MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk

PARIS, DAY 2 AND 3

(If you want to read the Paris trip in order, scroll down to previous entries first.)

On Tuesday, we got up and had the little 3 euro breakfast we'd paid to have every morn at the Garden Hotel. Now, this is a very narrow hotel-- doors are right up next to each other in the hallway, inches apart, and the stairway was the tightest spiral. When we went down to eat breakfast, at first we couldn't find where we should go. The main floor is just a narrow checkout desk with a tiny bathroom and some private workroom in the back. We finally found out we had to go out the front door to the next door down, and there on the corner was the breakfast room, a small sunny room with tables set. After we figured out that a guy would serve us the breakfast, we sat down and he brought us coffee, orange juice, hot milk and chocolate powder, and baguettes with butter and jam. It seemed we could have as much as we wanted. (What, no sausages?)

We headed off for our first destination, one chosen by me because I knew it would be a hit with my science fiction crazy family. It was La Cite de Science and de l'Industrie, a rather new science museum in Paris. It helped that they were also having a Star Wars exhibit there, one of those that travels around to different museums with the costumes and props from the movies, and lots of videos on how the movies were made. We had seen something similar years ago at the Minneapolis Museum of Art, but that was before all the later movies were released. So this was a fun exhibit to see and especially thrilled the kids.

The rest of the museum was pretty good, with exhibits on light, glass from the Roman Empire, space, the human body. Some of the displays were in French only but some had English. We spent several hours looking around.

We wandered outside and found a whole park area, very family friendly with playgrounds and fountains and strange bridges and a carousel. Then it was off to a metro station and our next destination, Montmartre.

Montmartre is an artsy neighborhood of Paris that is on a tall hill. At the top of the hill is the church, Sacre Couer. We climbed the hill, very steep, with lots of rests, stopping to take pics of the view along the way. We went up one very touristy narrow winding street near the summit, and I had to laugh as I saw the "artists" all standing around with their sketchbooks in their hand. I saw at least 20 of them, all men, some already sketching tourists and others looking beseechingly, going through their banter as people pass by. B and I had gotten "caught" in Montmartre on our previous trip by two of the artists. They wanted to sketch us, they implored us/pestered us, we wouldn't have to pay if we didn't like the pictures. So we let them, one sketching me and one sketching B. They were so awful, there is no way we would have paid for those unflattering sketches! And the artists were so mad when we said no and walked away. So, seeing them still here, the same old routine, I had to laugh!

Sacre Couer was lovely, a regular who's who of catholic legend inside, with statues and side altars of so many saints. It's lovely but it's not my favorite church. I didn't like the mosaic tile of the Sacred Heart on a white background above the main altar. I prefer the old magestic stained glass churches.

We walked down the hill from Sacre Couer, starving but I was skittish about going into some restaurant in the touristy area and paying too much. We found a little market where we bought apples and Coke and Fanta, and then after more walking we came to a bakery that sold sandwiches. The kids discovered the French hot dog-- actually, 2 hotdogs shoved into a baguette with melted cheese. We bought our food and then, not seeing any benches or anywhere we could eat, we settled into the doorway of a closed shop and sat down and ate. It was a busy part of town so people were constantly walking by us, barely glancing at the strange Americans. One woman smiled and said "Bon appetit!"

Fortified, we found the nearest metro and went back to the hotel. The kids asked if we could watch V for Vendetta on B's laptop, the only movie he has on there. So we piled onto the beds in the boys room for our evening entertainment.

DAY 3

Today after our baguette breakfast, we were off to the Louvre. Daughter G, herself an artist, always rolls her eyes about going to art museums, but I managed to get even her excited to see the famous art at the Louvre. DH and I had been here on our previous trip, and we'd also recently seen The Davinci Code, so it was fun to see the glass pyramid in the courtyard again. We had bought museum passes, which allow you to enter certain museums and sights without having to buy a ticket and you often get to pass up the line to get in. So we went to our special entrance and walked right into the Louvre without waiting, very nice.

Of course it was crowded, packed with people as I'm sure it alway is. We headed for the wing that had paintings by Italian masters. Everywhere you look in the Louvre, for the hours you spend there, all you see is fabulous art, the hours/day/years of effort of artists over the ages. It is truly amazing, and easy to get overloaded and tired, so that after awhile you barely glance at beautifully crafted, centuries old art.

We of course saw the famous pieces-- the Mona Lisa, which everyone always says is so much smaller than they thought it would be. I have seen it before, but for some reason this time it appeared larger to me than I remember! I love her eyes, how she seems to glow from the canvas, and the details of the background. We saw Winged Victory of Samothrace, placed stunningly at the top of a long marble staircase, as if she is about to fly away. We saw a bust by Michael Angelo, and Venus de Milo. Her pearly skin is so luminous, the folds in her wrap so life-like, and I just found myself wondering about the artist who created her over 2,000 years ago-- what skill for that time period, how much more modern she appears than what you think of as B.C. art. We also made a special point to look at the wing for the Dutch masters-- we really wanted to see the Vermeer paintings. The Lacemaker was awesome, a tiny painting with exquisite detail and the colors so alive. Next to it is The Astronomore, another richly elaboarate painting. I fell in love with Vermeer after reading Tacy Chevalier's Girl with a Pearl Earring years ago. (I'm trying to learn how to add links to my blog, so hopefully this will work!)

Our feet were weary after several hours of the slow museum shuffle. we wandered outside, finding a small carnival near The Louvre in the Garden of the Tuilleries. D was very excited-- he had suffered the whole museum thing-- who cares if it is the most famous museum in the world?-- and now he could go on some rides! So we hung out at the carnival for awhile, eating ice cream and letting the kids roam. People were sailing large toy sailboats in the garden fountain.

After this, we headed over to Les Halles, an underground shopping mall that B and I had discovered on our last trip to Paris. We had walked around this courtyard many times before discovering that a whole mall was built three stories down. The kids wanted to have some shopping time, so we stopped there. We let the kids go off on their own while B and I took turns waiting at our meeting place on an outdoor terrace and walking around the mall. To me it was utterly boring, just a lot of clothing stores and some houseware stores, but G ended up forgetting the time and went on a shopping spree, buying clothes and not returning for 2 hours. By this time we had combed the very large mall for her and not seen her, and as shops were closing at 7:30 pm she showed up, after I'd already had visions of talking to French police about my daughter being kidnapped. Huge sigh!

We had planned to try and see Notre Dame that afternoon, but since the shopping trip took too long, we went back to the hotel, eating once again at the very convenient Chinese restaurant.

Posted by sapphire at August 21, 2006 01:02 PM