Dachs Thoughts

After 5 days on the photo retreat, I returned to Paris for a little more than a week to do general sightseeing and tourist activities. I finally managed to connect up with Maddy mid-day the day after the retreat, who was also traveling with her friend Alexandra. Maddy and Alexandra navigated via train, subway, bus to eventually get to me around noon. Alexandra had lived in Paris before, so she became our guide in navigating some of the public transportation.

Versailles Plus a Taste of the Local Music Scene

Our first scheduled tourist activity was to visit the extremely ornate Palace of Versailles. It was one of several venues for which I bought tickets for guided tours ahead of time, and by the time the ladies reached me, we were on a tight schedule. But we squeaked in getting there on time via train. We had a guided tour and it was cool to see some of it (20 rooms out of 1000s) plus the vast gardens. I liked seeing the opulence of some of the rooms, but the gardens were even more impressive to me. Afterward, we got a great french dinner in the area.

As an added bonus for the day, Virginie (Alexandra’s Parisian friend with who the ladies had stayed the previous night) was going to play music and have some live singing at a “private club,” and they urged me to come along, which I eventually agreed to. We used a series of trains and metros (subways) with some narrowly timed transfers to make it to the station in the north of Paris where Virginie, and her boyfriend Dan, picked us up. We ended up at this place NE of Paris in a large club room, apparently owned by the Mayor of the town, and they basically had open mike night for music enthusiasts who would get up on stage and play a few songs. This was a Friday night for the locals. It was pretty good and very unexpected, and a nice way to see an element of local culture not typical for tourists. Ultimately, we got back to Virginie’s house and then took an Uber back to the hotel, arriving quite late. This was a very interesting day with some very unexpected local flavor added in. [25,800 steps]

Eiffel Tower and Exploring on Foot

After sleeping in a bit we got out and had a nice lunch. We walked over to the Eiffel Tower and went into the underside area. There were various ticket options to walk up or take various elevators. We opted not to go up but enjoyed some time underneath, which was still pretty cool. After leaving there, we walked over and sat for a while by the fountains in the Trocadéro gardens. Walking back, Maddy identified a restaurant on her phone, so we walked uphill to a Brazilian-style restaurant where I had a very spicy Margarita and some dry-cooked meat (Andia). The place had a great atmosphere, but the food left us both feeling stuffed, though it wasn’t that much. Probably my least satisfying meal in Paris. Afterward, we walked back home and got some rest. [15,195 steps]

Arc de Triomphe and Champs-Élysées

We began the day with some brunch, then meandered our way to the Arc de Triomphe de l’Étoile (Arc de Triomphe). On the way, we passed by the top of the Trocadéro, with a great view of the Eiffel Tower, and above the fountains where we’d been the day before. When we got to our destination, we went through the tunnel under, but not up the Arc, as there was quite a line, and you had to buy tickets. We strolled down the Champs-Élysées, which in my mind seems like one of the most Paris tourist things to do, and did some shopping at Sephora. Finally, close to home, we stopped for a snack/dinner. [15,480 steps]

Museum of the Army, Museum of the Liberation and Napolean’s Tomb

At the Eiffel Tower, Maddy had gotten a book with highlighted venues in Paris, which gave us some ideas of places to visit. One was Napolean’s Tomb, which interested her quite a bit. We made our way over there on foot, walking behind the Eiffel Tower through the Parc du Champ de Mars, and it turned out to a very interesting place. It is part of a complex that houses the Army Museum (Musée de l’Armée) that contains a collection of historical military elements from many centuries, and the Dôme des Invalides that includes large chapel Cathedral of Saint-Louis des Invalides, and also houses Napolean’s Tomb. I hadn’t realized how venerated Napolean was. The tomb was more like an altar to a deity. A giant sarcophagus lies underneath a large dome and the round base has monuments to some of Napolean’s offspring who also ruled France. It was a quite striking and beautiful place. After spending several hours going through the place, Maddy headed to public transportation to rejoin Alexandra and Virginie for a final girls night before Alexandra headed back home.

Musee d’Orsay

Paris is filled with numerous museums and amazing art, so we visited one of the more famous art museums, the Musee d’Orsay, which sits on the left bank of the Seine. We saw lots of beautiful French art, sculpture, and even furniture. We saw lots of famous pieces including a large collection of Impressionists. The museum purportedly houses the largest collection of Impressionist and post-Impressionist artwork in the world. It was quite impressive and I could certainly go there again.

The Louvre

It would hard to imagine visiting Paris without going to the Louvre, which is arguably the most famous museum in the world. On one of my days walking around before my photo retreat, I walked by it and into the courtyard. It was a weekend during the French school spring break and I remember feeling it was very large and that there were large crowds of people. We scheduled a tour, which was a useful way to go on your first visit. We got an interesting overview, starting with a history and its origins as an ancient castle then moved fairly chronologically through sculpture and then into paintings. Lots of cool Renaissance paintings. Saw some famous sculptures and paintings. We saw the Venus de Arles and Venus de Milo, original paintings by Leonardo di Vinci: John the Baptist, St Anne, Mary, Jesus with Lamb, and the Mona Lisa; also saw the famous (Lady) Liberty leading the people. As others have said you could easily spend days visiting this museum. We were on the guided tour for about 3 hours, and then stayed around another couple of hours finally ending up in the Antiquities of Egypt area, which held some interest for Maddy. I would definitely come back here if I visit Paris again.

