Paris: La Ville de l'Amour

Since traveling to Ireland I have realized just how easy it is to travel to other places in Europe. RyanAir makes traveling around Europe very affordable and nothing compared to flight around the United States. When I knew I was going to Ireland, I had everyone asking me where else I was going to travel too. I guess I had never thought about it. While I have to many places in the States considering my family is all spread out around the East Coast I have never been anywhere outside the United States. Ireland was my first time outside of the country and to be honest, I was okay with just that. Traveling to Ireland has been my dream ever since I was little and to come here was absolute dream. I guess I haven’t realized the amount of opportunities I would get here to see even more of the world. The minute I got to Ireland, I heard my roommates and other classmates talking about traveling and all of the places they were going to go during the semester. I thought about it and figured out the places that are also on my mental list of places I have always wanted to visit. My list was Paris, Spain, London, and Italy. I would obviously want to go to many other places in the world but I figured this was a good list for me to narrow down to some places I could travel to while I am in Ireland. Many of the people I am studying here with has already been to Paris, but Audrey, who is in my Linfield group had never been and at the beginning of our time here we discussed how we should plan a trip to Paris before the term is over. We put it off to see if anyone else wanted to go later on in the term with us since it was only us two interested and the conversation was over. One night I was up, just reading in my room about to go to sleep and I thought to myself, it is almost March if I want to go somewhere for a long weekend outside of Ireland, now is the time to do it. Literally the next day, I called Audrey up and explained to her that I thought we should plan our Paris trip soon. After she agreed, I jumped online to search for flights. I found a great deal for a return flight for only about 80 euro, I called her up and told her and she said to book it. Only problem is was that it was only two weeks away and that weekend I was going to Northern Ireland so I didn’t have much time to plan or get ready. But none of that mattered; I was officially going to Paris. I went out of my comfort zone and just told myself that I had to make this happen now or I could never go. My adventure side was coming out and I made quick decision that I just needed to go for it and it would all work out!

Thursday early morning came quicker than you would believe and before I knew it we were walking to the bus station at 1:15 to catch the bus to get to Dublin Airport! It was very early and we were both so anxious that neither of us had any luck sleeping on the bus. The first little bump in the road occurred when I totally spaced on the carry on guidelines and the airport threw away my shampoo and brand new face wash! I had totally forgotten that you couldn’t bring anything over a certain amount of liquid on the flight so I was already out shampoo and face wash. I wasn’t going to let it get me down and Audrey had enough of both to share with me! Our flight was only two hours, we sit next to an old, friendly Irish guy who was from Ireland but lived in Australia and flew to Paris often on business. Have I mentioned how much I love the Irish? When we arrived in Paris, we had to take a bus that took us to the city; our airport was about an hour away. We arrived in Montmartre, a historic district on the north side of the Seine River, around mid afternoon and found our Regent’s hostel. It was a pretty decent looking place but we couldn’t check in until 4:00pm so we decided to leave our bags there and go explore this beautiful district. The most famous thing that we had been hearing so much about in Montmartre was its church, Sacre Coeur. This giant church sits on the highest hill in Paris and looks out onto a great view of the city. We would see the top from our hostel so we just followed the streets. On the way up there, we went up a street that was lined with all sorts of tourist shops with the most beautiful scarves I had ever seen! It also had tons of little café’s and we found our first place selling crepes! When you are walking up to the church you see the little pavilion that has a carousel and filled with people. There are two sets of steps to the top and in direct sight is the giant, white church at the top. Our first accounts of pick-pocketers were blocking both entrances up to the steps to reach the top. We had heard about these guys from our friends who had just gone to Paris. Apparently they have a bracelet that is attached to their wrist that they try and put it on your wrist to sell it to you for a ridiculous amount of Euros and to scare you they take out a knife but it is simply to cut the bracelet off of their wrist. Anyways, they sounded scarier than they were. We just ignored them and said no and walked really fast. The trick with all these people trying to scam you for money or pick-pocket is just ignoring them and don’t talk to them. We never really had a problem with them. We finally got to the top and the view was incredible and the inside of the church was really pretty too. Audrey and I then just walked around the town and went down random side streets and we came upon a little square they call the artist’s square and there was a while area where artists had their work set up to sell and lots of people were drawing people and drawing these really cool silhouettes. The artwork was really impressive and I loved all of the ones depicting the city and small wonders of Paris. I loved it! So much beautiful art! This area of Paris was exactly how you picture Paris to be like; small, quaint cafes, cobblestone streets and artists and street performers. It was adorable! We loved walking around and discovering little shops and great places to window shop. We split got our first nutella crepe and enjoyed it on the steps leading up to Sacre Coeur. It was so warm and felt so good to sit down and just look out onto Paris! I could not believe I was eating a nutella crepe on the steps of Sacre Coeur in Paris, France. We decided that we would head back to our hostel to get settled in and then we would go to the 6:30pm service at the church. After settling in, we stopped at one of the little cafes and got a take away sandwich to eat on a bench before church. We had some time so we sat on the main steps on the top where there was a bunch of people gathered around listening to some street performers singing all sorts of American cover songs. My favorite that HE sang was, “I Will Survive.” Everyone loved it and the performers were getting lots of energy from the crowd. It was great! The church service was beautiful, even though I couldn’t understand anything he was saying, just looking around and feeling the moment was pretty great! When we got out of church it was dark and that was first time we saw the Eiffel Tower, it was all lit up and you could see it from Sacre Coeur. We hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before so we call it an early night and went back to our hostel to get a good night’s sleep!

