We stayed with our friends Bryan and
Ami (@amitakesonparis on Twitter) at their amazing apartment, full of windows and light. They have
two daughters almost the same age as our kids. And I'm sure if you
asked the kids what the best part of being in Paris was, they would
tell you it was playing with friends. One of the hardest parts of
this kind of travel for our kids is far fewer opportunities to just
play with other children. So we're glad they got to do so at this
stop.
But the sights of Paris were pretty
cool too.
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| The creepy clown guy behind us later insisted on shaking people's hands. Not popular with our group. |
Naturally, we saw the biggies: the
Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Arc de Triomph. They are all impressive
examples of architecture, and each in a very different way than the
others.
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| This is not the usual view one gets of the Eiffel Tower. This one is better! |
But the architecture of Paris is not
limited to famous structures.
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| Detailed work from Notre Dame. The kids loved the guy holding his own head. |
The city is full of interesting (and
not so interesting) buildings. Some of the modern structures are
quite ugly, and sometimes I wonder if that is on purpose. But others
are dignified. And there are rare old gems in Paris. I mean, gems of
buildings, though there are probably actual gems somewhere. And in
some places, there are just interesting art elements added to the
building that seem somewhat random.
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| Someone added a mosaic of Qbert to the side of a building. @!#?@! |
However, if you are looking for beauty,
the buildings are only one element. Go to some of the magnificent
gardens. The Tuileries Garden is filled with sculptures, paths,
playgrounds, plants, flowers, and more. At one end is the Louvre
which is a gigantic and gorgeous building. Plus there are the two
pyramids (small and large) sticking up from the ground at the Louvre.
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| This is only vineyard in the city of Paris itself. It is in Montmartre. But I hear the wine from it is not so good. |
But my favorite garden was the Jardin
du Luxembourg. Here's the story. Maria di Medici is married off to
some French king named Louis. (There are a lot of those.) Sadly, they
hate each other. But she is rich and homesick. So she buys the Hotel
du Luxembourg and turns it into a palace. Then outside of it she
designs and finances an enormous garden in the Italian style that she
misses.
The palace eventually became the home
of the French Parliament. The gardens are now open to the public.
They are beautiful, with different sections. There is a gorgeous
fountain with two lovers and some man in the clouds looking down on
them. It is an incredibly impressive place. Amazing what a bout of
homesickness (and millions of Francs for this is certain
pre-Eurozone) can do.
We greatly enjoyed our visit to the
Musee d'Orsay. They have an incredible collection of Impressionist
Art and Post-Impressionist Art. Not only did we enjoy the paintings
and sculptures there, but Ami gave us many great lessons in those art
periods. Still, here is our unresolved question. Was Impressionism a
necessary step to get from Realism to the Modern Abstract Movement or
could you have jumped from one to the other without an evolving step?
Somber
as it may sound, one of my favorite excursions was to the
Montparnasse Cemetery. Many important French citizens are buried
here. I personally saw the graves of the great mathematician Henri
Poincare, the great playwright Jean-Paul Sartre, and the great
sculptor Frederic Bartholdi. But the real thing that brought me there
was it is also the burial place of Alfred Dreyfus, the man wrongly
accused of being a traitor in the 1890s and convicted because he was
a Jew, not because he was guilty.
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| The Parade Ground of L'Ecole Militaire. Here Dreyfus was "degraded" before the public. |
As Lumiere says in Beauty and the
Beast “...this is France, and
dinner here is never second best.” Yes, the food is delicious. We
ate dinner one night at a French restaurant. So bouncing from one
animated movie to another, do you remember in Ratatouille
when Remy is trying to explain flavor to his brother Emile? He talks
about two things that each taste good, but when you put them
together, it is something even better.
Well,
that was the way of this meal. Some people had Beef Cheeks and
Codfish which you had to eat together. Others had veal rolls and
shrimp that you had to eat together. Needless to say, everything was
excellent. The kids ate so much that they declared that their regular
stomachs had spilled over into their dessert stomachs. (Though
dessert still somehow got eaten. Culinary miracle!)
As
good as that meal was, I imagine the kids will remember eating
macarons more distinctly. They are sweet meringue based cookies.
Though I'm sure the French would not call them cookies. To the
Pennsylvanians I lived near, we would say that they were a French
version of Whoopie Pies, though the similarities in form are
incidental because the differences in flavor are immense. Carver got
one that was violet and licorice flavor. He asked our hosts what
violet tasted like and they told him “It tastes like the color
purple.” That didn't help, but he enjoyed it when he got to eat the
real thing.
Paris
is a wonderful place to visit. It is easy to get around. There are
buses and metros everywhere. But it is also very expensive, including
public transportation. (Though London may be even more expensive in
regards to transportation. Though not in regards to food. Apples in
Paris were the most expensive we have seen anywhere in Europe.)
It is
interesting. I enjoyed Paris, thought it was lovely and had so much
to offer. But the entire time I was there, I always felt like “This
is a city in which I don't belong.” I don't mean the city was
unwelcoming. It was more inside of me. Some places you feel right at
home. Other places you always feel out of place. For me, Paris is one
where I feel out of place. I may one day visit again, but I can't
ever see myself feeling the temptation to stay.
