L & J Adventures...: November 2013

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 17^th 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.

Sacre-Coeur from the bottom of the hill

Very beautiful exterior

Josh's illegal picture of the interior hence the bad picture quality

La Madeleine exterior, Josh liked this church because it resembled the Parthenon in Greece with the columns

Expiatory Chapel

Inside the chapel

Church of St. Augustine exterior

I feel like the chairs give a more open feeling to the interior

Arc de Triomphe

Looking up the dreaded staircase...

Sacre-Coeur from a distance

Eiffel Tower in the background, the weather was not cooperating with us today...very overcast skies

The memorial with the book in the flame

Grand Palais, the roof was spectacular on this building, we could see it well when on top of the Arc de Trimophe

Interior of the Grand Palais

Across the street, the Petit Palais

Josh loved this statue

Courtyard of the Petit Palais

Getting closer...

Of course Josh wanted to hold the Eiffel Tower

Hotel de Invalides exterior facade

Inside the courtyard, looking at the "Soldiers Church" with the grand Dome Church in the background

Napoleon's grand tomb

Dome Church exterior...you can see that the sun decided to finally come out!

There were thousands of locks on this bridge

Sparkling on the hour, so pretty!

Up bright and early today, our flight to Paris left at 6:00 this morning and we had an eventful time trying to get to the airport on time! We planned to leave the apartment around 3:15am and head to the bus stop, which was right outside, across the highway. Problem #1, the bus only came every 30 minutes because it was “considered a night bus” and they don’t run as often, so we had to make it! Problem #2, we were unsure what side of the road we needed to be on, granted they was a giant highway splitting up the road so we couldn’t just run to the other side. Problem #3, we were running late as usual! Using josh’s phone to navigate and tell us where to go, I questioned it (even though it does know where it is going most of the time) and we headed to the stop opposite of what the phone was telling us because in my defense, we rode a bus from the airport and it went that way. Then we asked a lady that arrived which side we needed to be on and she said the other side to get to the airport. So we, (mostly my fault) were wrong and watched bus 502 pass us while we were running over the bridge. Before freaking out, we had to figure out another route quickly. Was it worth it to walk a few blocks and hope to catch another bus or should we just suck it up and pay for a taxi? After a few minutes, we decided that the taxi fee would be minimum to the amount of money that we invested in this trip and that we could potentially lose if we didn’t hurry up and get to the airport. Josh called the taxi company, orders us a cab to come ASAP, but problem #1, we really didn’t know how to tell them where we were except to give them the bus stop name, not to mention a language barrier and problem #2, we didn’t know which side of the highway to tell them that we were on. Nothing was going our way, not to mention it was already 4:15ish. The taxi company said that we would have to wait up to 15 minutes before it arrived; seriously we didn’t have any time to waste! Although we already had a taxi lined up, we still had our eyes open for any available cab passing through as well as our cab that could potentially stop on the other side of the highway. Finally we see the yellow cab and guess what, it was on the other side of the highway waiting for us. And do you know what my crazy husband decides to do, run across the highway (thank goodness it was not busy at all) and catch it before it left. He hopped in; they drove down the street, made a U-turn and headed to pick up our luggage and me! Finally we were on our way to the airport, we had about 30 minutes to relax until we had to face the ticket and security lines and then after that I could relax (not really, cause I hate flying so after we got off the plane in Paris, then I would relax). We reached the airport, got our bags checked, passed through security, not too long of a line and found our gate! We were both so thankful that we made it; I seriously think we got there just in time! The plane was older and our legs were a little squished, but it was okay cause I slept the whole way, not sure what josh did during the 2-hour flight! We landed in Paris, got our bags and then began figuring out how to get to our hotel.

We took a train from the airport to the closest station to our hotel. They get you with those “you have to buy ticket to and from the airport for an expensive rate” at 9,50 euro each, ouch! So we sucked it up and rode the train into the city. Thankfully our hotel was very close walking distance to the train station; we were able to locate it fairly easy and were able to store our luggage while we went out to explore the city.

First stop was to get some much needed coffee and breakfast. We got 2 very small coffees and some kind of pastry at this café down the street. The coffee was so strong, sugar and milk would never make it taste any better, josh drank both mine and his and said that it tasted like a shot of whiskey, obviously why I didn’t like it, it was gross. Now we know not to order coffee while here! We got a map of the city while at the hotel and we decided that until we knew what we were doing, that we would just walk around and get a feel for the city. We walked to the Louvre Museum, along the river, across the famous love bridge and ended up at the Notre Dame Catherdral. Admission into this beautiful church was free, you just have to stand in a super long line but it was totally worth it! The interior (along with the exterior) is absolutely beautiful and breathtaking. It began construction when Pope Alexander III laid the first stone in 1163 and was completed in 1330. The gargoyles, stained glass windows and flying buttresses make this gothic masterpiece one of the well-known churches in the world. After we walked the interiors of the cathedral, we headed over the bridge and to Sainte-Chapelle. After waiting in another line to go through security, we entered the site and decided to purchase museum passes that would allow us to visit many different sites among Paris and outside the city and saves us time by not waiting in the long lines. Sainte-Chapelle was our first stop and it is best known for 15 original stained glass windows that surround the upper chapel, which depicts 1,113 scenes from Genesis through Christ’s resurrection.

Next we decided that since the weather was rainy and cold, that we would endure the Louvre Museum today and hope the weather would be better other days to be outside. We were able to walk right in with our museum passes, which was nice, got a map and started down one of the many wings of the museum. We saw everything, rarely skipped any exhibits at the beginning. I mostly waited for Josh while he enjoyed the sculptures and paintings and was happily content sitting down. We saw most of the important pieces known in this museum, Venus de Milo, The Raft of the Medusa, Marly Horses and of course the Mona Lisa. Its crazy to me that everyone wants to take a picture of this famous painting, what makes her famous and not others in the museum that are just as beautiful! Also to think that she is protected in a climate controlled, bullet and I’m sure flash proof container is so crazy! But hey, josh was one of those people pushing in front of others so that we could get “that” picture so who knows. We spent a good 3+ hours walking around the museum and still didn’t see everything, I’m sure that you could spend days in there if they wanted to, but I will pass!

We were exhausted by the time that we were finished and ready to head to the hotel to relax. We walked to the hotel, more than a mile from the Louvre, found a grocery store and picked up a few items to eat for dinner. Our hotel is super modern and nice, we splurged a little bit and also got this great deal on the nightly rate that we couldn’t pass up! We got settled in our room and ate bread and cheese for dinner, such a delicacy, and went to bed early to do it all over again tomorrow! Hopefully it won’t be as eventful as this morning!

Also birthday shout out to Bob, Josh's dad, hope you have a wonderful day! We wish you were here in Paris so we could celebrate! Can't wait to see you in a few weeks! Love you!