Paris, Part Three: Moving On Up
I was up early, as in my wont, and I got dressed and slipped out of the hotel room without waking Peter. I’d decided to go to an indoor market, one that Lonely Planet listed as reminiscent of a North African bazaar. OK, maybe they didn’t exactly use those words, but that’s what I was expecting.
After a couple of mistakes on the Metro, I found my way to the right neighbourhood. I found the Metro more difficult to use than the trains in Berlin. For one thing, the colour-coding is hard to read. When you look at a transport map and find yourself saying things like “we have to take the mauve line to the pink line,” you know it’s all gone a bit mad.
Back to the market, which was a disappointment after my expectations. You see, for completely inexplicable reasons, I long to go to Morocco, particularly to go to a bazaar.
I probably wouldn’t have the balls to bargain, but I really just want to experience it all – the smell of the spices, the noise of the crowds, the jostling for position. When I walked into this market and found myself standing next to a stall selling beer, I knew I was going to be disappointed. It was just a large, indoor market, just a smaller, more square version of the West Side Market in Cleveland.
After the market, I walked around for awhile and then took the Metro back to near our hotel, which was in an area where there were a lot of Jewish bakeries. I went to a supermarket to buy butter, cheese and drinks. All I had on me was a 50 euro note and you’d have thought I’d handed the cashier a 5,000 euro note. After a lot of admonishing, eye-rolling, and sighing, she heaved herself out of her seat and went over to another cashier. There was more eye-rolling and sighing with a bit of finger-pointing thrown in for good measure before I got my change. Then I went to a Jewish bakery and bought some rolls and éclairs.
Peter and I had breakfast in our hotel room and then packed up. His sister is a member of the Hilton Rewards Club and had very generously given us 2 nights at the Hilton, which is conveniently located right next to the Eiffel Tower. We made our way to the Hilton, but our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our bags and went to the tower.
The Eiffel Tower is, of course, the iconic image of Paris. You know it’s going to be there. You expect it to be big. But nothing really prepares you for how majestic it is – the metalwork, the graceful lines, the long stretch into the sky. It’s elegant and inexplicably delicate in a way that’s nearly impossible to describe. Even though you know what it looks like, you still can’t help feeling a bit awestruck when you finally see it up close.
We bought tickets and commenced our stair-climbing adventure. Up and up and up we climbed to the first stage, where you can find a post office, a café, and the toilets. You can also find, in winter, a small ice skating rink. Yes, you can ice skate up in the Eiffel Tower. I wasted no time trading in my runners for a pair of skates (amazingly enough, this amenity is also free) and taking to the ice. I had a great time teetering around in small circles, enjoying the view and the very idea of what I was doing.
One of the informative signs on the way up to the second stage informs you that the first skating rink was built on the tower in 1969 and the first individual to try out the rink was a bear from the Moscow circus. I’ve skated on the ice of greats, that’s for sure. After my skating fun, we clambered up the steps to stage 2. We appreciated the views and then tried to get to the very top and learned that it was closed for repairs. I sort of expected this, since I’d seen a sign in the ticket window and I knew the price we paid (3.70 euro) was way too cheap to get all the way to the top. Nevertheless, we were both pretty disappointed.
After a quick stop back at the hotel (nice big room, balcony with a view of the tower), we had lunch at a café and then went to the Musee d’Orsay. Ice skating on the Eiffel Tower is my favourite part of our trip, but the Musee d’Orsay is easily a very close second. As per usual, our magic museum pass got us in the door for free and we dumped our coats and bag in the coat check.
The museum is housed in a converted railway station and it retains the open-air feeling of the station along with the stately gigantic railway clocks. I love Impressionist art and was looking forward to seeing some of my favourites. I was taken with the Degas collection, particularly the ballerinas. The real star of the show for me was the room with the Van Gogh paintings. I absolutely fell in love with The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View from the Chevet .
Peter was quite taken with the gallery of Naturalists, particularly The Excommunication of Robert the Pious by Jean Paul Laurens. The online version doesn’t do the painting justice since you can’t really see the “oh shit, what have I done?” expression on Robert’s face. The painting tells a great story and you could look at it for hours, appreciating the various details.
Our plan for dinner was to go to a restaurant Peter’s father had recommended, Chez Frances, which was a favourite of James Joyce. We made reservations and learned that they had a “no jeans” dress code. Fair enough, I’d packed Peter’s sports coat, dress shirt, dress shoes, and dress slacks because I wanted to get dressed up go to the cabaret. (As a side note, I finally decided that I’d wanted to go the cabaret for the wrong reasons and that we’d end up spending a bomb for a disappointment. At root, I wanted to go to 1920’s France and was naively hoping the cabaret would provide a time machine into the Paris of the garishly gas-lamp-lit Toulouse-Lautrec cabaret paintings.)
I am going to gloss over a bit of a disagreement that we had over the dinner plans and just say that it very nearly ended in tears. Basically, I am a bitch when my blood sugar drops and it happens on a far too frequent occasion because I’m continually dieting. (I think this is proberly a topic for my other blog.) The trouble is that I seldom am able to realise that A.) my blood sugar level has dropped and B.) I’m being a bitch. It is to Peter’s credit that he did not just drop-kick me into the Seine. We talked it out, worked it out, and I went out to get a candy bar and some fresh air to defuse the situation.
In the end, it was a moot point because I’d inexplicably packed only Peter’s dress shoes and none of his other dress clothes. I don’t know how this happened but I felt horrible. In the end, we made plans to buy him some trousers the next day, changed our reservation at Chez Frances and had our dinner at a Moroccan-Mediterranean place. As a bit of poetic justice, the tangine I had gave me bloat-y tum. Serves me right.
