We seem to have walked all over Paris this week. Our mooring in the Port of Paris Arsenal at the start of the Canal St Martin is just off the River Seine just 15 minutes from Notre Dame and well placed to walk to most of central Paris.
On Monday we headed down to Notre Dame and wandered through the cathedral with the other 1 million tourists.
Click went the flashes, click click click
No-one stops to stare any more
Just take a photo and move along the floor.
Everyone is looking but nobody sees
Would you mind moving away
So we can take a picture please?
We got out of Notre Dame in a hurry and went around to the back where we found a relatively uninhabited garden where we stopped in the warm sunshine for a while.
Then we wandered down narrow side streets to the end of the Ile de la Cite and queued up to be searched before going into Sainte Chapelle a beautiful chapel in the middle of the Ministry of Justice (hence the security). The stained glass windows were 50 ft high and almost all of the walls were made from these stained glass windows. The light shone through and created magical patterns of light.
Then around the corner we entered the Conciergerie, an old prison dating from the French Revolution and where prisoners were held before their trials. We saw where Marie Antoinette was held before being dragged off to the Place de la Concorde to be executed. Originally it was the oldest royal palace in Paris dating back almost 1600 years, but alas converted to a prison as only the French can do.
We crossed over the bridge to the right bank of the Seine and walked back along Rue de Rivoli and all the smart shops, past the town hall - the Hotel de Ville and along the Rue St Antoine to the Place de la Bastille where we dropped down to the Arsenal Port and home. In the evening we went out to a local restaurant with friends Joyce and Charles from England. It was a lovely little restaurant. Small and everything a good French restaurant should be with a simple but well priced fixed menu and affordable wine by the jug. Our three course meal with wine cost NZ$45 each.
The next day we crossed over the Seine directly opposite where we are and wandered around Jardin des Plantes which is the botanical gardens and zoo and natural history museum of Paris all in one. Founded by Count Buffon in 1640 the gardens had a rather uncared for disposition unlike what you would find in Britain or NZ. We then wandered as our fancy took us around the left bank of the Seine. Past ancient Roman arenas, through the oldest street in Paris Rue Mouffetard and by streets unknown to tourists at last to the Pantheon, one of the great buildings of Paris. We could see in from the entrance but decided not to invest the 9 euros each that it would cost to admire the myriad tourists clicking at everything. Instead we wandered down to the Jardins de Luxembourg in which lovely gardens the French Senate is housed.
This sort of scene is repeated all over Paris. Around every corner there is a new park, a new palace, a new grand church or fountains or statues. Many of the ancient buildings are now just used as museums having been ‘desecrated' during the French Revolution. We were very tired by then having wandered for about 10 km, so we headed back slowly past the art shops of the left bank and past the book sellers along the banks of the Seine until we arrived back home, tired but overwhelmed with the sheer beauty of Paris.
We had to do it! We didn’t want to do it but we knew we had to do it. So early on Wednesday we caught the Metro to the Champs des Mars and took part in the “Is this your gold ring lying on the ground?” scam before the scammer decided we weren’t going to reciprocate his joy in the discovery. Then we paid our 13 euros each and got into the lift. No waiting at all which was very strange as we had been told we could wait for hours. But when we got to the top the view was magnificent. At 324 metres high we could see the world from the Eiffel Tower. 110 years old and a marvel of construction.
The top level can hold 800 people though I wouldn’t like to be one of them. The wind was blowing strongly up top with a cold Northerly. Neither of us had been to the top before but I guess it just one of those things you have to do. Even as we walked away along the Seine it looked imposing.
We headed past Les Invalides the last resting place of Emperor Napoleon and into the Rodin Museum, which is both indoors and outdoors. We were confronted just inside by his masterpiece The Thinker and we wandered through the beautiful gardens before heading inside.
Most of his important works are on exhibit inside like the Gates of Hells and the Burghers of Calais. Not all of the sculptures are in bronze. The famous ‘The Kiss’ is in beautiful creamy marble.
A very impressive museum and only one of two that we made it to this week as The Louvre was not something we wanted to face with 10,000 clicking tourists who only wanted photographs and not culture.
On Thursday we took it a bit easier and caught the tube to the Tuilleries, the former gardens of the Royal Palace of the Louvre. We headed for the Orangerie museum where Monet’s Water Lillies are held as well as other impressionist paintings. The Water Lilly paintings are huge with each taking up a whole wall . There were lovely Renoirs, Picassos and Utrillos. In the evening we took a cruise that left 50 metres away from us in the Arsenal Port along the Seine to see the lights at night. It left at 9pm while still light and returned at 11pm as the last light had faded away. The Eiffel tower was beautifully illuminated as were many of the bridges.
Yesterday we walked the Champs Elysee from the Arc de Triomphe to the Place de la Concorde.
Past all the fancy Cartiers, Versaces, and car show rooms. Past the Elysee Palace where Monsieur Le President lives with his hundreds of armed guards. Then in the afternoon we walked from the port to the most famous cemetery and oldest in Paris called Pere Lachaise. There we paid homage at the grave of Jim Morrison, lead singer of The Doors, who died suddenly in Paris at the age of 29. The cemetery was also the final resting place of Edith Piaf and Oscar Wilde.
The weather has not been too good today, so we have just been up to the local market and bought some lovely seafood, duck and fresh vegetables and Wendy has made a Duck Stew in our slow cooker and whipped up a Ratatouille with other lovely vegetables.
We leave Paris a few days earlier than we planned this week and head up the River Seine to St Mammes where we will turn right onto the Canal de Loing and thence Burgundy.
