Vikki's Voyages: Paris, je t'aime

I do. I really, really do. Paris has long been one of my favourite places, and revisiting it for a few days didn't do anything to diminish my love for the city. It might also have had something to do with mostly being left alone by locals, being able to fully speak the language, and never needing to pay someone for toilet paper, too. Getting to and from Paris was a complete nightmare, but I have chosen to interpret that as being indicative of the fact that I should probably never leave Paris again.

After an extremely long day of airports, we got in to Paris at dinner time and set off right away for Montmartre. Dinner was spectacular (at least in part due to the fact that I hadn't really eaten anything in three days, but still), and Montmartre is as beautiful as I remember.

€15, for a huge, delicious plate of food!

Sacred Heart, surrounded by dudes with blankets covered with counterfeit merchandise.

The view from Sacre Coeur.

That was about all we could manage for that night - we'd been up since 3.30! - so it was back to the hotel for us. In the morning, we got up at a semi-normal time (aka not 3.30) and headed out for the day. We stopped by a bakery a block from the hotel to gather delicious sandwiches, then took the metro to the Musee d'Orsay. Which was totally interesting and cool and not boring or weird and kind of freaky at all. Totally.

Okay, one part - a temporary Goya exhibition called l'ange du bizarre - was a little weird and creepy. The rest of it was interesting though, and there were a lot of beautiful paintings I was not allowed to photograph and that have all run together in my mind. I did especially like a few of the Renoirs, though, and there were a lot of sculptures I found quite nice. Also, the whole museum is housed in an old train station, and I loved the way they had converted it, with huge clocks in several places and enormous iron girders everywhere. It was a cool place to visit.

After exhausting the Musee, we wandered off to find a snack (om nom nom macarons) and then head to the Eiffel Tower. Not surprisingly, it's not exactly hard to spot.

Look, there it is!

It's trying to hide, but I found it!

Along the way, we encountered a sporting goods store too good to pass up:

How big was the fish, Jesse?

Soon, though, we were at the tower, and waiting in line to go up. The views from the top are really spectacular, even when it's overcast.

I love that one incongruous skyscraper at the back. Just chilling.

Solo Skyscraper: Hey guys! Wanna hang out?

Downtown Skyscrapers: Seriously, Pierre, what are you doing all the way over there?

After we headed down from the Tower, I kept looking back at it over my shoulder. Here is where I should warn you: I'm kind of obsessed with the Eiffel Tower. It is one of my favourite things in the world, and seeing it makes my whole day. It represents travel and the world and awe to me, and I adore it. All of this goes to say: I took a lot of photos of the Eiffel Tower. Like, of the approximately 100 photos I took in Paris, at least 70 have the Tower in them. Apologies in advance for spamming you with them.

How can you not love it though?

Okay, okay. I'll leave off for now. After the Tower, we had some delicious Vietnamese food for dinner and called it a night. The next day, we headed to the Catacombs, decided the line was too long, and went to Notre Dame instead. It is exactly as I remembered, although there was a mass going on while we were inside so that was cool.

It's big!

Rose window!

The main entrance.

Right on the Seine, too.

Also, there's a statue of Charlemagne out front, and can I just say that Charlemagne and his bros had pretty awesome moustaches? Seriously.

After the Notre Dame, and a walking tour of the area that was quite interesting, we had lunch at a gorgeous little cafe before heading to the Pompidou.

French onion soup! Referred to only as onion soup here. Also it looks kind of greasy in this but was totally not, it was amazing.

This is a painting at the Pompidou. It is a glorious colour, though as far as art goes I'm not sure I get it... I'm not sure I got a lot of what was happening at the Pompidou though. There was a lot of stuff that confused and/or upset me. But there was a room filled with felt that was so delightfully quiet that I wanted to live there forever.

I found the Eiffel Tower again! Also a million cranes.

The next morning, we took another stab at the Catacombs, this time successfully. They were very cool, if quite dark, somewhat creepy, and exceedingly drippy.

Narrow, short passageways in the whole place.

The well used to mix concrete. It's a natural spring, and is evidently quite warm. It's called the foot bath because the water starts very suddenly, and in low light conditions the apprentices would often accidentally walk right into it when they went for water.

One of the passages out.

The ossuary. You're not allowed to use flash here, so not many of my photos turned out, but it was very interesting. The disinterred bones of millions of Parisians have been moved here from deconsecrated cemeteries. The audio guide kept going on about the many romantic flourishes the architects had put into it though... I guess I also don't get romance.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, shopping on the Champs d'Elysee, hanging out at the Arc de Triomphe, and eventually making our way back to the foot of the Eiffel Tower to watch the sun set and the lights come on. It made for a superb end to a great trip to one of my all-time favourite places.