Pictures from Paris Part 1

Our hotel in Paris (Holiday Inn Paris Autueil)

 

Images from Versailles

Only 10:00 in the morning and the crowds are already forming.

It might have been the crowds but I found this motto sort of ironic… more like for the glory of $$$

We've made it out of the ticket line and have rejoined Marie in the line to get into Versailles… It's been about an hour so far…

The exterior of the chapel… This was Marie's favorite building.

 

It's been about two hours now and the crowds are huge… Funny, though, that there are no staff out here. Everyone just arranges themselves into one big line and things take care of themselves…

We've finally made it to the front gates…

 

 

Various images from inside the main palace at Versailles… I won't try to label them all… You'll have to go there yourself someday 🙂

Some pictures from the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon.

 

 

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Day 7: Paris to Athens

We took a bus to the airport. Bypassed huge line of people waiting to check-in (thank you web check-in!). We got there quite early so killed time playing cards and charging electronics… Tried to update blog but WiFi sucks everywhere in Europe so far so no luck there. Plane started boarding. Ran into some kind of hitch with boarding so stood in line for twenty minutes before boarding resumed. Finally on the plane and ready to take off. Flight goes smoothly although lunch is interesting… Find it ironic that we are searched for weapons before boarding then served buns that are so hard you could easily take out the flight crew with a couple of well-placed throws… We also noticed (okay, to be truthful, I may have pointed it out) that Aegean Air definitely beats Air Canada on the flight attendant attractiveness scale…

Land in Athens. Exit plane from front and back of plane at same time – there's a thought, eh, Air Canada – walk off plane into burning pits of Hades… It's 5pm and very, very hot… There is no air conditioning on the bus that takes us from the plane to the terminal. I begin to melt. Marie sits looking cool and calm in the heart of the furnace roar and mutters something about it being the first time she's been warm since she left Plumtree… Or perhaps the heat has made me delusional… Actually, it's very warm but not as hot as Thailand… I may survive. Go to find our luggage. 5 bags come out. Nothing else happens for 20 minutes… Just one lonely bag going round and round and round. Then nothing. No more bags. Conveyor belt stops. We joke that someone's bag broke the system… Then my bag comes out followed by the rest of the luggage… Sheepish grin… Finally retrieve our luggage and head for customs… Some guy looks at us as we walk past… Hope we didn't choose the wrong lane or something because there is no passport control – no stamp, no welcome to Greece, nothing. We just walk past some dude and then we're outside again looking for a taxi.

We show the driver the address of our hotel. He nods, smiles and says sure, sure… Then spends the entire trip checking his map book and GPS trying to find the hotel. Eventually we find our hotel. I don't blame the poor guy for having trouble finding the hotel – Athens is a maze… Our hotel is in the middle of that maze…

Our hotel is very nice (not Fairmont hotel nice but still nice) and we are given a room with a very large balcony with a great view of the Acropolis and the Parthenon… We dump our bags and go looking for something to eat. Turns out we're literally 5 minutes' walk from the Plaka so have a ton of restaurants to choose from… We settle on the one that provides free wine, free bread and free dessert… The food was very good. After dinner, we poked our heads in a couple of shops but didn't do much in the way of hardcore shopping… By this point, it was after 11 so we headed back to the hotel to update the blog (no luck with WiFi here, either…) and head for bed so we can get an early start tomorrow.

Thus ended our seventh day in Europe. Would like to post some more pictures but have connected 5 times to Internet only to have connection drop each time… When I do connect it is like being on dial up again… Not sure what the deal is with WiFi in Europe but have not had a good connection in any airport, any restaurant or any hotel since we got here… Surprising when you consider that we had excellent WiFi almost everywhere we went in Thailand and Cambodia… Will post more pictures as soon as I'm able.

 

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Day 6: Paris

Today was all about the Louvre… The biggest art museum in the world… The home of the Mona Lisa. The Winged Victory of Samothrace. And the biggest crowds I've seen this side of Disneyland at Spring Break. We got there before the crowds… Not… Even getting there a half hour before opening wasn't enough as we were swallowed by hordes of people immediately after the doors opened… And it just got worse. Thinking the Mona Lisa would be the popular draw, we boogied there right off the get go and were able to take a couple of pictures up front without having to fight too big a crowd… I only had to elbow a couple of tourists out of the way and I think Marie only blocked out a few old ladies to create space for Caitlin at the front of the line… I knew the Mona Lisa was pretty small (size does matter in some things) but it was decidedly anticlimactic… Especially when you turned around and saw a floor to ceiling Veronese that was absolutely breathtaking. My favorite picture, though, was one by Messina called Christ at the Column… Outstanding. I was also surprised at the amount of abstraction in many of the Renaissance works…

