If you've never seen Anastasia and the scene where she goes to Paris... a. you should because it's great and I've posted it here and b. it's exactly what I've always envisioned when dreaming about Paris.
Day 1: I joyfully sprang out of bed at 3:45 am to get up/get ready and take my taxi to the airport. Luckily my driver had great taste in music so I was pumped for the day. My flights took me from Wien to Zürich, Switzerland to Paris. I boarded the plane outside as the sun was rising and it was a gorgeous start to the trip. Swiss airlines was fantastic: muffins, croissants, and videos of public pranks on the rides there.
I stayed with my friend Lin who just graduated from Ithaca and is now studying music performance at the University in Paris! She lives at the international campus which is really cool. Unfortunately as soon as we came out of the metro station it started pouring (I always bring rain...it's a Pittsburgh thing) so we took cover in a nice little cafe, had lunch, and watched the french. As soon as it stopped, we immediately got to sight seeing and went to Notre Dame first. It was amazing and much bigger than I thought it would be, especially on the inside. The detail and stained glass windows were just stunning. 
Unfortunately we couldn't spend more time there and I was slightly disappointed to not see any hunchbacks. But we then headed through the city toward the Louvre! On the way we saw some absurdly enormous government buildings, two french police officers posed and made faces while I took pictures and then continued to stand there quite seriously. Next was the bridge of love and the Louvre. This bridge thing is popular now all over the world where you go with your spouse/significant other and put a lock on the bridge with your names engraved on it to symbolize your everlasting love. Pretty cute and this bridge was totally covered with locks as you can see.
There's no better way to act like a European than dining like one! So after walking through the city a bit and seeing the sights, we went out for my first authentic French dinner. And like a true frenchman, I ate snails with wine whilst wearing a beret and a fancy scarf. And mmm it was delicious! I was a little hesitant about trying escargo but had to do it. I was even more hesitant when it came out looking just like snails with green sauce coming out. yuck. but luckily it smelled delicious and to my delight tasted fantastic!  |
| They were also quite slippery and difficult to eat. You get a special set of tongs for them and have to dig out the 'meat' inside. Revolting but it was worth it! |
Day 2: The Louvre, L'Arc de Triomphe, Champs Elysees, fantastic fancy french dinner #2
Lin had some stuff to do so I headed to the Louvre on my own (again quite proud of my independent traveling skills. go me.)
I was absolutely blown away and hope to go back some day. I couldn't believe how monstrous it was in size I mean you have to physically turn almost in a full circle to be able to look at it from one end to the other. Walking through every room in it would probably take a few days. The museums inside were incredible but in 3 hours I only saw a tiny tiny portion of the artwork.
Some of my favorite things were the french sculptures- absolutely stunning, ancient egyptian, iranian, and middle eastern exhibits: really cool stuff like real hieroglyphics and documents from ancient egyptians, ancient greek pottery and houseware, real crowns from some coronation ceremonies, and of course thee Mona Lisa.
Ancient greek pottery. Fascinating art and I definitely sang Hercules to myself throughout the entire exhibit.
This wasn't a typical sculpture, but more of a 3-d painting. It was hung on the wall and the sculptures stuck out from the flat surface to create the scene. Really really cool.And below, the crowns! Sparkling, bejeweled, and saweet! I think the small one would look pretty funny on a real king but the crystals or diamonds totally made up for size. And the red one's jewels actually looked fake like they were from Pretty Pretty Princess when you looked at it closely. (maybe that's why the french kings were so sissy)
Of course, no trip to France is complete without CREPES. Oh so many crepes! Crepe stands are everywhere in France and I was ecstatic to discover that nutella crepes are the normal way to go. I have to say, the french know whats up. This one here is a nutella and banana crepe with whipped cream piled on top. (also known as heaven on earth)
After digesting that crepe (I still drool when I think of it), we hiked for ages down the Champs Elysees to the L'Arc de Triomphe! It took way longer than I thought but it's pretty neat and a straight shot from the Louvre. The Champs Elysees had some wonderful stores including Tiffany's and The original Louis Vuitton complete with gold dinosaurs in the windows holding purses. No idea what that's all about..
And then, my first real view of the Eiffel Tower! I couldn't wait to see it and it was just as exciting as I had hoped.
