Paris - Day 2

The chalice!

In order to see as many landmarks as humanly possible in 3 days, we wanted to get to the Louvre before it opened to miss the lines. We got off the train at the Louvre/Carrousel stop, which I thought meant we would be out in front of the Louvre, and there would be a merry-go-round there. No. We came out underground and were in a big marble space. There seemed to be some old walls there, too. Like, ancient sort of old, not 70s sort of old. We saw a sign for Louvre ticket holders to go one way, so we did. We didn't know if Em would need a ticket or not (she was free, but we didn't know if it was going to be like the Arc, where she needed a ticket anyway), so we planned that one of us would stand in the ticket holders line, and the other would stand in the line to get tickets. Well, we came out in a mall. I saw a line, so I got in it. It was the line for the iPhone 4. Oops. We walked over to another area that had a person standing there. We knew we were near the Louvre, because we saw the upside down pyramid from The DaVinci Code. We asked the lady standing at what looked like it could be a line if it was the line. She said yes, and told us that she was a tour guide getting tickets for her tour group. She was American, so we chatted for a while.She told us Em wouldn't need a ticket, so we could go straight in. Awesome. The first picture was taken at 8:36am, and the museum opened at 9. The place was empty, except for the Apple folks. The next picture was taken at 8:59. I'm glad we got there when we did.

Winged Victory

Lisa, Em & me

The tour guide told us that the most famous works of art had signs directing you to them. So, as we rushed inside, we looked for the Mona Lisa sign. We found it! We were really rushing.


It's pretty neat the way they have the museum. There's a central lobby area off of the mall, and then there are three entrances. The Louvre had a big square center section, and two legs coming parallel off of it. Kind of like a squared off U if the base of the U were very thick. The Mona Lisa is in one of the arms, so we headed that way.We were the first people in that wing! Notice in the picture of the Winged Victory that there is nobody in front of us. When we had to come back that way later, we had to push through a crush of people. The Mona Lisa is in a little room off the main gallery, and we passed it. Oops. We headed back.  We were no longer the first people, but we were pretty close! You may not know, because she is so famous, but she's pretty small! She's behind bullet-proof glass, too, since she has been both stolen and vandalized.

We then wandered the Louvre for a couple of hours. We saw many works of art that we recognized, which was fun. I bought a book about going to the Louvre with kids, so I had some fun facts to share about many of the paintings. We hadn't gotten the audio tour for this one, since we were in such a rush to see Mona Lisa, and it was a long walk back to where they were given out. So, the book stood in for an audio tour and did a fine job. There is really no way to see every single thing in the building unless you have all day, and maybe even more. So, we skipped a lot of the things we had seen before. A lot of the antiquities were glossed over, since we've seen many of those in other museums, and they really aren't all that unique from one museum to another.

By this time, I had called her many bad names

I'm normally a pretty good map-reader. Except for being deceived by distances occasionally, I can get us where we need to go. The map of the Louvre is really confusing. The rooms are numbered, but some of the numbers duplicate. Room 16 for example. We ended up in Room 16 towards the end of our visit, on our way to see the Venus de Milo. I steered us in the direction it seemed we should go, and we ended up somewhere completely different, in the Ancient fortress section, that showed us the walls of the fortress that was there way back when. WTH? We ended up going around and around, up stairs and down stairs. Ironically, in the Egyptian antiquities section, which we had decided to skip originally. We saw the exit for the Greek & Roman section (it was not indicated on the map that it was one way). I sat and studied the map. Ah, there are two Rooms 16. Damn. I found a way to cut through to get to the Greek & Roman section. It was closed! Damn damn. I found some stairs to get us up and around. We get there, and it turns out it was the same side of the Greek section that had been turned into an exit. I moved beyond damn. I finally got us there, after a lot of wasted time. By then, though, I wasn't about to leave without seeing that statue.

The courtyard from inside

Three Graces

After the Louvre, we hopped the metro to Montmarte. I wanted to see Sacre Coeur, and Em & I both really wanted to the the Moulin Rouge. Our transportation passes included the funicular from the base of Montemarte to Sacre Coeur, so we got off at the funicular stop. OMG, another spiral staircase. This one was lined with art, but it was still a lot of steps. You kept thinking it was about to be done, and then everybody would give a collective groan as it just kept going. But, at the top was another beautiful metro sign, so all was forgiven.

A side note that I believe I failed to mention in yesterday's post. The people in Paris smell really, really bad in the summer. There is very little A/C in any of Europe that I've been so far, and it has been friggin' hot this weekend. The metros have been sweltering, and the people stink. I think it's mostly the tourists, actually, and not the Parisians themselves. Whomever it is, though, it has safely cured me of wanting to travel in the summer.

