Paris: Trois Jours

For our third day in Paris we on met up with our friends to spend the rest of our time in Paris with them. Since our friend Megan's parents were leaving Paris and heading back to the U.S. that afternoon, we met them for lunch before they left. We went to this cute Parisian cafe that had the typical street seating, but elected to sit upstairs since we were a large group. When looking at the menu we were pretty sure we wanted get something simple since we had plans to get macarons later that afternoon. Tara and I ultimately both decided on the Croque Monsieur which is basically a ham and cheese sandwich but grilled and then topped in cheese. We knew it was a basic French sandwich so we decided it was something we should try. We actually ended up having it three times while we were in France! 

After lunch, we said goodbye to our friend's parents and thanked them for being so nice to us and treating us to such great meals! We then headed to our new hostel to check in. Since it was only Tara and I before, we previously had a two person private room. Now, Megan was staying with us so we decided to change hostels entirely to get a three person private room in the center of Montmartre. It was cool to completely change the area of Paris we were staying in so that we got a good glimpse of two different places. Montmartre is where Moulin Rouge is located and is really close to Sacre Coeur as well. Aside from being in a convenient location near patisseries and a grocery store, it was on a cute side street that fit a small square of buildings.

After checking in, we got in the elevator which only had a capacity for three people! As there were four of us (our friend Maddy who was staying in Versailles was with us too) with all of our luggage it was funny being squeezed tightly into the smallest elevator any of us had ever seen. 

After the interesting elevator ride, we checked out our room which was really cute with three pink beds in a row, a nice white desk with an orchid on it, a television, and a sparkling clean bathroom. We were pretty lucky getting really nice hostels for low prices in great locations.

After settling in, we were ready to explore more of Paris, but first we needed to eat a Parisian staple... MACARONS! If you know me, you know macarons are my favorite dessert ever and I'll get them from wherever I can, whether it be the Culinary Institute of America near my college, Laduree in New York City, or my favorite French bakery in Saratoga. Except now we were in Paris and able to have the best macarons the world had to offer, from the city they originated in! Beyond excited we headed to Pierre Herme across from the Tuileries Garden to get the macarons we had been waiting for! 

We chose to go to Pierre Herme because besides being featured in Gossip Girl, there are no Pierre Herme shops in the US. Laduree, Paris's other famous macaron shop, is located in NYC as I mentioned, and we also frequented the Laduree in London's Covent Garden. That's why we wanted to try something different and just looking at the flavors Pierre Herme offered, we knew we were going to get it. 

We decided to be somewhat adventurous and Tara chose Olive Oil & Vanilla and Salted Caramel while I chose Venezuelan Chocolate and Gold Dusted Chocolate Ganache. As you can tell, not every place (or any place for that matter) has these flavors! If you're unfamiliar with macarons, have a closer look at them in the picture below! 

As you can tell, it's not like the coconut and chocolate "macaroon" cookie we have in the US. Instead it's made up of two crunchy outer shells with a delicious, creamy filling on the inside. The flavors are endless when it comes to macarons, so they never get boring. Plus they taste great with a spot of tea and don't make you feel guilty after eating them (except for spending the 2 euros a piece!) After all of us picked out our macarons, we found a bench overlooking the Champs Elysees, and stared at the Arc de Triomphe in the distance as we enjoyed every single bite!

After we finished our delicious macarons we made our way to the Arc de Triomphe. Since the Arc de Triomphe is located in the center of a massive traffic circle, everyone is directed to an underground tunnel to get to it. It was really impressive being right up next to it and it was fun to watch all the traffic whirl around us. 

We then took a stroll down the Champs Elysees, popping into stores and keeping an eye out for possible restaurants for dinner. There are a lot of stores along the Champs Elyeese that were familiar to us in the US. However, they were a lot larger than the versions we see in American shopping malls so it was still interesting to look inside. 

We stopped in H&M for awhile and some of us even bought a few things since the Euro seemed so cheap to us after using the Pound for so long! We also window shopped at some of the more upscale retailers like Cartier. 

By that time we were all getting hungry so we stopped at a little restaurant that seemed to serve a little bit of everything. Being on a budget, we found that no matter where you go, pasta is probably the least expensive thing you'll find on the menu. So most of us got pasta with a large amount of melted cheese on top. The French really love their cheese!

After dinner, it was starting to get dark, so we thought it would be the perfect time to take another visit to the Eiffel Tower to see it sparkle from a different vantage point. Trocadero has an amazing view of the entire Eiffel Tower and is a must see if you want to see the tower sparkle in its entirety. I definitely recommend standing right next to it as well, but in order to take the full tower into perspective, the viewing area at the Jardins de Trocadero is great. It was simply magical to watch and we all didn't want it to end. 

