J’taime Paris

With long work hours, Ben was happy to get away, even though he is not the biggest fan of traveling. For our five year anniversary we headed off to Paris for 5 days. We had been before, but this time we got to see what we wanted to, and go at our own pace. We stayed on the Rue Clar as we had done before, so we knew where we were staying. After dropping off our luggage, and stripping off some of our layers, we went for a wander to the Eiffel Tower right around the corner from us to grab some lunch. Just up the street was one building that was a must see for me, Jean Nouvel's Musée du quai Branly as I have always wanted to see its Green living wall that is quite impressive even after being constructed a few years ago. With the sunshine out, we booked a trip down the River Seine on one of the many boats, to see everything in one go. We ended our first night with an amazing meal including escargot and creme brule. Yummy!

This was our day to see all the little bits and pieces. I was smart enough to book the Eiffel Tower in advance, so when it was our time, we walked right up, got through security, and was in an elevator heading up to the top. It heads up the wide base first, where you can take photos, and then up a smaller elevator all the way to the top. It was brilliant seeing over the whole city. It may not have been the nicest weather, but it was not raining, and was not that cloudy. We went to both decks to get photos. We spend more time going down, than we did going up. As we headed down, we could have stopped by the resturant on a mid-rise level, but I did not want to spend a fortune on food that was not going to be that great. We had enjoyed our view, but it was onto our next stop. We passed Notre Dame and went on to Centre Georges-Pompidou by Renzo Piano. It was something I had always wanted to see. Next on our architectural tour was another Nouvel building, L'Institut du Monde Arabe. The louvers on the windows I had studied in school and wanted to see them in action. I was on my must see list. After seeing some post modernism, it was onto The Panthéon Church which is the tomb of France's most famed. It was like every other NeoClassical building, so it was not as impressive, but still interesting. As with the previous night, we had even more delicious food. I knew there was no point in watching my figure on this trip.

With the weather not that cooperative, we spent the dreariest day in the Musée du Louvre. We got up early and wandered past the old smaller palaces and up the river. It was great to see the grounds nearly empty, even if it was not sunny. We had a plan of attack though, start up on the top most floor and work our way down, since we had the least interest of the stuff in the basement, Middle Ages. There were just so many paintings. We did cast our eyes over every piece, but towards the end we were nearly walking at top speed, quickly passing by masterpieces. We were able to complete the whole museum in a day, but I would not recommend it if you really want to see everything. It was great to recognize paintings I had studied over the years, and got to be Ben's personal art guide. As we went down in floors, it got more and more crowded. As we neared the Mona Lisa, we were overwhelmed by Tour Groups. When we finally got to the painting, it was 15 people deep. We waited to get to the front, be after waiting, waiting and waiting, we realized that the people were not even leaving. We gave up and moved on since there were hundreds of other things to see. Even across from the Mona Lisa was a painting that I had just worked my 4000 piece puzzle of Paolo Veronese's 'The Wedding at Cana' that was ignored, even though the painting was enormous, 20'x30'! People were just in there for the sake of being in there, they did not even know what things were, like the Venus de Milo, or one of the many other da Vinci's, or Michelangelo's statue. As we neared the end, I was reading the map, and fell down the last few steps spraining my ankle. Of course I laughed which is how I react to pain. It is always hard for Ben to take me seriously when I do that, but I can't help it. I walked it off the best I could but I knew in the morning my ankle would not be so happy.

The next morning, my ankle was very swollen, but Ben got me a brace and drugs, so that we could continue our tour. For our last full day we headed out to to see the Sacré-Cœur Basilica and Salvador Dalí's old studio. We hiked up from the Subway to the summit of the butte Montmartre. I was slow and steady, but I was not going to let my leg stop me! When the rain came we did a tour of the Sacré-Cœur Basilica catacombs as I did not want to hike up to the top of the basilica. As the rain abated, we headed to the Dalí studio where many other Surrealist artists had their studios. Dalí is my favorite artist so it was great to see where he got some of his idea, inspiration and how his work was created. When the kids started to outnumber us, we fled for lunch and to check out where Moulin Rouge is. We did not want to spend a fortune to see the show, but we wandered about, realizing that it was in the heart of the porn district. Quite interesting. We headed back into town to meet up with Ben's friend, Nabil, for dinner. It was great catching up with an old friend, who had just moved to Paris.

Our last morning we had to see one more museum, Musee d'Orsay which is housed in an old rail station. It contains the largest Impressionist exhibit where Manet was the featured artist. The sculptures were fabulous as well. There were several Van Gogh's to see and other painters of that era. Even Whistler's Mother. We had enough time to collect our things, have some lunch in the park adjacent to the Les Invalides and catch the bus to the airport. Next stop, Berlin!