There were a few pieces I really wanted to see so we kind of cruised some of the galleries on our way to the pieces on my must see list and just kind of glanced at some of the billion or so other works out on display. There's a great quote by Anne Lindbergh about not being able to collect all the beautiful shells on the beach and having to winnow your choices down to just one shell… The most beautiful… And letting go of the rest… Someone at the Louvre should read that quote… And practice the concept. Too many people, too many works of art, too many miles of gallery space… But still an amazing place and definitely one of the must see before you die places in the world…

Afterwards, we made our way over to the gothic marvel that is Notre Dame cathedral. After Westminster and St. Paul's, Notre Dame looked a little tired and grungy… But that adds to the charm. This is a church built to awe humans and to remind them of the fearful majesty of God (and the Church of course). It isn't supposed to be warm and homey… But it is fascinating. That people have been worshiping there for more than 800 years imbues the place with a sense of grandeur and spirituality that you can't help but respond to… Not to mention the really pretty stained glass.

After Notre Dame we wandered around a bit… Marie and Caitlin wanted to press on but I wanted to sit and people watch for a bit… So we split up – they kept walking while I found a table and ordered a medium beer… It cost 9€. Now it was a good size beer but that's outrageous… But unfortunately in line with many of Paris' prices. Some things are really cheap. Some are painfully expensive… And that was for a local Paris beer… For $11 something cdn, I expect to get a whole pitcher…

After savoring my golden drink, we wandered over to the St. Michel area and were assaulted by the riot of food offerings and touts hawking their meal deals… We loved it! But Caitlin really wanted to go to Sacre Coeur…so we piled onto a subway train (after letting 5 go by because they were simply too full) with half the working population of Paris and headed for the Montmartre area – the prettiest, most romantic part of Paris. Home to artists and poets for generations…. We should take a moment to reflect on the insanity of the trains this afternoon. These trains were packed. Not sort of busy packed but crammed in like sardines with hands and knees and elbows in places they aren't supposed to be and up close and personal insight into your fellow travelers' personal hygiene… We thought it was because of the tourists. But no… We struck up a conversation with one of the regular travelers who assured us that this was all perfectly normal… It was to be viewed, he said, as the price one must pay for living in Paris… No wonder people seem a little brusque much of the time. If I had to put up with that at the start and end of my work days, I'd be walking around with a perpetual hangover from all the wine I'd have to drink to keep me from snapping one day… I especially loved the two older ladies (Marie says I can't use any derogatory terms in this blog) who despite two dozen other people taking a look at the train and realizing that a mouse wouldn't be able to squeeze in proceeded to shove, elbow, and make snide remarks to people in order to fit their ample (see how polite I can be!) frames into the imaginary spaces only they could see… If only they could have seen the looks the other rides were giving them…

Just make sure you take the right train! Rather than transferring to the Abesses train recommended by the guidebooks, we stayed on our train and got off on the backside of the hill and made our way to the church through a series of less than romantic, in fact decidedly rough looking, side streets. But it all worked out. The views from Sacre Couer are amazing but the people taking in the views are what make the trip worthwhile. I wish we'd known ahead of time to pack some bread, cheese and wine because this is the perfect spot for a picnic dinner… Next time.

After wandering a bit through the neighborhood we piled back onto the Metro (the right one this time) and headed back to the St. Michel area to take advantage of one of those cheap dinner specials. Then it was time to head back to the hotel… In all another very full day in Paris…

We're now in Greece and the Internet is even slower here than it was in Paris (and I'm falling behind on posts because of all the internet issues… That's a story in itself) so I'm going to post this without pictures and will post up all the Paris pictures on a single page when (if?) I can find a faster, more reliable connection.

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Day 5: Paris

So after yesterday's experience with the massive crowds in Paris during the summertime, we woke early to get to Versailles before the hordes… One small problem. The Internet here only works on one device at a time… So the iPhone we've been using as our alarm clock wasn't connected to WiFi which means it didn't automatically adjust to Paris time which means our early start was actually an hour later start… Mon dieu! Sacre bleu! Holy crap, time to get a move on…

To make matters worse, as we're about half way through our decent Holiday Inn breakfast, Marie does the “You know, I don't think breakfast is included in our room rate…” Sure enough, it wasn't… Which means the lovely cup of yogurt, two pastries and some bits of sausage were now costing us €45… Needless to say we took extras for lunch (much to the horror of Caitlin…)

