Decorated Bridge Over Seine River
Eiffel Tower
Hotel De Ville - Paris City Hall
We arrived in Paris at 7:00am after a 3-hour flight from Denver to Washington, a two-hour layover, and a 5-hour flight from Washington to Paris. Consequently this first day we were walking zombies, although we didn't let this stop us from getting out to begin discovering Paris. After getting the gear stored at the hotel, we decided to get an overview of the town by waking about a bit. We also took a late afternoon Boat tour of the city to get an overview of what is where. We discovered that Paris is amazingly full of monuments, cathedrals, and museums. Below are some pictures from the sites we visited.
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Decorated Bridge Over Seine River |
Eiffel Tower |
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Hotel De Ville - Paris City Hall |
So far Dorothy's study of French has suited us well. We haven't encountered any problems, even though the challenge of ordering dinner leaves us feeling like we should have prepared more.
We spent the first part of Friday battling jet lag. We both woke up about at 2:00am, and couldn't get back to sleep. When we did get back to sleep, we ended up sleeping the morning away by sleeping until 11:30am. Since the day was a bit abbreviated, we spent the day getting to know the Metro - Paris's subway system. We found it amazingly simple to get around on, and much better than walking everywhere we want to go. We visited the Eiffel Tower, and then exercised out Metro skills by visiting the grounds of the Louvre museum and the Arch De Triomphe.
Dorothy at Eiffel Tower |
Dorothy at Lourver |
Dorothy at Statue Near Louver |
This morning we got up at a reasonable time and headed out to visit the Louvre. The Louvre is the biggest museum that I've ever seen. The building itself is about 4 Denver city blocks long and is separated into 3 major wings. The building itself is a work of art, and the grounds are fantastically decorated in beautiful flower gardens. Inside the best word to describe the Louvre is overwhelming. We heard that if you spent 3 seconds on every display in the Louvre it would take you 3 months to see everything. Consequently we took a very deliberate approach to our visit. We started by getting a visitors guide, printed in English, and planned our route of attack to see all of the items that we felt were important. Following this game plan, we actually managed to see everything we wanted to see, and visit every wing of every floor except a couple of areas that were closed for the day.
Dorothy and Greek Sculpture |
Italian Renisance Painting |
Wedding Feast at Cana |
Sculpture Galery at Louver |
After the Louvre, we jumped back on the Metro and headed through a light rain to Saint Chapelle. Saint Chapelle is a very old cathedral that has exquisite stained glass windows that tell the story of each book of the bible.
Saint Chapelle Stained Glass Windows |
We are also finding that the area that we are staying in is known as the Latin Quarter. This name comes from the fact that this is where all old universities, and books stores started out - where of courses everything was taught in Latin. This area is full of wonderful little restaurants and cafes. We are also very close to a Metro station and an old palace called the Luxembourg Palace, which has a very large statue garden.
Today we seem to be nearly fully adjusted to the new time zone, even though it stays light until 9:30pm since we as far south as Vancouver Canada. This means that dinner starts 8-9pm and that the city is still lively late into the night. On this new schedule, we got out and covered a lot of ground. Today we toured the towers of Notre Dame, visited the Montmartre area of Paris and the basilica of Sacre Coeur that sits on top of Paris's tallest hill, and finished the day at Musee D'Orsay seeing the impressionist paintings.
Front of Notre Dame |
Notre Dame Gargoil - also found in DIA's bagage area |
Familiar Impressionist Painting |
Bacillica of Sacre Coeur |
As you can see from these pictures, the weather here is very nice although it is partly cloudy at times. The temperature is somewhere in the mid 70's, although we did get soaked by one rainstorm in the afternoon. I was very surprised that given Paris's latitude (father north than any of the 48 continuous states) that the rain was not nearly as cold as the high altitude rain in Denver.
After 4 days of wandering around the big city, we decided to take the train out to see on of the large chateau's surrounding Paris. We used the laptop and the internet to navigate the SNCF (French rail system) web site. There we found an English version of their traveler's guides, as well as a comprehensive scheduling system. With our slow French skills this was a god sent. It helped us determine exactly which train we needed to get where without cloging up a line while we tested dororthy's French skills and the patients of the folks in line behind us.
