paris, day 1

I'm in London again, this time on what is looking to be a three-week trip. That makes it my longest stay ever in one city for business. I've been really busy, but have made some time for fun as well.

My youngest brother came to town a couple Thursdays ago to use my hotel room and see the sights in and around London. I came up with the idea of hitting Paris for the weekend and he was up for it, so we took the train through the Chunnel last Saturday morning.

We decided that our first stop would be Notre Dame. We ended up seeing a different church that we found by chance first, however. A number of people were standing in line, so we figured we'd stand in line as well. Tickets ended up being free for reasons I don't totally understand, but that's fine. The church, Sainte Chappelle, was really interesting, with a stained glass motif that's different than any other church I've been in, since the stained glass goes all the way around the chapel. Very pretty and very cool.













We made our way to Notre Dame after this, and the scenery was very nice. Much of the action in Paris is along the Seine River, and this included Notre Dame. Like the Tiber in Rome, there are tons of bridges across the Seine, which makes it very convenient to deal with.

A first view of the Seine:



Notre Dame is on the right:


Notre Dame was nice but actually far less opulent than I was expecting based on the reputation it has. We never saw where you could go up to the top, so we didn't do that. That's OK, though--those staircases always hurt my knees and make me claustrophobic.





A sermon in progress:


Weird statue of Death standing over a dying man:


Charlemagne outside:


After we were done in Notre Dame, we wandered around for a while so that we could find a place to eat. It took us a while to find a decent place, but that's OK. The walk was interesting and we ended up walking through the Saint Germain neighborhood, which is full of art galleries and other artistic things.

Here's the place we found for lunch:


Our first sampling of French food was really good. My brother's a big cheese fan and ordered a cheese platter, and everything on it was great except for one cheese which was really pungent and tasted like rotten dirt. My brother got a baguette with ham and cheese, while I got pan fried chicken with egg noodles. French (obviously) bread was also served with this meal and every other meal we had while we were in town, which was a nice touch.



Cruising along the Seine:







Our next stop was the Musee d'Orsay, which is famous for its collection of Impressionistic art, but also includes a lot of other stuff. Pictures weren't allowed, unfortunately, but what we saw was pretty good. My favorite works were by Van Gogh and Monet. We saw works by lots of other famous painters as well, including Manet, Cezanne and Gauguin. Good times.

I got a major craving for ice cream, so after making a pit stop for the ugliest ice cream cone I've ever gotten (but still tasty), we kept walking. We walked through a "garden", which was more like a park, stopping for a little while to rest and enjoy the scenery.



We kept walking and finally saw the Eiffel Tower for the first time.



We decided to hit the Arc de Triomphe first, and then continue on to the tower later. The Arc is at the end of the Champs Elysees, so we cruised up that street (it's not a field or open space, as the name implies). It's a very pleasant avenue with a lot of trees, and after a while you start to see a lot of upscale shops, cafes and restaurants. At the end of the avenue is the Arc.







We wanted to go to the top but ended up having to wait for a while as there was a ceremony going on to commemorate unknown soldiers or whatever (there's an eternal flame there, dedicated to unknown soldiers from WWI). The ceremony turned out to be a good thing, however, as admission was free for the day.





Weird statue inside:



The wait was worth it. The Arc is kind of at the center of Paris, and the views from there are great--well worth waiting for even if you have to pay to go in.





The business district. This is where our hotel was:


This looked pretty cool, but we never figured out where it was:


Eternal flame for WWI unknown soldiers:


Afterward, we walked what seemed like a really long way to the Eiffel Tower. We passed through some pretty quiet neighborhoods and walked by an embassy or two.

Unfortunately, it started raining while we were walking, and the rain was pretty heavy by the time we got to the tower, so after checking the weather forecast and learning that it was only supposed to get worse, we decided to postpone our Eiffel Tower excursion, get some dinner, and head back to the hotel.






After walking a while, we found a restaurant with a decent menu, so we decided to park it for a while. We were both pretty wet--particularly my brother, who didn't have an umbrella--but at least the dinner was really good. My brother had a steak au poivre (pepper sauce) that was really good, while I had a curried chicken with rice plate. I also had the best French onion soup I've ever had. It was thicker than any version I've ever had before, and tasted really good. And yes, it was more than just boiled onions in water.



We found the hotel without incident. It was in the business district and thus way far away from anything interesting from a tourist perspective, but it was far nicer than where I stay in London and the surrounding area was actually kind of interesting. More on that later.