Wandering through Paris

Paris, France

Paris has grown on me. Our apartment is less than charming, particularly the fact that it was advertised as having two full bathrooms when what it really has are two rooms with showers and sinks and then one small closet with a dirty toilet in it. But when you venture out of the apartment, there is a lovely park less than a block away, at least two fabulous boulangeries where we buy the baguettes that, along with a big wheel of brie, have become the mainstay of our diet, and public transportation that can take us to any number of amazing places in about thirty minutes.

Our best days have been those we spent wandering a bit through the neighborhoods of Paris, especially when our walks corresponded with the two sunny days in what has been a mostly damp and cloudy visit. Today was so wet we abandoned our walk through several gardens a little earlier than planned and came home by way of the bakery so we could buy a few treats and, of course, fresh baguettes. Our first real day exploring Paris was last Saturday, even though we had been here for a few days already, that was the day we finally were feeling comfortable and capable of getting around. It was not a warm day, but it wasn't bad and we got ourselves most of the way to Les Invalides by metro and then walked from there to the Eiffel tower, on to the Arc de Triomphe and the down the Champs Elysees before descending again to the depths of the metro and home. By Friday we were pros at Paris and we spent a beautiful sunny day walking around Montmartre, starting with the Sacre Coeur at the top of the hill and then wound our way around and up and down the hill. We found the house where Van Gogh lived in Paris and the Moulin de la Galette that he featured in several paintings. At least that is what my limited research claims. There is a second windmill just down the street from it that looks basically the same, so maybe it was that one Van Gogh was painting? And of course the Moulin Rouge which I assume was never actually a functioning mill. Saturday we walked up and then down the Seine checking out the bridges and listening to the accordion players and dodging aggressive pickpockets. Then we crossed back to the Ile de Cite and saw the beautiful Sainte Chapelle as well as the very tip of the Island before heading back to the Eiffel tower to witness it light up at sundown and then put on a brief but awesome light show before we headed home late, via bus, to bed.

In between walks we have been mostly visiting art museums and the occasional cathedral. We spent one very long day at the Louvre, which I didn't exactly love overall but did love in parts. As far as an art museum goes, it is overwhelmingly huge and badly lit, but it is also sort of THE art museum. The Mona Lisa is predictably underwhelming, since you stand in a crowd of pushing, shoving tourists until you get to stand behind a barricade about 20 feet from the painting which resides in a protective case on the wall. Meh. But there are other paintings to see and plenty of sculptures and, if you are into that sort of thing, there are Egyptian and Greek and Aztec artifacts here too. London didn't get them all! A better museum, we thought, was the D'Orsay, beautifully housed in an old train station. The artwork sort of picks up where the Louvre basically left off, with lots of impressionists and post impressionists. So we saw lots of Renoir and Monet and Van Gogh and Degas and the whole museum took us only a few hours. Today we saw our last art museum, the l'Orangerie, though we had hoped for one more, the Marmottan, which is almost all Monet I believe but we weren't paying close enough attention and it was closed on our last day to visit it. But L'Orangerie has two huge, oval galleries that each feature four  panels of Monet's Waterlilies paintings and I love them. I could sit there all day. Especially if the other people would go away. The basement also has a collection of normal sized paintings in frames by a variety of artists: Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Matisse. But the real attraction here is the Waterlilies.

     We did not go up the Eiffel tower, I like seeing it from the ground. Same with the Arc de Triomphe. We did, though, pay to go up the bell towers at Notre Dame. The gargoyles were what swayed me. It seems like every place here boasts of the 'best' overhead view of the city, but I wasn't really excited by most of them, least of all the Eiffel Tower view as it would, of course, exclude a view of the tower itself. Besides, there is a decent view over the city just standing in front of the Sacre Coeur. But, no one but Notre Dame had gargoyles, and the view of Paris is only enhanced when viewed behind a horned and bearded monster depicted in stone. For stained glass though, Sainte Chappelle beats out the iconic rose windows of Notre Dame.
     I will never quite get over the trash and graffiti, the general state of disrepair and neglect, the families weaving their way through stopped traffic at intersections begging at car windows or the packs of pick pockets that actually stepped out and blocked our way as we walked along the sidewalk, waving 'petitions' in our faces. Most especially, though, the sight of the homeless sleeping in the metro stations, the metro trains, huddled under window awnings, or just stretched out on the sidewalk across from the Louvre will probably haunt us all for some time. But Paris can be charming too, if you look up from the garbage at your feet, though be careful because if you aren't paying attention you will probably step in dog poop.