Paris (April 12-14)

We arrived in Paris in the evening and checked into the hotel. It was an interesting little place, with a tiny, sketchy elevator (I could beat it up and down the stairs – from the 5th floor – if I moved fast). My bed was nice, however, and the location was good. That evening, we just walked around the Latin Quarter a little bit (that was where we were staying) and ate at a little café full mostly of students.

The following morning, we got up, ate croissants of course, and rode the metro out to Versailles. Naturally, we caught a metro that took the wrong fork, so it took a while to finally reach the palace. By then, the line was already quite long. We ended up waiting about 1.5 hours (maybe even 2) in line before we finally entered. It is an extremely impressive place, although far to gaudy. My dad and I decided that Napoleon had far better taste than Louis XIV, as the parts that he restored and lived in were, though still ostentatious, much classier. The best part of Versailles, we all thought, was walking around the grounds. They are massive! The French kings had themselves a very nice area to walk around in. The best part was Marie Antoinette’s fairy tale land, where she had Disneylandesque cottages and buildings so she could pretend to be a milking girl or a farmer or whatever. It was rather funny to see. After seeing the great palace, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower, but it was raining, so we didn’t go up. Instead, we headed back and ate a delicious 5-course dinner (it was reasonably priced too – only 20 Euros per person) at a restaurant near where we were staying.

The next morning, we got up early and headed over to the Louvre. Since we arrived before it opened, we beat the crowds and got in quickly. I really love neoclassical art, and especially Jacques-Louis David, so I found the Louvre to be the best art museum that I have ever visited. And of course, it really is massive, so we didn’t see nearly as much as I wished (that place is a maze too). In the afternoon, we walked up the Champs Elysee to the Arc de Triomphe, which we went up to get a decent view of the city (would have been better if it wasn’t raining). We then headed over to Notre Dame and saw it. It was neat to go inside such a famous structure (though it was kind of dark and gloomy inside). After that, we hiked through the Latin Quarter and back to our hotel, and after eating dinner at a restaurant, we ended out stay in Paris.