You can see 4 restaurants here

The funicular didn't have A/C, either, but the ride was mercifully short. I think we all would have enjoyed it a lot more had it not been so hot, but it was mediocre as it was. A lot better than taking the steps up the hill, though! Sacre Coeur is at the top of the hill. It was beautiful! We popped inside for a minute, but it wasn't as pretty inside. So, we headed down to Moulin Rouge. We weren't sure exactly where it was, but we knew we needed to head down and to our right. We were also looking for lunch, and we found it. There was a street with a smallish square in the middle that was completely filled with restaurant tents. The restaurants lining the square each had a tent outside, as well. We found one that didn't look as expensive as the others and ate there. The place was so squished that they had to move the table for Max & me to get to our seats. We ordered our Fantas and waited. And waited. The Parisians are not people to be hurried. It was worth the wait, though. We each had a huge crepe stuffed with a different kind of deliciousness. I normally wouldn't have been able to eat that much, but it was sooo good. Oh, be careful to specify what size of drink you want when in Paris. Otherwise, you'll get the large, which is 6€. Normally, you won't need as large a size when you're in Europe, because you won't get ice. We did here, though, and that was special.Another thing you'll notice is that everybody smokes here. Everybody. I don't think smoking is allowed inside, but there is very little delineation between inside and outside. Since there isn't any A/C, there are open windows. So, get used to it. It sucks. Anyway, we finished our dinner and waited for the check. And waited. And waited. The people next to us were almost finished when we got our food, and they still hadn't gotten their check. Em & I got up and left. Then the waiter brought Max the check.

Why spend mine, when I can spend yours?

We continued on our travels. We found a beautiful little macaroon shop, and we thought it would make a great gift for the neighbors watching our cats. We picked out a box that said it was like 9€ with 100 grams of cookies. It said Montmarte on it and would have been a great gift. Turns out that a lot more than 100 grams will fit in that box, and it was going to be like 30€ once it was full. We moved on.

We finally did find the Moulin Rouge. It's kind of disappointing. I knew the elephant was gone, but I still wanted it to look more like it did in the movie. Ah, well, still fun. I had looked at seeing a show (and yes, children over 6 are allowed), but it was way expensive. As in 80€ (about $100) per person for the 11pm without dinner or drinks. If you want food, it starts at 150€ per person. Yikes!

After the Moulin Rouge, it was just the right time to head back to Notre Dame to go up in the towers. When we got there, we saw that the church was still roped off. We went around the side to see about the towers. They weren't going to be open until 5 now, they still closed at 5:30, and there was already a long line. Screw it. We were disappointed, but we needed to figure out what to do next. Em wanted to see the crypt, both because it was close and because it was underground, and so would hopefully be cooler. It wasn't really what you think of as a crypt, it was just an archeological area. It was still neat, though, because we got to see parts of buildings that were there in the Roman times.

We decided to go back and check on the Eiffel Tower. The lines were even longer than they had been on Friday. Crap. I was ready to cry by then, because I was so disappointed that the things we wanted to do were either impossibly crowded or closed. Max & Em were both tired and tired of my list. I was just tired. The Eiffel Tower is open until midnight on Saturday, so we went back to the hotel and took a nap. We figured that we could come back later, and hope the lines were cleared out a bit by then.

Our hotel had A/C, which was glorious. We all took cool off showers and put on PJs. Em read for a couple of hours and Max and I napped. It was wonderful. We got up at 8pm and headed back out to the Eiffel Tower. The lines were STILL long! The worst yet! We had promised Em ice cream, so we got ice creams and went and sat in the park behind the tower. There were lots of people picnicking back there. I think we were all waiting for the tower to light. I was pretty sure we had been back at the hotel by 10pm the night before, and it had been lit there. It was about 9 when we got there. The guys who had been out earlier selling bottles of water were now going around with backpacks full of wine to sell. We waited and waited. It didn't light. We finally got up and got in line, determined to get up there.

The line took a while, but actually moved way more quickly than we had expected. There are three different levels in the Eiffel tower, and there are different prices for them. If you want to only go to the first or second platforms, you can either take an elevator or the stairs. To get to the top, you take an elevator from the second platform. The whole time we were in line, the light up sign above the cashiers said that the top was closed. Em was really disappointed. When I got to the cashier, though, he sold me tickets to the top! I wasn't sure if I had just paid extra money and we still wouldn't be able to get up there, but it was worth a try. When we got to the second platform, we saw that the top was, indeed open. Em was giddy! The line for that was another long one, so by the time we got to the top, it was completely dark. We took what pictures we could, but they didn't turn out as pretty as what we could see. We saw several sets of fireworks, which made Em's day. We got back down to the main platform at 11:30. We had thought it might be fun to eat at the cafe there, but it had closed at 11. By then, the Tower was all lit up, and I desperately wanted to get one of those pictures that (again) you see in art prints of the Tower at night. We spent a while doing that, but I finally got this one, which I love.

On the way back to the metro, Em's lack of nap caught up with her. Max & I were really hungry, but Em was just exhausted and didn't want to eat. Max & I won, though, and we popped into a cafe near the metro. Em had a jelly crepe and Max & I shared a 4 Cheese pizza. It had huge chunks of goat cheese and brie on top of the regular cheese layer. Once Em ate something, she discovered she was hungry, too, so she had some of our pizza.I told her to look excited that she was eating dinner in a cafe in Paris at 12:30 am, and here's the face she gave me. She told me, "This is my excited face right now."

And there was much rejoicing

Pizza!

When we got back to the hotel, we realized that we were lucky that neither the Tower nor dinner had taken any longer, because we must have gotten one of the last trains of the night. They stop at 1:15, and that's when we got back to the hotel.

Em says - Actually, when Mom says "we stood in line" at the Tower means that Dad & I actually dragged her into the line and held her down (Karen says- I felt guilty about asking them to stand in the line). I kind of freaked out in the elevator to the top. It's really high and really fast. The pizza was delicious, and every crepe I had was the best crepe ever.  Oh, and I hate the Venus de Milo now. I respect it as a piece of art, but I hate it for being in that wing. There are so many Moulin Rouge jokes I want to make right now, but they would all be really obscure.