Paris day 3

We had two goals for Sunday.  Hyrum wanted to see the soccer stadium(s) and I wanted to see Versailles.  So we left our hotel in time to get to the stadium and back before check-out.  We took the metro all the way to the other side of the city to see the stadium, and when we tried to leave the metro station, we couldn't get out. [side note: unlike in most cities, Paris metro systems are set up so you have to put in your ticket when entering AND exiting.  If it doesn't accept your ticket, the door doesn't open for you.]  We wandered around trying all the different machines, and our tickets didn't work.  We tried using new tickets (that I had in my purse.)  They didn't work.  We finally found a sign that said this was in "zone 2", which explained why our zone 1 tickets were useless.  However, that didn't help with the small problem that we were trapped.  The platform to return to downtown Paris was only accessible if we wanted to jump over a fence, and then face a 50 feet drop-off.  There were no ticket machines, and no employees in sight.

Hyrum snapped some pictures of the stadium while I tried to figure out our options.  After 15 or 20 minutes we saw some security guards walk by outside, and we flagged them down.  I tried to explain that we had the wrong ticket and couldn't leave.  He told us we needed to buy a zone 2 ticket.  I wanted to yell, "Yes--but I'm still stuck in here!!"  

They eventually let us out, and we went to buy the right ticket.  And while we had "escaped" we decided to walk over to the stadium really fast.  I enjoyed the sun while Hyrum walked around taking pictures.  

This is Hyrum's angry face while trapped in the metro station.  He was not happy to be so close to the stadium, but unable to get to it. 

MUCH better!

This is as much as I need to see of the stadium.

Using our newly purchased ZONE 2 tickets, we hurried back to the hotel to check out, and drive an hour west to Versailles.  (Traffic driving around Paris is BAD!  It took longer to get out than it should have, and took forever when we left.)

The upside is while driving, we got to see Paris's second soccer stadium.  Not planned, but Hyrum still got excited.

So finally, Versailles.  Our last stop.  This is the palace that King Louis XIV dreamed up when the Louvre became too "common-place".  As we toured through the palace it was interesting to see how over three kings, Versailles went from being a small hunting lodge to a HUGE palace.  It housed up to 5000 nobles at a time.

The Royal Chapel. 

View of the gardens from inside the palace. 

Enjoying our audio guides, and that ridiculous ceiling.  I believe this is entering the Hall of Mirrors (250 ft long with 24 gilded candelabras!)

Another view of the hall. 

We saw this little boy in one of the paintings and both agreed it would be a great outfit for our firstborn son!

Here's that coronation painting thats also in the Louvre. 

Right off the Hall of Mirrors you have the bedrooms of the king and queen.  They're pretty insane.  I just hope the queen liked this wall-paper, because its EVERYWHERE!  I can't imagine the lack of privacy in their bedrooms-- basically half the court would be there when you woke up.  I guess its a small price to pay...

After we finished the tour of the main palace, we wanted to go to another part of estate that our ticket covered.  (Grand Trianon).  Because it was the weekend, we couldn't walk through the gardens for free, so we had to walk around the estate.  There was a train, but it was an additional 7 euros so we thought we'd just walk.

On the way, we saw this TINY street, and a car was trying to get through.  (The one in the middle.)  There were people outside guiding it, but it was seriously inching along so it didn't hit the cars to the sides.  NO IDEA why it tried to take this route in the first place, but streets here are insane.  Made me glad to be walking.

 But the walking got old.  Our feet were killing us.  Here's a view of the sheep fields we passed.

Finally we got there, exhausted.  I took a long break on the stairs.  The house itself wasn't that impressive, but the garden area was nice.  The house was a summer get-away, and eventually Marie-Antoinette moved out to this area (into Petit Trianon).  The house is pink marble.

 Hyrum was impressed with his straight they cut the trees and bushes.  You can kind of see it in this picture below.

On the way back, we definitely took the train (and it was half-off, since it was just one way).  We hopped in the car and slowly drove out of Paris to a hotel, spent the night, and drove home on Monday.  It was a lot to do in 2.5 days but worth it.  Paris turned out to be just what we expected.  Lots of famous sights, a ton of old buildings and architecture, great food.   Nothing more, nothing less. Now I can cross it off my list and visit Turkey this weekend!

Paris Day 2

We're leaving on another trip this weekend, and I'm committing myself to finish writing about Paris before I move on to another city.  So here goes...

Saturday ended up being our whirl-wind day in Paris where we tried to fit in all the major sites (excluding the Eiffel Tower.)  It ended up being a success!  Our first stop was the Louvre, so we took the metro from our hotel to downtown.  When the metro stopped, we saw a huge crowd of teenagers in the station jumping and cheering.  Then we saw they were all waving flags.... Colombian flags.  More teenagers got off the metro and joined them, and Hyrum was so excited to see so many Colombians.  He had on his Colombian bag, so they all started cheering for him, and they got together for a picture.  The longer I'm married, the more I realize that being loud and proud is definitely a Colombian trait.  Hyrum's not the only crazy person who travels the globe with his flag.

Hyrum is in the middle. (My fault its fuzzy...)

