[Holidays] Last-minute to Paris for two please
With the start of
our respective semesters rapidly approaching, my girlfriend and I decided to
take a last minute holiday to prepare ourselves for the onset of much busier
schedules. After looking at the available options we decided to take a
five-night city break in Paris. We’ve both been before with our families, but
whereas Ellen’s visit was for a few mine was for a single day as part of a
larger family trip to France, so I was interested to have a look around a few more
of the sights than I managed the last time.
Looking across the Seine to the Eiffel Tower during the late evening. (Credit: David Brown)
Looking from the small Arc de Triomphe, near the Louvre, down the Tuileries Gardens
down to the 'real' Arc de Triomphe. (Credit: David Brown)
We covered a lot
of the traditional tourist spots during our visit, but also spent a lot of time
wandering around taking in the atmosphere (and sampling the pastries and
cakes!). I feel that this is something many tourists fail to do; so busy are
they with rushing around from sight to sight, and rushing around the sights
themselves, that they don’t stop to appreciate the place that they’re in. We
must have spent a good day in total time just walking around looking at interesting
shops and buildings. It was very pleasant but not great for my back, which was
aching like mad at the end of every day.
We arrived on
Sunday, after a flight at the ridiculously early time of 6:00 am! After finding
somewhere for brunch near our flat, we wandered around the local area to get
our bearings, before moving into the flat. We then spent the afternoon and
evening engaged in the aforementioned wandering around. We explored both the
Ile de la Cité, and the Ile de Louis, lounged around on the bank of the Seine
in the glorious sunshine, got ice cream, and generally explored the riverside
area.
Looking from Île de la Cité towards the Hôtel de Ville, across the Seine. (Credit: David Brown)
Monday was
another beautiful day, and we had a lazy morning, hitting the Louvre buildings
around Midday (we decided not to go in however, as the queue was enormous). We
then went to Notre Dame for a free tour, which was incredibly informative and
full of interesting historical and architectural details. But man was it long;
we were looking around the outside and inside of the cathedral for a full 105
minutes! It was well worth it though. After that we took the Metro up to
Montmartre to have a look at the Sacre Couer. We did have a look around the
inside, catching a service in full swing (complete with nuns), but we were
distracted for some time by the street performers outside. We sat on the steps
to watch a singer/guitarist, who was decent, but like most of the large
audience were completely distracted from his performance by the guy doing
football tricks on the stone plinth at the top of the steps. His skill with the
football was simply amazing, and he climbed the nearby lamppost several times,
doing tricks as he went.
Sacre Coeur. (Credit: David Brown)
Tuesday saw our
trip to the Palace of Versailles, which took the entire day. Unfortunately the
weather was pretty foul, but that wasn’t too much of a problem since we were
inside for most of the day. It was also made up for by the fact that we managed
to get into the palace for free! It turns out that several of the monuments and
historical sites in Paris are free if you’re a citizen of an EU country aged
between 18 and 25, and can prove it! Luckily we found this out in advance, and
took our passports with us. The Palace was absolutely heaving with people, but
was very interesting. Even by the standards of palaces it was ridiculously big
and gaudy, with gold everywhere and heavy use of tapestry. Almost every
conceivable surface was covered with a painting, and where there weren’t
paintings there seemed to be mirrors! I was a little underwhelmed by the famous
‘hall of mirrors’, but the rest of the Palace was very impressive. We also had
a look around the two Trianon out at the far end of the gardens, which were
also free although we did have to go the long way around to get to them. Billed
as ‘summer houses’ for the royalty, they were still impressive structures in
their own right, but distinctly less ‘royal’ and over the top. The smaller one
was essentially the house of Marie Antoinette, who’s personal gardens we also
explored, finding her purpose built hamlet of pretend country houses, as well
as a fully working farm.
The hall of mirrors at Versailles. (Credit: David Brown)
Wednesday was a
lazy day for the two of us after a pretty exhausting previous day. We didn’t
get up until lunchtime, and visited only a couple of places. We found Victor
Hugo’s house, which was very interesting and had a very comprehensive
audioguide which supplied me with a lot of the author’s history about which I
had no idea. The park just outside his house was also rather nice, and after
that we visited the Conciergerie, the old 1789 Revolution prison from which
over 1500 people were sent to the guillotine, including Marie Antoinette. It
was quite fitting actually that, after seeing where she spent a lot of her
life, we got to find out about where she spend her final days. The Conciergerie
was surprisingly interesting actually; prisons aren’t something that I’d
normally visit, but this was definitely worth it. We also got in for free
again!
The July Column, commemorating the Revolution, in Place de la Bastille (Credit: David Brown)
Thursday, our
final day, was another full one. We got up at a reasonable hour to go up the
towers of Notre Dame (again for free), which gave us a lovely view over the
central Paris, then went on a lunchtime boat trip along the Seine for an hour,
taking in a lot of the main museums along the way. I’m not sure this was worth
the money however, as the riverbanks are lined with trees which, combined with
the five storey buildings, make seeing the major landmarks rather tricky. We
then spent the afternoon wandering around the previously unvisited left bank of
the river, trawling around Saint Germain-de-Prés before ending up in the
beautiful Luxembourg gardens with some delicious cakes. These gardens are truly
beautiful, very peaceful, and full of Parisians relaxing after work, playing
tennis or chess, and sailing toy boats in the large pond.
The Luxembourg gardens and palace. Very pretty and relaxing. (Credit: David Brown)
After dinner we
finished our holiday with what was, for me, possible the high point. We decided
to take a trip to the Eiffel Tower at night, and boy was it worth the late
night it engendered. The Tower is even more spectacular when lit up at night,
and every hour on the hour puts on a dazzling display of flashing lights. Sadly
we didn’t get to see the full effect of that, being underneath it the first
time and part way up the second, but what we could see was impressive. The
view, however, was absolutely stunning. Paris by night is gorgeous to look at,
with all the major landmarks clearly lit up, and just enough streetlighting
filters up between the buildings to mark out the roads, avenues, and alleys. It
was stunning.
Left - The Eiffel Tower by night. Right - View down to the gardens around the Eiffel Tower. (Credit: David Brown
Overall it was a really enjoyable five days. Tiring, but worth it all the same. We didn’t try to cram in everything, but did enough to get a real sense of the city. I also learnt a lot about French history, particularly the events around the 1789 Revolution, which is a pretty fascinating subject about which I’m anxious to learn more. Hopefully I’ll get to go back to Paris at some point to visit the places we didn’t get to see!
Comments
Post a Comment