calling from some city...

Today was perhaps our busiest day of continuous sightseeing. We’ve had days that have been just as long, but I don’t remember seeing as many sites in one day as we did today. Anyways, the morning started as it usually does: Scott waking me up at 9 am so we could get breakfast at the hostel before departing for the day. We ate our free cereal and croissants (with the nutella we bring down to breakfast every morning…we’re such fat kids) and then got ready. Armed with our passes in our hands, we were excited for the last full day in Paris. Sadly, it was Sara’s last day on the trip, as she departs early afternoon tomorrow.

Anyways, our first stop was the Army Museum and Napoleon’s Tomb, which is located at Des Invalides, where we had walked by on our first day in Paris. I was really excited for this museum, and my expectations were even surpassed. One fantastic thing about the museum was that is wasn’t that crowded, which is a huge change from our experiences at the Louvre, Pompidou, and Versailles. It’s nice being able to look at the exhibit without getting pushed and elbowed from behind from a huge swarm of Asian tourists (Note: For some reason, I have only really seen Asians tourists in huge packs of people. They are always in huge tour groups, so they’re always packed in front of the important sites, and refuse to move to let you see the object of interest or take a picture. Other tourists are generally much less pushy. I feel I’ve been on this trip long enough to make such generalizations). The museum began with medieval army paraphernalia, such as suits of armor, swords, guns, and cannons. Scott was in a very silly moody today, and Sara loves taking funny pictures, so soon the three of us were posing along with the suits of armor and galloping horses, and sticking our heads into the cannons. The paraphernalia was incredibly interesting as well. 

The museum also featured an extensive exhibit devoted to World War I and II that included anything you could think of: posters, uniforms, tanks, guns, rucksacks and their contents, paintings, and video. I love the history of the world wars so seeing some of the stuff on display was fascinating for me. I just wish more of the descriptions were in English because it would have been interesting to see how French explanations of the events from the world wars may differ from how I’ve learned it in America. There was also a small exhibit on Jewish concentration camps in France, and about the liberation of those camps after the war. That was definitely a very moving part of the museum. 

After the museum, we went to the dome to see Napoleon’s tomb. It’s absolutely massive- I can’t even describe how big it is. The altar above the tomb dedicated to him is really awesome as well because it’s very ornately decorated with a lot of gold. The whole church itself the tomb is located in is very pretty with many ceiling and wall paintings. I really loved the visit to the museum and tomb; it may have been my favorite sight of the entire trip to Paris.

After the army museum, Sara and I headed off to the D’Orsay Museum and Scott went on a tour of the Paris sewage system because he had already been to that museum with his family. I’m not sure why spending some time wandering around a sewer system was appealing to him rather than spend his time in the company of 2 beautiful and witty girls, but he’s a weird one. So Sara and I went off to the museum, which was fantastic. It used to be an old train station, but train stations back in the day were much more grand looking and beautiful. The clock in particular looked straight out of the 1800’s and was really cool. The museum is mainly an impressionist museum, and while I normally do not like paintings, I really like impressionist art. I like that the paintings use a lot of colors that blend together. Many of the paintings were of landscapes or everyday scenes. Overall, they are more interesting to look at than portraits of people or religious art, which is what we have seen for the most part on this trip. This type of art is what I could see myself putting on the walls of my own house. We saw a lot of work by Manet, Monet, Van Gogh, Sisley, and others. My favorite painter is probably Monet; I loved his work on display. The museum also had a small collection of impressive French sculptures. Again, the French do not get enough credit for being really good at sculpting. The museum also featured some exhibit of furniture, some of which were located in a huge, beautiful grand ballroom. The only downside to the museum was the upstairs floor was undergoing renovation, so the exhibit was crammed onto the first floor on temporary walls. That made it difficult because it was too crowded. Overall, I really enjoyed the visit and would go back.

After the museum Sara got lunch and I got desert (I had packed a sandwich) and we went to Luxembourg Gardens again. Today was finally a beautiful day in Paris, and the Gardens were spectacular- the grass was bright green and perfectly manicured, the flowers were colorful and blooming, and there were people everywhere just hanging out, tanning, and reading. It was great to see down, chat, and people watch with Sara for about an hour with the sun shining down on our faces. 

It was time to meet up with Scott at the Pantheon, where we spent the next 30 or so minutes exploring. The Pantheon is not as impressive as the one in Rome, but still very cool because it houses Foucault’s pendulum in the center of the building. In the basement, there is a crypt where many of France’s most famous and influential citizens lie. For example, I saw the tombs of Marie Curie, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Victor Hugo. Very cool stuff. 

It was about 6 at this point and we wanted to do some shopping- so naturally, we headed to the famous boulevard, Champs-Elysees Avenue. Once upon a time, this was the place for French designer and car sellers to own stores. Now, it’s overrun with chains and tourist traps. Still, it was still a trip we had to make. There are still many expensive shops that line the avenue, including the largest Louis Vitton flagship store in the world. The building was huge and there was a very long line to get in because the store assigns a sales associate for every customer that walks in the door. Thus, people have to wait for the next available sales person before they can go in to shop. I was extremely excited because there was a GAP! It’s the largest Gap in the continental US. There were a lot of cute things, and it was just funny to be in a Gap on my Eurotrip. I had to buy something of course- just a navy t-shirt that says “GAP Paris” on it to commemorate the visit. 

After we walked down to the Champs-Elysees we were hungry, and after wandering around a bit aimlessly, we found a reasonably priced place to eat dinner a bit away from the avenue. Paris is really expensive for food, which has been annoying. But we actually decided to eat a meat chain restaurant, and we all decided to embrace the fact we were Americans and order burgers, fries, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, and coke. It was actually a nice change of pace to eat American style food, with American style service (aka: water and bread were included, as were chips, and the cokes were a reasonable size and price). Plus, the food was good.

After dinner it was dark out, so we headed to our last site of Paris: the Arc de Triomphe. It’s a really cool arch, and we climbed to the top so we could get a view of Paris lit up at night. There is definitely a good reason Paris is known as the City of Lights. It was absolutely beautiful looking down at the traffic converging around the arch and seeing the city spread out in front of us. The Eiffel Tower is also lit up spectacularly- that was very cool to look at. As I stood staring at the tower with the wind lightly blowing in my face, I thought it was the perfect end to our stay in Paris. I really loved Paris and need to come back again soon.

 We went back to the hostel to pack up. Scott and I are off to Croatia tomorrow, and Sara heads back home. We will miss her a great deal, but for now I am just excited for the last 10 days of the trip!