Paris Catacombes

The last major tourist site that we visited again came from Maddy’s book. We went down and through the Paris Catacombes (Wiki). A very fascinating (and a bit creepy) place, with mounds of skulls and bones lining chambers and walls. We took an audio tour, and it was interesting to hear what led to this solution to a major problem.

La Fin

After 8 1/2 days of sightseeing around Paris, it was time to head home. The logistics were a little complicated as after I got to the airport I had to direct the driver to the right terminal (which wasn’t obvious), and then once in the terminal, I had to find the right counter to go to for my flight, which again wasn’t obvious. I finally sorted it all out, but luckily I had given myself plenty of spare time.

I had a great time visiting France, much better than I was expecting. The people including the waiters were quite nice in contrast to the stereotypes. I saw lots of historic sights and beautiful art, ate some great food, and walked a lot. It was great to experience this culture that I haven’t really been exposed to directly before. There is so much to see and experience, I feel like I just touched the surface. I would gladly return again.

Not long after getting my home upgrade projects to a stable point, I took off on my second major adventure of the year, my first ever trip to France. I had a photography retreat planned at a historic château in the countryside outside of Paris. I coupled this with a general tourist trip within Paris itself. I planned to go to Paris a few days before the retreat so that I could adjust a bit to the time change, and then I planned to come back after the retreat and stay for lots of sightseeing.

The run-up to the trip was a bit stressful because of the changing Covid rules. I had gotten the vaccination and a booster, but it turned out France required you to have gotten the booster within 9 months of the last primary shot, which I missed by a few days. I had thought it was more important to get it closer to the travel dates so that the antibodies would be strongest, but bureaucratic policies don’t seem to make complete sense. Fortunately, a few weeks before I left France changed the status of the US to “green” which meant that they would let you in even if you were unvaccinated if you had a negative Covid test. At the time I was getting ready to fly I thought it required a PCR test within a couple of days of flying, which I got and it was extremely expensive, but it turned out I could have gotten by with the less expensive antigen test. Interestingly going through customs in France was fairly trivial, as the passport was checked through an automated photo booth, and they never asked for any Covid test documents. I guess that was all handled by the airline which required me to upload all my documents before being cleared to fly. Once I got through, after some iterating I managed to connect up with a driver I’d arranged to take me to my hotel. It was a hair-raising trip through Paris traffic, but we had an interesting time trying to have a minimalist chat, both of us using Google Translate.

I got to my hotel, Hotel Félicien, which is located on ‘the right bank’ in the 16th arrondissement, and despite a long flight and lack of sleep I went out for a much-needed walk to do a little exploring. My hotel was only about a mile from the Eiffel Tower. I walked there, then on my way back headed up a long stairway on Rue Beethoven into the Passy area, and ended up at a nice little restaurant (La Passy) where I had a late brunch and my first Parisian meal. I eventually navigated back to my hotel [10,845 steps].

Late the next morning I went exploring again and headed in the opposite direction from the previous day. I ended up at a nice restaurant (La Mirabeau) where I again had brunch — as well as many other nice meals later in my trip. After a little more exploring, and walking through several neighborhoods and districts, I made my way back to the hotel and rested for a bit (slept). In the evening, I went back to the Eiffel Tower to photograph it at night and catch the light show. I got some nice pictures and videos, but I stayed a bit too long. After returning I messed around too much and ended up getting only 2 1/2 hours of sleep [11,250 steps].

The next morning (Saturday) I thought I’d walk to Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris, which seemed quite doable looking at the map. Strolling along the left bank of the Seine took longer than I expected (nearly 2 hours), but it was a beautiful walk. I was impressed at how active the French were, as I passed many many people walking, riding bikes, electric scooters, or running and exercising in other ways. (This health consciousness was seemingly in direct contradiction to the omnipresent smoking around the city). I also saw some classic French scenes such as mothers and daughters walking hand in hand. Apparently, I passed close by the famous Shakespeare and Co bookstore, but I didn’t realize it so I never checked it out. It was a bit anticlimactic actually seeing Notre Dame Cathedral, as it was under construction, but I might have explored around a bit more had I not been quite so tired. I’m glad I did the walk, and it was good to see the surroundings on the little island in the Seine. Heading back along the other side of the river, I passed by the Louvre. It is a huge area, and I went into the courtyard and scoped it out. There were a gagillion people there on a Saturday. I didn’t know if it was always like that, but I later learned that this was spring break week for French schools. I continued to walk back and scope out some other locales along the way. Eventually getting exhausted around noon, I found a nice restaurant (Chez Francis) and had a nice brunch. On this little excursion, I believe I passed through the 16th, 15th, 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, 1st, and 8th arrondissements. I finally dragged myself back to my hotel after 22,700 steps.

On Sunday morning, I did a little more walking around before packing up, checking out of my hotel, and meeting up with my photography group for our kickoff luncheon. This was a very enjoyable few days serving as a wonderful introduction to Paris.