Thoroughly rattled (not really, it just makes for more dramatic story telling – in actuality we were all pretty chill with it… Except me. I hate crowds… But what can you do…) we headed for the bus stop. We navigated the complex maze of subway trains, commuter trains and whatnot with aplomb (thanks to the Internet, all those who have made the trip before us and Caitlin who translated the signs properly). We had to transfer trains twice before we could get on the VICK train to Versailles Rive Gauche… At first we thought it was going to be us and the palace because our first two trains were deserted… Not so with the train to Versailles. It was packed…

Arriving at the Versailles stop… Easy to tell when you're there as it's the end of the line and the train empties… We hustled along the 5-10 minute walk to the actual palace… Only to turn the final corner and see the teeming multitudes arrayed in front of the gates… A reenactment of the March on Versailles? Have the people risen up in arms against the symbols of tyranny and absolutism? No. Just every freaking person in the entire known universe deciding to go to visit the palace… On the one day we decided to go. How inconsiderate of them.

Having read earlier that there was no point in buying tickets ahead of time (good advice by the way, as they make you stand in the same line whether you have tickets or not) so we left Marie in the line to get into the palace while Caitlin and I went to buy tickets. We stood in line for 45 minutes to get them. In that time, Marie had covered about half the distance to the entrance… In all we stood in line for about two hours. So much for beating the crowds… Was it worth it?? Oh yeah… This place is amazing. Awe inspiring. Sumptuous. And spectacularly, unbelievably, epically crowded. But aside from a few of the more intimate rooms, the place is big enough that it literally swallows the crowds and everything moves along nicely… Until the godforsaken tour groups arrive en masse…

The main palace is beyond words. The Hall of Mirrors (where the Treaty of Versailles was signed in 1918) is the epitome of a grand ballroom/great hall/reception room, etc. It is quite simply, awe inspiring. But it was the smaller rooms with their intimate works of art and unique decor that most impressed… After touring the main palace for the better part of 6 hours with nothing to eat but a melted Toblerone chocolate bar and a couple of yogurts that had warmed so much we could drink them (because when you pilfer food from the over priced continential hotel breakfast they don't exactly provide spoons!) we made our way outside to see some of the gardens and the Trianons. Being lazy tourists, we took the little train to the Grand Trianon instead of walking for a half hour in the afternoon sun. Of course we ended up standing in line for almost as long… But we avoided walking and by this point our feet were feeling every one of the gazillion miles we'd walked in London and thus far is Paris.

This was one of our favourite places at Versailles – elegant and grand but more human scaled and intimate. It's easy to see why this place continued to be used as a residence even after the main palace had been turned into a museum. After the Grand Trianon, we hopped back on the train to visit Marie Antoinette's Petit Trianon… Also a wonderful place and Caitlin's favourite. Much less ostentatious than the others and far more quaint, it's worth taking the time to visit. We explored the grounds of her estate a little bit but opted not to visit her hamlet (her attempt at being a farmer) because, quite frankly, we were feeling a little bedraggled after 9 hours… So we hopped back on the train and headed for the Grand Canal. Here we grabbed a bite to eat and drink in La Flotille – surprisingly reasonably priced for being in the heart of the attraction but not exactly gourmet – and took a bit of a break before heading back to the train and Paris.

The ride back to Paris went by quickly (probably because I was concentrating on typing this blog entry – no easy feat on a swaying train). Once back in Paris we headed for the Eiffel Tower to head out on a Seine River boat cruise (included with our hop on hop off bus ticket). Cruise is a bit of an exaggeration given that you're packed onto a purpose-built boat filled with tourists squeezed into uncomfortable chairs and listening to a tinny commentary on a contraption like an oversized TV remote control… But despite all this, it was a great way to spend an hour and an interesting way to see the city – and there was no walking involved!

After the cruise, we headed back to the Eiffel Tower to check the lineups… Still huge! It would appear that climbing the Eiffel tower will not be happening on this trip… So it was back on the train (with a slight detour given that the train we planned to take back to the hotel was Supprime… Which according to our translator app means extinguished…). After a couple of transfers, we were back in the area of our hotel by about 10:30 – very long day… We grabbed a bite to eat/drink from the restaurant/bar/bistro on the corner and called it a night.

Again, the Internet here at the hotel is only 256k (although it is free) so no pictures for this post but I will put up a page of pictures from the last couple of days when I find a faster connection. Au revoir…

 

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Day 4: London to Paris

So I'm a bit behind already… I'm typing this while riding the train back from Versailles – our second day in Paris. It's been an action packed couple of days but I'll do my best to remember the trip to grande Paris.