We finally made it to the Louvre, and bought our museum pass to use for the next 2 days.  We luckily had a Rick Steves travel book with us, so we tried to go through and hit all the highlights in the museum since we couldn't just wander around for hours.  (Places to go!)  I was surprised that the famous glass pyramid is actually in the middle of an enclosed courtyard.

Venus de Milo, c. 100 BC.  From Greek island of Melos.

Hyrum on display.  (After some not-so-fancy editing of his arms...)

Apollo Gallery-- you get a glimpse of French castle life pre-Versailles.  The whole museum is pretty ornate, and this room kind of puts the Vatican museum to shame.  (Not in terms of art, but the over-the-top decor itself.)  

Similar to the Vatican, a lot of the art is HUGE.  This is "The Marriage at Cana" by Paolo Veronese.  Apparently, Jesus is in the middle turning water into wine.   

Another example of the ridiculous castle decor.  This is the ceiling. 

Another huge piece of art, "The Coronation of Napoleon" by Jacques-Louis David.  Ironically, we saw another copy of this painting the next day at Versailles (also done by the same artist--and just as big.)  

The Mona Lisa... not quite as big.  The Rick Steves book says that this room smells bad because of all the people there... and unfortunately the book wasn't wrong. 

Hyrum is imitating the statue by taking a picture of himself with his cell phone.  Maybe Greece first invented the  "selfie"?

So that was a lot of pictures.  But considering the museum has 12 miles of galleries, I think it's fairly modest...   After the museum, I took advantage of being pregnant to eat a little snack.  Who doesn't love having cheese and crackers in their purse??

On our way to the Orsay museum, we stopped by Laduree for some macaroons....  

...Strolled through the Tuileries Garden (used to be the gardens for the Louvre palace, the inside part is much more green!)...

... And crossed over the Seine River...

That's the Orsay in the background.  Since this museum didn't allow pictures, I can't post much.  But it was a much more enjoyable museum (to me) than the Louvre because it has all the famous art that I love.  It's primarily impressionist art and more modern stuff.  (Nothing ancient).  We saw the Birth of Venus (along with other random pieces of art I had to memorize for my Humanities class in college), and ballerina paintings from Degas, pointillism from Seurat, and waterlily scenes from Monet.  Plus Cezanne, Renoir, Manet, and my favorite, Van Gogh.  What's not to love??

Before we realized we couldn't take pictures, we took a few. This one didn't turn out for some reason, but I love this painting anyway--Starry Night over the Rhone.  (Okay, so maybe Hyrum did know he shouldn't take pictures.  But that doesn't stop him, usually.)

 The museum is in an old train station, so the whole middle section is open with huge arched ceilings.

From the Orsay we raced over to Sainte-Chapelle and Notre Dame, which are conveniently right near each other.  I've seen pictures of the stained glass in Sainte-Chapelle before, and I guess I was expecting more of a church.  You basically go up a really tiny staircase and find yourself in a small (compared to most churches) room with stained glass on all walls.  Nothing else to see besides the stained glass, and no where else to go besides this small room.  (I had the same feeling as in the Sistine Chapel---its very impressive art, but just a much different scale than you're expecting.)  So we sat for a while and enjoyed the stained glass, which becomes more amazing the longer you look at it.  The gothic church was built in just 6 years (compared to Notre Dame which took over 200).  The royalty worshipped there.  It contains 6500 sq feet of glass, 2/3 of which is original from the 13th century, and portrays over a thousand scenes from the Bible.  So my initial disappointment over the size dissolved as I took in all the detail.  

I found Notre Dame to be as impressive as any big church you find while traveling around Europe.  Nothing really stood out.  The gargoyles on the outside were cool, as well as some of the stained glass inside.  

Gothic arches on the inside.  You can see part of the alter. 

This is the rose-shaped window--original medieval glass.

gargoyles on the outside.

And for your viewing pleasure.... the hunchback of Notre Dame. 

In case you wanted a better view!  My husband is so willing to pose for anything.  And half of the ideas are his!

 After Notre Dame we walked around to the back of the church where I got lost and posed as a tourist. (Okay-- I wasn't actually lost, just really wanted to find a good place to eat!  I was starved.)

notice the street sign in the bottom left picture.  Kind of clever. 

Our last major stop for the day was the Arc de Triomphe.  This was Hyrum's favorite place in Paris.  (I might have been too tired to fully enjoy it...)  It's huge (165 ft high) and has great views of Champs-Elysees and Paris traffic in general.  

I just want to point out that after a full day of sight-seeing, and being pregnant, I still managed to climb the 284 steps to the top!  I felt each one, and could hardly breath at the top.  The going down (seen below) was much easier.

I could have watched this all day.  The arc is in the middle of a HUGE round-a-bout.  There are no lines on the street, and it seems that cars entering the circle have priority over cars already in it.  So you can see below the cars going "down" are entering the circle, and have to basically weave through cars going in different directions (who are stopped, and blocking traffic, but can't move forward because cars are driving in front of them).  It's a bit of a mess to see cars going in every direction.

This gives some perspective on how big the arc is. 

We ended the night with some more macaroons.  

Update: here are two pictures I originally included, but they got deleted.  Now blogger won't let me move them back up in order. They're from the Louvre-- one in the Egypt room, and the other is a view of the pyramid from inside.