We did a lot of sightseeing
today, and ALOT of walking! Josh went
out for a run this morning; he ran about 8 miles around the city and
experienced the Eiffel Tower along with a few other sites. After he returned, we got ready and set out
to explore the city. Our first stop was
Sacre-Coeur, a church constructed in 1875 located on top of a hill outside of
Paris’ city center. We thought that we
would work our way into the city and start with the farthest site first, plus
we were hoping the weather would cooperate and the sun would come out in the
afternoon so we could climb the Eiffel Tower.
The church’s exterior was beautiful but I couldn’t really enjoy it for I
was dying from walking up the huge hill that it was located on and for all the
street sellers around (they are quite annoying and persistent). The inside was just as beautiful. We weren’t allowed to take pictures inside
but josh didn’t listen (imagine that) and took a few with his phone when the
guards weren’t looking. We walked
around, got a feel for the church then moved on to our next stop. Heading towards the Arc de Triomphe, we first
stopped at La Madeleine, which is a church dedicated to Mary Magdalene and is
one of the best-known buildings in Paris because of its prominent location and
size. Then we stopped at Chappelle
Expiatoire (Expiatory Chapel), a chapel dedicated to Louis XVI and his wife, Marie
Antoinette, although they were formally buried elsewhere. It was site in our museum pass so we thought
that we would take a look. The last
church that we visited along the way was a beautiful byzantine style
church. Eglise Saint-Augustin de Paris
or Church of St. Augustine, was built between 1860-1871 and was one of the
first sizable buildings in Paris constructed around a metal frame. I loved that
this church had chairs instead of pews; you don’t see many like that.
Finally, after more walking,
we reached the Arc de Triomphe. After his greatest victory, the Battle of
Austerlitz in 1805, Napoleon promised his men “You shall go home beneath
triumphal arches.” This monument was to
dominate Paris and indulge the Emperors liking for Ancient Rome. Since it was in the middle of a super busy
street, we used an underground tunnel to enter the site (no running across this
time). With our museum pass, we were
able to climb to the top and see the city from a different perspective. And yes, we had to climb a stupid spiral
staircase, 284 stairs to be exact, to get to the top. Did I ever mention that I recently hate
spiral staircases? But as always, the
view was well worth it, definitely a site to see. We were able to see Eiffel Tower very clearly
as well as many of the sites that we visited earlier today. I was most fascinated with the street layout;
there were 12 avenues that radiate off the road surrounding the Arc de Triomphe
and each street had a different view, so cool.
Beneath the Arc is the Tomb of the Unknown Solider from WWI. When we stopped to look at it, there was some
sort of book or magazine that was thrown into the eternal flame. And instead of just starring at it like
everybody else, Josh informed a worker and they alerted the police officer and
he quickly ran to the memorial, grabbed the object and extinguished the burning
book. It obviously wasn’t suppose to be
like that, not sure why no one told them sooner. The eternal flame burns in memory of the dead
who were never identified in WWI, and there is an unidentified solider buried
below, but now is in memory of both wars.
Very grand monument and experience, must visit if you ever travel to
Paris!
After that, we decided to
head in the direction of the Eiffel Tower.
We ate lunch at this fast food burger place, similar to McDonalds, and
continued walking. We stopped at the
Grand Palais; Josh loved the classical stone façade with the art nouveau
ironwork exterior and the glass roof. We
stopped to take a few pictures and then walked across the street to the Petit
Palais. We entered this free museum just
to see the interior and courtyard and walked around a few exhibitions before
heading out. We crossed the river and
approached the Hôtel de Invalides, which was the first military hospital and
home for French war veterans and disabled soldiers founded by Louis XIV. Inside the site is the Musée de l’Armée,
which is a military history museum from the Stone Age to WWII. We were able to go inside with our museum
pass but unfortunately it was uninteresting (sorry dad) and we quickly walked
through one section before heading to Napoleon’s tomb.
Located within the site of
the hospital contains St-Louis-des-Invalides Church, better known as the
“soldiers church” and was built from 1679 to 1708. Behind the altar, you are able to see into
the Dôme Church, which was originally reserved for the exclusive use of the Sun
King (Louis XIV) and for the location of royal tombs; it took 27 years to build. After construction, it was considered a
masterpiece in the sense that it complemented the surrounding buildings and is
one of the greatest examples of 17th century French
architecture. But after Louis XIV’s
death, plans to bury the royal family in the church were abandoned and it
became a monument, which later showcases the final resting place of Napoleon
Bonaparte. The emperor’s body was
brought here from St Helena in 1840, 19 years after he died and placed inside
the majestic red sarcophagus. His body
was encased in 6 coffins and finally placed in the crypt in 1861 (is it really
necessary to place him in that many coffins, no wonder the final one was so
big)! Unfortunately the church was about
to close for the day but we made it just in time to see the huge tomb and its
grand placement but wasn’t able to look around too much.