Paris: Deux Jours

On our second day in Paris we planned on visiting the Musee d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower! We hopped on the metro and headed straight for the museum, since we had heard that the Musee d'Orsay always has really long lines to get in. On our way we stopped at a little cafe that had a street window where you could order bakery items on-the-go. We ordered two chocolate croissants in French! Well, it was probably as basic as it gets when it comes to speaking French. Nonetheless, we felt very Parisian as we took bites of our delicious croissants on our walk to the museum from the metro stop. It ends up that the reviews were true about the waiting line, because we had to wait for about 30 minutes to get in! It was worth it though because the museum was great.

 

It is also much smaller than the Louvre, so we were able to really take in every painting, sculpture, decorative art and photograph the museum holds. My favorite part of the Musee d'Orsay was their extensive impressionist collection. 

Impressionism is my favorite painting style and I got to see a lot of my favorite artists like Edgar Degas, Claude Monet, Vincent van Gogh, Mary Cassatt and Pierre Auguste Renoir. I especially loved seeing Degas's "The Ballet Class," a few of Monet's Rouen Cathedral series and Renoir's "Dance at Le Moulin de la Galette."

My favorite was probably Monet's Rouen Cathedrals as I've always been a huge Monet fan, but I also loved Edouard Manet's Luncheon on the Grass. For anyone who watches Gossip Girl, (yes I had to bring this up) you may know this painting as the one Blair Waldorf was standing at when she first met Prince Louis of Monaco. They bond over the fact that it is both of their favorite paintings and I can see why. It's really interesting in that it depicts a nude woman having a picnic with two fully clothed men. There was a lot of disapproval of this painting when it was first exhibited. Some people thought the woman should not be nude while the men were clothed, others were uncomfortable with the subject matter of real and current people (as opposed to the usual nudity of goddesses and supernatural beings), while some saw it as a statement about prostitution in Paris. Either way, people were pretty upset about this piece then, but now it has its own wall in the Musee d'Orsay for all to see! It definitely jumps out at you and is a piece you'll always remember. 

After looking at the Impressionism section (and getting yelled at in French for taking pictures), we made our way further around the museum seeing sculptures, wood work, and more paintings. We also took a moment to look through the huge clock on the museum's top floor to see the Seine outside below. 

After thoroughly enjoying the Musee d'Orsay we headed to our next stop... The Eiffel Tower! I was really excited to see the most iconic image of Paris as I've constantly reblogged Eiffel Tower photos on Tumblr and dreamed of seeing it in person. As we rode the metro to the "Tour Eiffel" stop, you could see the top of it from the metro windows! The ride there gave us a glimpse of how much the Eiffel Tower literally towers over the city as we could see it out the window no matter how far we were. 

Finally we got to our stop, followed the tower until we got closer and closer and were right there! When it's in front of you, it's a lot bigger than you would imagine. Just the support beams alone were much more humongous than I had expected. We made sure to take plenty of pictures and just stare at it for a while.

As it was about 4pm Paris time, we knew the sun would set soon and we'd be able to see the tower all lit up. Since our hostel was in Saint-Ouen, 20-25 minutes north of the tower, we thought it best to stay in the the area and wait for it to get dark. Since we were pretty hungry we roamed the nearby streets looking for a place to get dinner while enjoying the walk past cute shops and patisseries, with the tower overlooking us. 

After checking out a few menus we decided on a restaurant and got pretty basic meals. We made sure to get seconds of bread because there's no better time for baguettes than in Paris! About 2 hours later (seriously... service is so slow and chill all over Europe) we finished our meal and went back to the Eiffel Tower. It looked amazing all lit up and I can definitely understand why Paris would be called "The City of Lights" since the tower lights up everything!

As we stood at the tower's front we were approached by several people selling cool little souvenirs hoping we would buy a mini Eiffel tower or light up toy. Usually we would say "no merci," but I knew that the Eiffel Tower sparkled at some time increment and wanted to ask one of the salespeople when. I ended up asking one of them which resulted in him trying to get us to buy his souvenirs, but ultimately giving us the answer to our question. The tower was going to sparkle in only 10 minutes! We waited it out and when the time hit the hour the Eiffel Tower began sparkling from top to bottom.

The second it started, everyone around us started cheering and then continued in excitement oohing and aahing. It lasted for a full minute and I took a video so I could re-watch it as many times as I wanted. It was so beautiful and unlike anything I had ever seen before. I think if I lived in Paris I would never get bored of it. As the tower stopped twinkling a minute later, we were sad, but knew that then, if not already, we were definitely in love with Paris. With three days left we had a ton more to see and rested up before our next day meeting up with our friends to see the Arc de Triomphe.

Paris: Le Premier Jour

     After our final week of classes, our 4 weeks of traveling were about to begin! With the first stop being, Paris! We were super excited, but as with many travel plans we hit a roadblock before we even got on the flight. In order to get the best flight prices, we booked all of our flights months in advance. It took us about a week to figure everything out from which times we would arrive in each city, which hostels we would stay in, and what countries we wanted to go to. After a while, we were delirious with all of our plans and must have overlooked the fact that we bought a plane ticket to leave London at 7am. The early flight wasn't the problem, but the lack of transportation was. Since our Uni was in South East London it took about 25-30 minute to get into Central London and then it would take about another hour on a bus to the airport. We also like to at least have a hour at the airport before boarding time to get through security. This all meant that we would have to leave our dorms at 3am! Since the tube closes down at midnight we wouldn't have that option, buses can take hours to get into Central London, and we were terrified of what the cost would be to take a cab. 

