Okay, now to cover three days in Paris all in one post! (Except for Versailles) Allons-y!
Our hotel was on Rue Cler, which is a very Parisian-y cobblestone street with a ton of restaurants, right by the Eiffel Tower! On the side streets, all the Christmas lights were still up, which was really pretty to see. We arrived in the evening after checking in, we walked over to see the Eiffel Tower at night. So beautiful! It's all lit up, and it sparkles every hour for five minutes.
Video from the ground:
Video from the second level, looking up (from the third day):
Then we got steak-frites!!! Which is pepper steak with french fries. So amazing.
The next day, we went to Versailles and were exhausted when we came back. After collapsing in our hotel room for a while, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower so we could go up it at night and see all the lights. However, it turned out the very top level was closed for some reason (cold? wind?), so we decided to try again the next night instead, and we headed to the Arc de Triomphe. The Arc de Triomphe is along the Champs Élysées (which you should be singing right now), and it is amazing! There are so many intricate statues and carvings on it, it's incredible, and it's really pretty lit up at night. We climbed to the top and got an awesome view of the Champs Élysées and the surrounding streets all lit up. You can even see the Eiffel Tower in the distance!
Champs Élysées from the top of the Arc de Triomphe
The Eiffel Tower from the top of the Arc de Triomphe
Les Invalides
The next morning, we got up early and walked to the Musée d'Orsay. The walk ended up being way longer than I thought, but it was really pretty, and the sky was still pink and orange from sunrise. We walked by Les Invalides, which is a beautiful complex of buildings from the 1670's, that house several museums and a military hospital. The gold dome looked amazing in the morning lighting!
A little backstory: the Musée d'Orsay is probably the second most prestigious museum in Paris/the world after the Louvre, and it was closed for a special event when my dad and I tried to go three years ago. Ever since then, it's been my dad's dream to finally set foot inside. And we did! Yay!!!!! He was so excited that the first thing he did inside was start taking pictures in front of a "No Photos" sign.
So I didn't get any pictures in side the Musée d'Orsay, but it was really incredible. It's inside of an old train station with a glass ceiling. On the top floor, there's a giant clock on the outside, and behind it is glass, so you can look out through the clock, which is super cool. We saw so many famous paintings, it was crazy! Rodin, Renoir, Manet, Vincent van Gogh, Degas. Woops, sorry, name-dropping 19th century artists is a common side-effect of visiting a lot of European museums.
Sacré-Coeur
Next, we headed to Montmartre, which is a neighborhood up on a hillside that overlooks the rest of Paris and includes the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur. The hike to get up there was quite intense! I remember there was a sign in the metro station saying it was the deepest in the city, and there were no escalators! Call me a lazy American, but I like a good escalators. And we finally reached street level, only to find out we still had a ways to go.
The neighborhood was very cool and kind of like the stereotype of Paris. It's probably played up for the tourists. There were little shops and cafés and street performers everywhere, and even a little art fair. And the view is amazing! It feels like you can see all of Paris!
Nativity scene in a tent...
The Sacré-Coeur was actually finished in 1914, so it's not nearly as old as most of the big churches here, but it's still built in that grand, imposing style, so the architecture makes it look like it's hundreds of years old. It's gleaming white, and all the mosaics and statues are beautiful. But I have to say, I got kind of an iffy vibe from the church. It's beautiful, but you're not allowed to take pictures inside, and there's two big giftshops inside the church, one on each side. They also charged 10 euros (~$13) for a candle. It just all seemed a little commercial. Plus, when we were walking back to the metro, we stopped in this brick church, which had its nativity scene in a tent. So I feel like they could spread the wealth around some more.
View from Montmartre
That night, we finally went up the Eiffel Tower, which was amazing!!! You can see the city all lit up, and the tower is lit up too. There's also a searchlight that rotates at the very top of the tower. It was freezing cold, so we didn't stay on the outside parts of the platforms for very long, but it was still breathtaking. Photos:
You can see where the first two levels are, and the third level is allll the way at the top! The elevator ride is like a minute and a half. If I was scared of heights, I would definitely find it a little unnerving! But it's really cool to look at the structure of the tower as you go through it. Here's the video from coming back down:
Going up the Eiffel Tower at night was an amazing way to end our trip! I'm so glad my dad could come visit me.
Correction, the elevator ride was a minute 50 of pure terror, especially when the person next to you is freaking out and says the ride is scarier than skydiving.
Okay, now to cover three days in Paris all in one post! (Except for Versailles) Allons-y!
A little backstory: the Musée d'Orsay is probably the second most prestigious museum in Paris/the world after the Louvre, and it was closed for a special event when my dad and I tried to go three years ago. Ever since then, it's been my dad's dream to finally set foot inside. And we did! Yay!!!!! He was so excited that the first thing he did inside was start taking pictures in front of a "No Photos" sign.
Correction, the elevator ride was a minute 50 of pure terror, especially when the person next to you is freaking out and says the ride is scarier than skydiving.
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