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Paris – Day 2
By Laurie | October 13, 2011
If you know me I love to sleep. Anytime and anywhere. It’s only fair since I normally get up at 5:00 AM every morning to drive to work. While in Paris my body naturally woke up at 5:00 AM local time, so I’d lay in bed and greet the Eiffel Tower each morning and nudge Dave to let him know that in fact it was still there and that yes… we were actually in Paris. This also worked out perfectly because I was able to hop in the shower and start getting ready while he slept in. I really felt like a Parisian in the Rue Cler neighborhood. There are lots of little shops, bakeries and grocery stores a few steps out the door of our hotel. We began a ritual of going to the local ATM to get cash for the day and then picking up a quiche at a nearby shop to nibble on during our walk to the Metro.
We decided to tackle the Louvre on our second day. My research told me that there were two important things to do to avoid crowds when going to the Louvre. #1: Buy a museum pass somewhere other than this museum and #2: Do not attempt to enter via the Pyramid entrance because the lines are long. Instead underground entry via the Carrousel Mall entrance right off of the Metro is the best secret for “those in the know”.
Naturally we ended up taking neither of those pieces of advice. We accidentally got off on the wrong Metro stop (my fault), but decided to exit to the street anyway instead of going back. Once outside, we didn’t see the Louvre and had no idea where we were. We thought, well we’re in Paris… and there’s suppose to be a pyramid… so it will present itself. We wandered around Rue de Rivoli (which we nicknamed Rue de Ravioli… so original, I know), sat down on a bench in front of an old church and tried to see if we could see it in the distance, and eventually moved on to a cafe and tried to pull up a Google map. It ended up being the relatively plain looking building we had been staring at across the street from the church.
We learned an important lesson that became even more apparent the longer we spent in Paris and London: they don’t really believe in signs pointing tourists in the right direction. We finally stumbled across the pyramid entrance, which was very cool looking. I’m kind of glad that we ended up getting to see it, take photos, and enter through it even if we had to stand in line for a few minutes. We were still pretty early, so the crowds were not as bad as they could have been.
Once inside, we still had to purchase our museum passes, but as previously mentioned there were no signs to point us in the direction of where to do this. We awkwardly walked around, asking the regular ticketing window and information booth and essentially were told to check “over there on the right.” Once we finally found what ended up being a little office where there was not another soul present, we forked out €100 for our passes. The Paris Museum Pass gave us 4 days of unlimited entry into a particular list of the city’s sites and museums.
| We sat down in the Starbucks across the way to fill out the passes. We decided our strategy would be to make a beeline for probably the museum’s most popular resident: The Mona Lisa.
Clearly that was the strategy of every other person there too. On the plus side, there were signs (for once) pointing us in the direction. We followed the crowds and found ourselves in front of the very small painting (about the size of a place mat), covered in Plexiglas, and surrounded by hundreds of other tourists all vying to take a picture of it. When in Rome I thought… so I jumped in the mosh pit that was the “line” to see/photograph the painting. Unfortunately you had to be quite aggressive, but eventually I made it to the front. |
With that task checked off the mental must-do/experience list, we wandered around and looked at the paintings in the surrounding rooms. We admired some statues including a room of Caesars and of course Winged Victory. Everything in the Louvre was labeled in French, so honestly that lessened the enjoyment for me since I had to piece together what each one said in fragments. It was pretty exhausting and several hours had already passed so we decided to try to find some lunch.
My “dream idea” was to enjoy a picnic in the nearby park, but we strolled through the mall connected to the Louvre and eventually found the food court. Out of curiosity we wandered over to the “McDo” to check out the menu and see if there were any differences. Embarrassingly enough we actually ended up ordering. Le sigh. In my defense, I did order a sandwich that we do not have in the United States. On the other hand, I was sitting in Paris eating lunch at McDonald’s. Oy.
After lunch we decided to head back over to the Louvre where we took on the Egyptian Antiquities area as well as the Medieval Louvre which features the remains of the moat and keep of the original fortress. Both were interesting and took some time to go through, but afterward we decided we’d had enough culture for one day and headed back to the Metro and our hotel for a nap.
When we woke up we changed and got ready for dinner and an evening out. We truly had no “plan” and decided to head over to the Moulin Rouge and Montmartre area to take photos and walk around. We exited the Metro and there it was– the famous windmill! It was another wow moment for me, given how many times I have seen the movie and imagined what it would look like in person. I immediately wished we had gotten tickets to a show there, but I had read that it was a tourist trap and not worth the money.
We wandered down the street observing the interesting crowd of people and started reading menus of the cafes on the street. One of the waiters greeted us in English at Cafe de Luna, so we allowed them to seat us on the street and we continued to people watch. We ordered wine, escargot, salmon, duck, and creme brulee. I thought everything was fantastic, and was the most French thing we had done since we landed. It was a little pricey, but was probably one of our more memorable meals of the entire trip. The French take their time with meals, especially dinner. We literally sat there for more than 2 hours, not necessarily by our choice… but that’s what you do in Paris, so we did it! We watched other American couples get upset about the wait time and slow service, but not us. We were an easy-going French couple for the day!
It was dark by the time our meal was finally over, and the Moulin Rouge was all lit up as we headed back up the street the way we came. Again, magical! More photos! More regret at not taking in a show!
We continued on and up the street to the funicular (a cable car that ascends up the mountain to the Sacre-Coeur). The views were amazing, and I was especially surprised to discover that this was quite the place to hang out in Paris. There were people everywhere sitting on the steps listening to what we think was a soccer game on the radio and generally just enjoying the night and the view together. It was an especially cool moment. We took a few photos, looked around, and headed for the souvenir shop. It was after 11:00 PM, and we had already had a really long day.
We walked down the massive set of stairs in the dark and made our way down the street through the shops toward the metro picking up a nutella crepe to share from one of the vendors. Another perfect ending to another perfect (and tiring day).
To be continued…
Topics: Paris | 7 Comments »
It sounds and looks like you had a blast. I am so happy you were able to go!
Posted by: StaceyOMG! This is awesome and torture all in one! Awesome because your storytelling is magnificent and torture because I can’t wait for the next entry!!!
Posted by: JillYou are killing me with the food pictures!
Lucky, lucky girl.
Posted by: MegsSo fun.
Posted by: Bobbi Janay@Megs – That wasn’t even all of the food pictures! Everything we ate was amazing and while I felt a little silly taking photos of the food, it is fun to look back at them and remember!
Posted by: Laurie@Jill – Thank you! I wish I have been getting them up quicker before I forget anything. It takes awhile to go through and resize pictures and write up the play-by-play, but Day 3 is finally up!
Posted by: Laurie@Stacey – Me too! I honestly cannot wait to go back and see and do all the things we missed. It was amazing. You would have loved Disneyland!
Posted by: Laurie