After all of this excitement it was time for a well deserved nap and another fancy french dinner. This time, we went to a little town called Monmartre where there is a beautiful church, Sacre Coeur. It's a really great area at night with little cafe's and restaurants all light up.
Day 3: THE PALACE OF VERSAILLES
We meant to spend an afternoon there but instead stayed for 8 hours! Versailles was absolutely incredible. It's not quite as big as the Louvre but holy cow this is probably one of the fanciest palaces ever built. A grand total of 4,000 people used to live in the palace!! Yes that is a true fact. This number made up the royal family and the servants. Can you imagine 4,000 people living at your house? And most of them are your servants? If I were King Louis, I totally would have ordered all of my servants to play a capture the flag every day. Luckily it's so enormous that I don't think it would be crowded one bit.
Flaky bread with ratatouille and shrimp on top with a side salad (before the ravaging)
The 'public' eating room. Here the King and Queen used to eat in front of people. Not sure why it was such an event to watch them eat but I'm sure it was grand if it required a special room. I have to say that is one thing I probably wouldn't like about being a Queen. I wouldn't want to watch me eat either!
The famous Hall of Mirrors. I've seen this many times in history textbooks but it was absolutely phenomenal to walk through it in real life! I thought about counting the number of chandeliers in there but after I saw more on the floor lining the walls I realized I would be there for a while. I couldn't imagine how cool it would be to walk through alone when tourists aren't there.
And my favorite part, the grounds. I couldn't tell you how many acres but you couldn't walk through them in a day. The central part of the grounds consists of gigantic ponds, fountains and large water strips that are big enough to have a dock and paddle boats. In the below picture the big strip of water does look pretty big but there's an even bigger strip that wraps around to the right. I'd have to be in a helicopter to photograph it all in one picture.
Seeing as the king had four thousand people living in his palace it only makes sense that he built another two palaces on the grounds! One for Marie Antoinette and one for special guests. Below is the Grand Trianon which was built for the lucky guests. Pink marble, it's own set of gardens, and color themed rooms. It was adorable and all of the furniture was hand stitched with beautiful flower patterns and such.
For my last French dinner, we went Funky. There's a bar/restaurant called Ave Maria that is located in the young/hip part of town. It's one of Lin's favorite places and now one of mine too. It's one of those fun hodge-podge type places with crazy lights, pinatas, random posters on the walls, and a really fun atmosphere. The food of course was also incredible and I had no shame finishing my giant dinner bowl while the two women sitting next two us couldn't even finish sharing one.
Day 4: My last day and finally The Eiffel Tower!
Luckily, on the ride there, there were accordion players singing "What a wonderful world" and other great hits. It was too perfect. When I finally saw the great thigh bone (I believe it was modeled after the thigh bone) up close, I let out a little gasp and was blown away. It was a gorgeous day and since we clearly hadn't walked enough over the last 3 days while exploring the entire city, we decided to take the stairs. Unfortunately the line was insanely long for the ride to go up to the tippy top so we sucked it up, started singing "Be a Man" from Mulan, and hiked up 360 something steps to the first tier. But that wasn't enough for me so I went up to the second tier for a grand total of 669 steps!
I think the views speak for themselves. It was such a fun experience!
That definitely deserved a nice big coffee ice cream as we strolled through the park (top left picture)
Last stop: Sacre Couer once more
Lin took me back to the Montmartre where we had dinner the second night to see the town during the day. I'm so glad she did because it was the perfect way to end my trip to France. The gothic church (although located on top of more steps...) is another beauty and Montmartre is by far the most lovely town I've seen with the winding cobble stone streets, little pastry shops everywhere, beautiful scenery, little fountains in between the trees, street musicians performing, and artists selling their work. There were lots of people around and I felt wonderfully french as I had my chocolate eclaire and enjoyed the perfect day.
Fin
And so concludes my trip to Paris! It was a fantastic experience that I'll never forget and I'm so glad it was everything I hoped it would be and more! Now back to those ugly German accents...
Did you get to practice your rusty French?
ReplyDeleteIt is really funny to see the same pics I took! I will take credit for making you not look like a tourist since I bought you that beret :)
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