Next stop, the Eiffel
Tower! What a spectacular site to
see! Even more beautiful in person than in
any pictures! I couldn’t stop taking
pictures myself! After admiring it for a
while, we decided that we should go up it today. So we stood in this really long line that was
very slow moving only to find out that the stairs entrance was closing at 6 and
we would have to pay the price for the elevator ride instead (which would have
been well worth it). We thought that we
would just wait until the morning to climb the tower, that way we had more
energy plus we could climb the stairs at a cheaper rate and hope to see more of
the city from that view, weather permitting.
It was beginning to get dark and we still needed to go to the love
bridge better know as the Pont des Arts bridge so that we could put our lock on
bridge. Walking at a fast speed, we
wanted to arrive before the sun completely set because we knew that our cameras
wouldn’t take any good pictures in the dark.
It was a little over a 2-mile walk, but we finally arrived and were able
to get a few good pictures before the sun completely set. The bridge is a popular tourist site for
couples to bring a padlock with their names on it, attach it to the bridge and
then throw the key into the Seine river below to represent their committed
love, so of course we had to partake in this gesture. We knew that we were planning to do this
before we even traveled to Europe so we brought a lock from home (I’m sure the
lock business around the bridge is rich off of this idea) and before we left
Prague for Paris, Josh engraved our names and date on it. The lock came with 2 keys; we threw 1 in the
river and plan to make the other one into a Christmas ornament so we can
remember this special day. What a great
memory!!
We were told that you must
experience the Eiffel Tower during the day and night because it was a completely
different experience. So what do you
think that we decide to do? Walk back the
2 miles to the Eiffel Tower to see how it glows at night. We thought that we might as well do it now
because we might not have enough time tomorrow, cause we still had a lot more
sightseeing to do. As we were
approaching the tower from the river, the lights made it look so beautiful! At night was by far my favorite time to see
the tower and on every hour, it would sparkle for 5 minutes, which made it even
more picturesque. Josh thought that it
looked better during the day because he liked seeing the structural details, so
to each their own as they always say! As
we stood in amazement, we kinda had to pinch ourselves (especially me), just to
think that we have this amazing opportunity to explore these beautiful places,
so blessed!
We definitely had a busy
day, saw lots of sites and did ALOT of walking! Sometimes I wish we had a
pedometer to track how many miles we walk a day! We decided to call it a night
and took the metro back towards our hotel.
We stopped at this Chinese restaurant that was closing and picked up
little cartons of sweet and sour chicken, something similar to general tso’s
chicken and fried rice and took it to the hotel to eat. We were both exhausted, especially Josh since
he ran this morning, so we ate our dinner and shorty after went to bed to rest
up for day #3.
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| Sacre-Coeur from the bottom of the hill |
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| Very beautiful exterior |
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| Josh's illegal picture of the interior hence the bad picture quality |
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| La Madeleine exterior, Josh liked this church because it resembled the Parthenon in Greece with the columns |
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| Expiatory Chapel |
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| Inside the chapel |
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| Church of St. Augustine exterior |
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| I feel like the chairs give a more open feeling to the interior |
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| Arc de Triomphe |
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| Looking up the dreaded staircase... |
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| Sacre-Coeur from a distance |
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| Eiffel Tower in the background, the weather was not cooperating with us today...very overcast skies |
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| The memorial with the book in the flame |
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| Grand Palais, the roof was spectacular on this building, we could see it well when on top of the Arc de Trimophe |
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| Interior of the Grand Palais |
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| Across the street, the Petit Palais |
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| Josh loved this statue |
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| Courtyard of the Petit Palais |
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| Getting closer... |
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| Of course Josh wanted to hold the Eiffel Tower |
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| Hotel de Invalides exterior facade |
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| Inside the courtyard, looking at the "Soldiers Church" with the grand Dome Church in the background |
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| Napoleon's grand tomb |
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| Dome Church exterior...you can see that the sun decided to finally come out! |
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| There were thousands of locks on this bridge |
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| Sparkling on the hour, so pretty! |