After a couple of mistakes on the Metro, I found my way to the right neighbourhood. I found the Metro more difficult to use than the trains in Berlin. For one thing, the colour-coding is hard to read. When you look at a transport map and find yourself saying things like “we have to take the mauve line to the pink line,” you know it’s all gone a bit mad.
Back to the market, which was a disappointment after my expectations. You see, for completely inexplicable reasons, I long to go to Morocco, particularly to go to a bazaar.
I probably wouldn’t have the balls to bargain, but I really just want to experience it all – the smell of the spices, the noise of the crowds, the jostling for position. When I walked into this market and found myself standing next to a stall selling beer, I knew I was going to be disappointed. It was just a large, indoor market, just a smaller, more square version of the West Side Market in Cleveland.
After the market, I walked around for awhile and then took the Metro back to near our hotel, which was in an area where there were a lot of Jewish bakeries. I went to a supermarket to buy butter, cheese and drinks. All I had on me was a 50 euro note and you’d have thought I’d handed the cashier a 5,000 euro note. After a lot of admonishing, eye-rolling, and sighing, she heaved herself out of her seat and went over to another cashier. There was more eye-rolling and sighing with a bit of finger-pointing thrown in for good measure before I got my change. Then I went to a Jewish bakery and bought some rolls and éclairs.
Peter and I had breakfast in our hotel room and then packed up. His sister is a member of the Hilton Rewards Club and had very generously given us 2 nights at the Hilton, which is conveniently located right next to the Eiffel Tower. We made our way to the Hilton, but our room wasn’t ready yet, so we left our bags and went to the tower.
The Eiffel Tower is, of course, the iconic image of Paris. You know it’s going to be there. You expect it to be big. But nothing really prepares you for how majestic it is – the metalwork, the graceful lines, the long stretch into the sky. It’s elegant and inexplicably delicate in a way that’s nearly impossible to describe. Even though you know what it looks like, you still can’t help feeling a bit awestruck when you finally see it up close.
We bought tickets and commenced our stair-climbing adventure. Up and up and up we climbed to the first stage, where you can find a post office, a café, and the toilets. You can also find, in winter, a small ice skating rink. Yes, you can ice skate up in the Eiffel Tower. I wasted no time trading in my runners for a pair of skates (amazingly enough, this amenity is also free) and taking to the ice. I had a great time teetering around in small circles, enjoying the view and the very idea of what I was doing.
One of the informative signs on the way up to the second stage informs you that the first skating rink was built on the tower in 1969 and the first individual to try out the rink was a bear from the Moscow circus. I’ve skated on the ice of greats, that’s for sure. After my skating fun, we clambered up the steps to stage 2. We appreciated the views and then tried to get to the very top and learned that it was closed for repairs. I sort of expected this, since I’d seen a sign in the ticket window and I knew the price we paid (3.70 euro) was way too cheap to get all the way to the top. Nevertheless, we were both pretty disappointed.
After a quick stop back at the hotel (nice big room, balcony with a view of the tower), we had lunch at a café and then went to the Musee d’Orsay. Ice skating on the Eiffel Tower is my favourite part of our trip, but the Musee d’Orsay is easily a very close second. As per usual, our magic museum pass got us in the door for free and we dumped our coats and bag in the coat check.
The museum is housed in a converted railway station and it retains the open-air feeling of the station along with the stately gigantic railway clocks. I love Impressionist art and was looking forward to seeing some of my favourites. I was taken with the Degas collection, particularly the ballerinas. The real star of the show for me was the room with the Van Gogh paintings. I absolutely fell in love with The Church in Auvers-sur-Oise, View from the Chevet .
Peter was quite taken with the gallery of Naturalists, particularly The Excommunication of Robert the Pious by Jean Paul Laurens. The online version doesn’t do the painting justice since you can’t really see the “oh shit, what have I done?” expression on Robert’s face. The painting tells a great story and you could look at it for hours, appreciating the various details.
Our plan for dinner was to go to a restaurant Peter’s father had recommended, Chez Frances, which was a favourite of James Joyce. We made reservations and learned that they had a “no jeans” dress code. Fair enough, I’d packed Peter’s sports coat, dress shirt, dress shoes, and dress slacks because I wanted to get dressed up go to the cabaret. (As a side note, I finally decided that I’d wanted to go the cabaret for the wrong reasons and that we’d end up spending a bomb for a disappointment. At root, I wanted to go to 1920’s France and was naively hoping the cabaret would provide a time machine into the Paris of the garishly gas-lamp-lit Toulouse-Lautrec cabaret paintings.)
I am going to gloss over a bit of a disagreement that we had over the dinner plans and just say that it very nearly ended in tears. Basically, I am a bitch when my blood sugar drops and it happens on a far too frequent occasion because I’m continually dieting. (I think this is proberly a topic for my other blog.) The trouble is that I seldom am able to realise that A.) my blood sugar level has dropped and B.) I’m being a bitch. It is to Peter’s credit that he did not just drop-kick me into the Seine. We talked it out, worked it out, and I went out to get a candy bar and some fresh air to defuse the situation.
In the end, it was a moot point because I’d inexplicably packed only Peter’s dress shoes and none of his other dress clothes. I don’t know how this happened but I felt horrible. In the end, we made plans to buy him some trousers the next day, changed our reservation at Chez Frances and had our dinner at a Moroccan-Mediterranean place. As a bit of poetic justice, the tangine I had gave me bloat-y tum. Serves me right.
posted by -Ann at
9:40 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home