Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Monday in Paris

Jess is writing up Sunday as I'm typing this up now, so we can attempt to get back on track.

Paris in a nut shell is nuts! It's impossible not to immediately get transformed into a wonderful mood once you get out and traveling around .

The morning started out with an introduction to the city subway, which is no more intimidating than any other train system, just obviously in another language. Parisians are very quite an personal and the train is a perfect example of that. Even fully loaded, the train can be almost silent except the movement of the train on the rails.

Our walking tour started on a bridge that led us to the island of Ile de la Cite. This is where the city of Paris began, even in its earliest stage beginning with the Romans. This island is flanked on all sides by the River Seine (pronounced Sen - like ten with an 's' instead of a 't' as Jessie taught me.

Our 1st stop was at Sainte-Chapelle, which is the first of many chapel stops through the entire tour. The chapel was pretty incredible, with the highlight being a rose window (pictured below) that depicts the stories of Revelations.

Second stop was at the great Notre-Dame Cathedral. The front of the Cathedral had some very awesome sculpting and individually many stories...really too many to tell, so I'll focus on my favorite:

In the picture below, you can see the front of the cathedral and there is a row with around 28 (?) Kings. All of them have been restored, but during the French revolution, the people thought these to be Kings of France, when in fact they are Biblical kings. Regardless, it was a very non King friendly time, so the people went about beheading and destroying that row on the chapel.

Skip forward to our next destination, the Cluny Museum, and you will see a picture of these heads. These heads where just found in the 70's in a local garden. Apparently someone felt they were important enough to transport almost all but a few and bury them together. Quite amazingly they were found and now are all on display in the Cluny.

The Cluny itself was built and sits in the grounds of an old Roman bath house. It's crazy to think that these building are just erected on top of other structures, because the elevations have change so drastically over the centuries, that once was above ground - is now below.

The Cluny is wild in that: the Roman bath house is a pretty incredible room, all the artifacts are very much out and completely accessible (not to touch - but you could, if you want to get hollered at), and it apparently has some sort of gravitational pull for only the best mullets in the world! Also, if your really into the Middle Ages, it's one the best collections on the planet.

After the Cluny it went: nap, which lasted longer than planned, then followed by dinner at an Italian place on Rue Claire (very hip eating/shopping street), and then a stroll over to the Effil Tower in the rain.

Our plan was to go up in the Tower, but we where having such a pleasant time eating and drinking wine, we lost track of time.

Couple things leaned:
Sortie - means exit. Important on subways and at many of the tourist attractions.

Vin = wine. It's cheaper than Coca Cola here and way more delicious.

Merci - means thanks. You never realize how often you say thanks in a day until your using it in another language. Unless you don't say thanks and that just means your an ass.

Food - you can eat a whole ton of it when you walk around all day! In a place where food taste as good as it does here - this is a double bonus.

Alright, my wine glass is almost empty and it's about my nap time, so until the next post..


3 comments:

  1. Holy mullet Batman! Amazing! Even in Paris you can find one.

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  2. Ahhhhh, Paris...your pictures have brought me delight! Such wonderful sites, I cant wait to hear the nooks and crannies you guys work yourself into...Did you try to type anything on one of their keyboards??? If you can make a 2 paragraph drunken blog pot from one of their keyboards I hear you make it into some super-stupid-secret club thing...

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  3. Gotta love a city where wine is cheaper than coke!
    Love the pix:) Glad you guys are enjoying the tour!

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