Paris, Part Deux

Paris – Tue and Wed

· Tuesday

After our late first day in Paris we woke up and headed downstairs. I did not get yelled at by any hotel staff, which means the day was already starting off better than the previous one. We trundled down the creaky stairway to the bottom floor (floor -1, since they 0-index in Europe) and wolfed down some croissants and cheese.

With breakfast out of the way it was time to see some more sights of Paris, so it was off once again to the metro system and into the city proper. We arrived at the Isle de la Cite (which Megan informs me I should not refer to as “Isle de la Morte”), a tiny island in the middle of Paris that is home to Notre Dame (the famous one) and a few other sights.

One would think that a giant cathedral on a small island would be easy to find, but Notre Dame was surprisingly good at hiding from us. As was Saint Chappelle, our secondary cathedral objective. We wandered about for a bit before bumping into the line (pretty much literally) for Saint Chappelle and the Halls of Justice. I was interested to see if Hawkman was in, but Megan was more keen on stained glass, so we got in line for Saint Chappelle.

Saint Chappelle is pretty much the coolest display of stained glass that I have ever seen. It’s a small (for a cathedral) 3-level building, the middle section of which is a large room with stained glass that goes from about head-height up to the very tall ceilings. With the exception of some skinny columns and a ceiling, the whole place is made of stained glass. The glass is ¾ of the walls, curving around an altar at the front end. The 4th wall is mostly stone, with a large (at least 8’ in diameter) circular stained glass window at the top. Do a bing search on it to get a good idea of what I’m talking about. If you see nothing else in Paris, go see Versailles, Saint Chappelle, and the Eiffel tower.

Next up on out hit list after Chappelle was the famous Notre Dame cathedral of hunchback fame. Surprisingly, they totally do not work the hunchback angle at all. It’s like they’re white-washing history. If I was running the joint there would totally be Hunchback stuff all over, complete with bell rope for youngsters to go crazy ringing. The neighbors might not get much sleep, but the place would be hopping.

What they do have is a bunch of women outside asking everyone if they speak English. We had been warned of this scam by the venerable Rick Steves, so we just pushed on past. I do wonder what the next phase of the scam is though. Phase 1) Ask if they speak English. Phase 2) ??? Phase 3) Profit!

Having run the gauntlet of gypsy polyglots we arrived at the Cathedral proper and went inside. Being as we were, inside, Megan was unable to view the famous flying buttresses. In fact, these buttresses would not make an appearance until much later in the day. What we did see were more stained glass windows, a cool wooden pulpit, some ivory statues of dead religious dudes, and some prayer candles.

The circuit of Notre Dame was complete with nary a deformation to be seen and so we headed back outside to check out the line to climb up to the landing. Long story shorter, the line was quite long already and thus we opted to instead go check out some Manet and Monet at the Orsay.

I actually enjoyed the Orsay more than the Louvre. The Louvre had more recognizable art, and more of it, but was actually just too darn big and cluttered for me. I’m one of those people that likes things very clean and Spartan, so when I enter a tiny room with fifty sculptures worth more than my condo my brain starts to go numb. Too much to process, and they all start looking like one another. How many marble busts of disembodied heads can one really appreciate at one time anyway?

It is also possible that the liter of beer that I drank directly before visiting the museum helped.

By comparison, the Orsay was much less crowded and much less condensed. There were still a lot of famous works that I vaguely recalled from my art history lessons (yes, I actually took an art history class in college. I’m not quite as uncultured as you lot would believe) along with some lesser known works from the heavy hitters of impressionist painting.

The Orsay was “near enough” to one of the local Gares (train stations) for us to hike over and grab our train tickets to Brussels and Luxembourg, so we made a small detour to take care of business before heading back towards Champ de Mars and the Eiffel Tower.

We re-located the ticket for the boat tour and hopped on board. What followed was an extremely relaxing hour cruising down the Seine in the pleasant pre-summer sun. I nearly drifted off to sleep from the gentle rocking motion, but managed to stay awake long enough to catch the local sights.

Speaking of sleep, we wrapped up the boat tour and decided to call it a day, returning to the hotel for some slumber time.
· Wednesday

We work up early the next morning excited for the day’s excursion to the opulent palace at Versailles, home to the slightly-less-modest-than-myself King Louis “Sun King” XIV (AKA “P. Louie X.I.V”, AKA “My Sun Homie”). Versailles is totally over-the-top in many wonderful ways.

First off, it’s huge. And I mean HUGE. Not just the chateau itself, but the entire complex including the gardens, menagerie, and Marie’s hamlet. Walking from the palace to Marie Antoinette’s fake farm takes about 30 minutes by foot if you know your way, or about 60 minutes if you are following my directions (sorry Megan!).

Secondly, the entire place is decorated. Inside, outside, upstairs and down. Everywhere you look are marble statues, gilded fountains, brilliant flowers, and lush shrubbery. Megan and I contemplated how many people it must take to keep the place running, and we conservatively estimated 100 just for gardening. That’s like the entire team that worked on the new UI in Windows 7. Imagine the plants we could have made…

Regardless, into the Chateau we went. There are many accounts online of the contents of the Chateau, so I won’t bore you with the details here. If you are intensely interested you should do a bing search. I will note one thing which may be missing from online accounts. You know how you can always tell which part of a statue people touch as they go by because it’s more polished than the rest? Well, there are these tiny naked cherubs located near the hall of mirrors. Guess which part has a shiny sheen?

To paraphrase Jeanine Garafalo, “It’s ok to love the art; Just don’t love the art.”

Versailles took us the better part of the day wandering and wending our way through numerous buildings, gardens and faux hamlets. Thus, we were pretty much petered out at the end. We arrived back at the hotel and promptly slept for about two hours. We woke up just long enough to walk down to the corner restaurant for Megan to enjoy one last Parisian chocolate mousse and then it was back to bed in preparation for Brussels the next day.

· Paris by the numbers
o Priceless art viewed: 100+
o Metro rides: 12+
o Croissants Consumed: 8+
o Times Rolf was yelled at by hotel staff: 2
o Times Rolf was yelled at by waiters: 2
o Times Rolf was yelled at by cops: 1
o Times Rolf was hit by a car backing up out of a hidden driveway: 1
o Waiters that robbed Megan: 1