After frantically weighing out the pros and cons we ended up changing our flight time at 1am. We got charged extra to change our departure time to an afternoon flight, but in the end we thought our peace of mind would be worth it. After that little hiccup was settled we got to the airport in London and had time to get a box of Krispy Kreme donuts. They were the prettiest donuts we had ever seen and it was nice to relax a little before take-off after our stressful night. 

Before we knew it we on our flight heading to Paris. It is fair to say that many people dream of visiting the "City of Love/Lights" and we were no exception. We were ready to partake in all the cliche and romanticized versions of the city. When we landed we roamed around the airport trying to find and buy tickets for the metro. We ended up asking the attendant at the help desk how to get to our hostel and he was super helpful. He explained in English exactly what trains and metro changes we needed to make and before long we were in our comfy hostel. 

It was super nice with a private sink and shower, TV, and a nice big bed. We got to our hostel a little late and didn't have any time to get dinner. However, McDonalds never fails to be everywhere, including right across from our hostel, so we got a quick bite and went to sleep to prepare for tomorrow's jam packed museum day.

We got up bright and early, and headed straight to the Louvre on the metro. Cailin and I had studied a lot of art history throughout school, and have always loved art and museums, so we were excited to see a lot of the works of art that we had only seen in textbooks. We got breakfast in the large shopping center that surrounds the Louvre and got into the museum as quickly as we could. The Louvre is overwhelmingly huge. After all, it is said that if you take only 30 seconds to look at every painting it houses, without any breaks, it would take 100 days to see the whole museum. In turn, we saw as much as we could within one day. All the paintings were really impressive and the structure of the Louvre is beautiful and full of energy. We spent a good hour or two just admiring the Louvre Pyramid, strolling around the plaza and people watching. As per usual, Cailin took many photos to capture the Louvre in all its splendor. 

After we bought our tickets which were definitely worth the 22 euros we each paid, we were ready to see some art! We started off in a large room of sculptures which were all pretty big and life-like. Except my favorite which was a bust of a man with a pot on his head. Not a very life-like scene, but I thought it was really funny. 

All jokes aside, the Louvre has some amazing art and famous pieces like Liberty Leading the People, The Raft of the Medusa, and Mona Lisa. We learned a lot about these works in our World Culture/World Literature class in high school and were able to recall the history behind the paintings and their meanings.

Except we couldn't do that for Liberty Leading the People... because it wasn't there! After scouring the museum and being sure we had been in every room, the painting was nowhere to be found! Eventually I just went up to someone who worked there and asked them if they could point us in the right direction. They ended up telling us it was on exhibition at another museum. Sad, but it definitely gives us a good excuse to go back to the Louvre again someday! We also went around the museum following the signs to find Mona Lisa. As everyone says, Mona Lisa is much smaller than you would expect, and they're right in that it's relatively small. That didn't stop a big crowd from forming around it though. After patiently waiting and a tad bit of maneuvering, we finally made it to the front of the crowd and were able to take pictures of us with one of da Vinci's most well-known works of art. It was definitely cool to see such a famous painting in real life.

The Louvre is organized really well with art from the same time period or nationality being housed in the same room. We definitely got a great glimpse of all the Louvre has to offer but I definitely would not hesitate to go back and spend even more time there. Ultimately my favorite painting was David's Oath of the Horatii. Besides being a really powerful piece, I spent a lot of time learning about it in class. Although it had been four years since my class covered it, I remembered talking about David's consistency in using threes (painting three columns in the background to match the three Horatii brothers), as well as the use of light that really defines the strength and prominence of the figures. 

After looking at all of the rooms, staying in some of our favorites longer than others, and gazing out the Louvre windows to see gorgeous views of Paris, we finished and headed outside. We had to be typical tourists for a second and take pictures of us touching the point of the Louvre pyramid which was really funny because everyone around us was doing the same. 

We also had a mini photoshoot around the area (since I love taking pictures!) and just ended up strolling around the Louvre and peeking into shops before our dinner plans. 

We were meeting our friends in Paris later into the trip since one friend was staying in Versailles, and the other was with her parents for a few days. However our friend's parents were nice enough to invite us to dinner at their really nice hotel, Hotel du Louvre. As you can guess by the name, it was right next to the Louvre so it was perfect that we were right there already! 

We had a great dinner and were lucky to have some real food and by real food I mean Sea Bass, my favorite! We also were treated to dessert and I got two cute tiny scoops of Pistachio and Chocolate ice cream. It was nice to have a fancier Parisian dinner, catch up with our friend and tell each other about our first days in Paris, and meet her parents. It was such a great first day and made us even more excited for the next four days ahead. I mean we were seeing the Musee d'Orsay and the Eiffel Tower the next day, what was not to be excited about?!