Our day started bright and early so we could be at the Eurostar station with time to spare and enough time for a photo op at Platform 9 3/4 at King's Cross Station for Caitlin… If you don't know what that refers to chances are you have been living under a rock for the past decade… Things proceeded according to plan until we arrived at the St. Pancras station to find most of the population of London trying to get out of the city for the weekend… Arrive at least 30 minutes early the ticket said… More like arrive 4 days early… Despite arriving with plenty of time to spare, we only made our train through a combination of judicious line-butting and Eurostar realizing they had a lot of people who were not going to make the train without some assistance so they created dedicated lines and had people wandering around looking for passengers for Train 9004… We made it with about 6 minutes to spare.

We settled into our seats to enjoy the English countryside… Not. The train rockets along at 900 miles per hour and spends most of the time in and out of tunnels… Crossing under the English Channel was pretty underwhelming to say the least but the train is comfortable and takes only 2 hours so is pretty convenient. Before we knew it we were pulling into Gare du Nord or whatever it's called train station and embarking on the Paris portion of our adventure. But first we had to navigate the enormous lines of travelers waiting to buy train tickets only to find the line we were supposed to take to get to the hotel wasn't running… Adding up the cost of waiting in line to buy tickets we decided to take a cab… Which involved some poor guy trying to figure out why the first cab in line was empty and then giving up and directing us to another line of cabs… And why, exactly, were so many soldiers walking around in full kit? We figured there'd be a large security presence in London so close to the Olympics but Paris was loaded for bear…

Eventually, we found our way to our hotel – a nice little Holiday Inn not far from the sites in Paris proper and with a Metro station literally at the front door… tres bon… We were pretty early and our room wasn't quite ready so we decided to grab a bite to eat and drink at a local brasserie. Big mistake. Hot chocolate for $8 cdn, a bottle of Perrier for $6 cdn and pain au chocolat for $6 cdn… If these prices are indicative of Paris prices we're going to be eating bread for the whole time we're here.

After consulting our loans officer and confirming sufficient funds we ate our gilded food and headed back to see if our room was ready. It was… So we checked in, dumped our stuff and decided to head for the Champs Élysées to see what all the fuss was about… We figured out the Paris subway system (not nearly as user friendly as the London system and not just because it's in French) with not much trouble and were soon emerging into the rarified air of one of Paris' most famous streets… Along with everyone in the entire fricking universe.

You see… In our infinite wisdom, we planned our trip to London for 8 days before the summer Olympics. Dumb but not horribly so… But, Paris, ah Paris… For that, we planned our trip to coincide with the end of the freaking Tour de France! A Tour de France, that barring miraculous intervention of a benevolent deity, would be won by an Englishman for the first time ever… Did we mention that we expected Paris to be busy? Yes, yes we did… Did we expect that it would make Disneyland look like a deserted island… Not one bit. To say the Champs Élysées was crowded would be akin to saying that Luongo's a bit overpaid or that Toronto sort of sucks… It was seventh level of Hell crowded.

After imitating a salmon swimming upstream to spawn, we finally made our way to the Arc de Triompe. Darn right it was a Triomph… Napoleon be damned. Us getting there without me killing a slow walking tourist was a feat worthy of divine recognition… Seriously, it's actually a very impressive monument… Albeit sort of plunked down in the middle of a butt ugly roundabout… But shhh, don't tell the French. I think they like the thing just as it is.

After the Arc, we got back on the subway and made our way to the Trocadero overlooking the Eiffel Tower. Very impressive. Obviously the French think so to judging by the number of brides having their pictures taken there… After oohing and ahing we walked across the plaza to the Eiffel Tower to view the 8th level of Hell up close and personal. You see, it isn't enough that Buckingham Palace was closed due to the Olympics thus depriving Caitlin of a significant portion of her childhood dreams, no, the Eiffel Tower has to be broken. Yes, broken. As in only one elevator running… Meaning that all those slightly out of shape folks who would normally ride in comfort in a rickety elevator are now climbing the stairs… The most optimistic estimate was a 3 hour wait… We took some pictures and vowed to come back the next day… Then hopped on one of the hop on hop off bus tours…

We liked the tour. It lasted about two hours and toured us around the major sites of Paris in the comfort of an open top double decker bus… Aside from wicked traffic jams, a couple of near misses with idiots on rented bikes and even nearer misses with idiots on bikes they owned, we made our way back to the Trocadero and headed back to our hotel for a late dinner at the little pizzaria across the street. It was good. They had beer. Enough said.

Thus ends our first day in Paris. Tomorrow we are planning to visit Versailles before the crowds get there. The WiFi here is pretty slow and my blogging app (Blogsy) keeps crashing when I try to upload pictures so I won't upload many today… Will try for more tomorrow if I can find a better connection somewhere.

 

 

 

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