We started out explorations of the areas surronding Paris with Chateau Fontainbleau. Chateau Fontainbleau is an enormous palace where several of the French royalty lived through history. The buildings at Fontainblue were the residences of the king and queen of France for many generations so everything is ornately decorated with gold gilding, ornate tapestries, and elaborate paintings on the ceilings. One interesting portion was the tour of the royal apartments. This area of the building included the kings bedroom, the kings sitting room, the kings receiving room, the kings office, and so on for both the king and the queen. The impressive Dianna library is an ornate hall covered with ceiling paintings and lined with books that is 80x7 meters (240x 21 feet) served as the queen's library. Of course there was also an elaborate chapel area that again was filled with paintings and elaborate decorations.
Equally impressive are the grounds at Fontainbleau. The main grounds are set in an area is about 3 times the size of Washington park in Denver, which is covered with fountains, gardens and a giant reflecting pool the size of the one at the Washington monument.
Fontain Bleau |
This one is for the dog lovers. It is a sculpture for the Governess Of The Dogs at Fontainbleau. |
Again we decided to venture out of the city to explore the areas just outside of Paris. We used the English version of the SNCF internet site to figure out how to get to Chartres and Versailles, which would have been a challenge in French, even with Dorothy's study of the language. In the morning we took the SNCF train to Chartres, which has a large cathedral. The cathedral at Chartres has two memorable apects. First are the mixed architectural styles of its towers. One of the two towers was done in the Byzantine style, te other is done in the Romanesque style. The second is that it houses the Veil of Marry, which is a very important Christian artifact. The Cathedral is also known for the unique color of blue stained glass that is known as "Chartre Blue".
Cathedral at Chartres |
West Rose Window at Chartres |
Mary's Veil at Chartres |
Small Alter at Chartres |
After visiting Chartres, we got back on the SNCF train and headed back to Versailles. The Chateau at Versailles was the "summer home" for most of the kings and queens of France. It's opulence and spectacular gardens make me understand why the French people revolted and purged the royalty. This place is huge enough that pictures from my camera just can't do it justice. I wandered around in awe but every time I took out my camera, it just couldn't capture the full scope of the landscape. You could really spend a few days with a bicycle, and a packed lunch exploring the parks at Versailles - and that's without visiting the museum.
Versailles Waterway |
One of Versailles Many Flower Gardens |
With our success at using the SNCF trains and Internet site, we decided that a day trip to the Champaign region wouldn't be too hard. So once again, we caught the metro to the train station and headed out for a day in the country. This time we decided to go at a slower pace and simply visit our favorite the Moet & Chandon Champaign vinery before returning for our last night in Paris. We wanted to visit Moet & Chandon because their offspring winery in the US, Domain Chandon is one of our favorite paces to visit in the Napa Valley. We definitely weren't disappointed in this excursion. Eperney is a very nice little city about 60 miles east of Paris. It is the home of the monastery where Dom Perignon invented Champaign. The Moet & Chandon winery is a family run business that has been making Champaign in Eperney since 1743. At this time they also own and operate the Dom Perignon brand of premium Champaign from this same winery. We took a tour of their cellars, which were carved, out of the chalky ground in the early 1800's. These cellars currently boast a stock of 96 million bottles of Champaign, which represents a 3- year supply to their worldwide market. I was extremely impressed by the fact that this company went international in 1760's and has survived wars, occupations, and great economic shifts, yet is still a leader in their worldwide market.
Dom Perignon Statue |
Vault In Moet & Chandon Cellars |
Dorothy Enjoys Champaign |
Our last hours in Paris were spent relaxing at a cafe, after packing and making arrangements to travel to Beaune via the train. The thing that still worries me is how are we going to get all this stuff to Beaune. The bike and our luggage is manageable, but with the addition of the trailer, which is packed in a giant duffle bag, it pushes us over the limit of what is easily manageable by two people. I'm sure we'll do fine again just like we did in the Paris airport, but it still worries me.
Paris is an amazing city set in an amazing part of the world. The city itself is so full of new things to discover that you could spend several visits just beginning to see all of its many facets. Dorothy and I scratched the surface of its monuments this trip, but there are many more that we didn't get to, and many facets of the city we have yet to discover. Dorothy and I spent years, with flight benefits, getting to know San Francisco, yet I think it is a very small simple place compared to Paris. The history of Paris is much more robust, and it's culture, and monuments invite years of study. For young adults, visiting Paris could open their eyes to new facets of the world that are simply not offered in America. I am sure that Dorothy and I have just started learning about Paris in what I am sure is only the first of many visits we will make to this magnificent city.