry 90 types of jam and 70 types of mustard, but when we arrived at the address we found an ally(bottom right picture). So moral of that story, don’t trust what your guide book tells you, because sometimes they’re wrong. But that street did hold some cool shops, it’s where we found my much coveted cheesy olive bread (Boulangerie St. Louis). We also got to witness how inventory is unloaded on those narrow streets; it looks like quite the production. After we had given up on finding that shop we ventured back across the waterway to find the Shakespeare Bookstore where I bought a book and had it stamped with the well-known stamp. The bridge we crossed had hundreds, if not thousands of locks on it and we still haven’t researched to figure out what it meant, but it was pretty neat.
Our next stop was the Arc de Triomphe. It was really large! It was raining when we got there so we basically stayed under the shelter of the arch until we decided to move on. Apparently you can climb to the top of it too, but since it was raining, it didn’t seem very appealing to be on top out in the open…so, next time it better be a nice day and we’ll climb all those steps to the top. While we were sitting under the arch there was this man (guy-1) that wanted his picture taken and he asked a guy (guy-2) to do it. I don’t know if guy-2 has been hiding under a rock for the past decade, but he obviously didn’t know how to take a picture with a digital camera, he held the screen part towards guy-1 and then proceeded to take a picture of himself (guy-2). So Brad decided to remember the moment and poke fun at the guy-2 by offering to take a picture with his camera and then taking a picture of himself. I actually did get up and take guy-1’s picture the correct way. It was pretty funny.
The last stop of our first day was The Louvre. I believe this place to be the most confusing museum in the world! I’m so glad that Brad had been here before and that he’s good with directions because I probably would have turned into a Missing Person and never found my way out. In our guide book it said to visit either in the mornings or evenings when it is less crowded, and lucky for us, Wednesdays evenings are even better because admission is reduced and the museum is open later. It was definitely less crowded. The popular pieces were still surrounded by a mob of people, but the rest of the museum was pretty low-flow. So we did a very quick tour of the museum hitting the popular pieces. I didn’t want to spend an enormous amount of time here, mainly because there’s so much to do in Paris and I wanted to get a broad view of the City rather than hole up in a museum. Next time I would dedicate more time, but for a quick trip to Paris our 2 or 3 hours in the museum was sufficient. We saw a lot of other things while walking to the popular pieces…but just at a glance. Of the most popular pieces we saw: Colossal Statue of Ramesses II, Aphrodite “Venus de Milo,” Napoleon III Apartments, The Winged Victory, Mona Lisa, The Wedding Feast, The Lacemaker, The Turkish Bath, and finally Gabrielle D’Estrees and Her Sister, which is where you finally get to see Brad’s distasteful picture. Are you ready? Some of you may need to shield your eyes…
Some of the pictures were fuzzy, but with no flash we did what we could. And I’m not able to hold still for very long, Brad is much better at holding still. And with that we will end the first full day in Paris. I will do a separate post with the last two days in Paris later. I have too much to do today. So I hope you enjoyed this post and that it will tide you over until next time!
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