Friday: The New Europe Group does free tours in all major cities in Europe and we heard great things about their tour so we decided that we would start our day off with a tour of Paris. Audrey and I woke up early so we could walk around downtown Paris for a little bit before the tour met at 11am. We took the metro to St. Michel place which was right next to the fountain we were meeting at. When we got off the metro we saw in the distance this huge building that looked really familiar, “Is that Notre Dame?...Yup!” We were in Paris all right! We spend the next hour or so walking around the Latin Quarter and doing a little shopping in some of the cute shops. We met a huge group of people for our tour and we had a great tour guide. This tour was very informative and he told us all he knew about the sites and answered any question we had. He told us about the famous bridge Pont Neuf then we walked across the Tuileries Gardens that were incredible. He showed us where the Louvre was, and many of the museums we were interested in. Mid way through the tour we stopped on this bridge that is called Pont des Arts which means the artists bridge because during summer when there is warmer weather many artists sell their art on this pedestrian only bride. The bridge is more commonly known as The Bride of Love because all along the railing of the bridge is tons of padlocks. It is tradition to signify your love to someone by taking them to the bridge and locking the padlock with your initials written on it and then you throw the key in the river. I thought it was so sweet and I loved reading the little love inscriptions. There were all sorts of cute and interesting stories like that that our tour guide told us about different buildings or places we went to that I will never forget. We walked down the famous boulevard Champs-Elysees and ended his tour on the Pont Alexandre III bride that is the famous one shown in all of the movies. I learned a lot on the tour and we tipped him about as well as college students could. I have many pictures below about all of the places we saw on our tour. It was about 3 or so when the tour was over so Audrey and I decided to walk up Champs-Elysees to go up to the Arc de Triomphe and then loop around on Boulevard Haussman that we heard was great for shopping! Friday night was free for students after 6:00pm so we had some time to kill before then so shopping sounded like a great idea. We walked for a long time, took a little break and had a nutella crepe and continued down Champs-Eylsees. We looped all the way down and saw the big Opera Garnier (Opera house). After that we walked down to the Louvre and waited to get in line. The building of the Louvre was incredible and it was huge! We went straight to the Mona Lisa and only had to wait for a little bit to get right up to the rope to see the masterpiece. It was a lot smaller than I thought but it was still pretty cool to be able to say that I got to see the Mona Lisa. It was the end of our day and our day and the Louvre was full of people so we decided just to visit some floors and call it a day. I loved the Italian and French paintings as well as some of the French sculptures. The amount of art work I got to see was incredible and I could have spend all day at that museum, but around Paris all day, we were ready for some wine and to put up our feet at our hostel. It was around 7:30-8 when we headed to the metro station to get back to the hostel. We rushed up the stairs with the crowd of people and got to a connector but I was unsure if this was the right one, Audrey jumped on and the doors starting closing, I tried to get on but the the doors were shutting on my hands and the next thing I knew Audrey was in the train traveling away and I was in the station in disbelief that we had just gotten separated (literally) on the Paris metro at night. And even better, she didn't have a phone. She was pointing down and I figured she meant to just meet me at our next stop we needed to get off at to get on our second connector that took us to our hostel. I tried not to panic and just remained as calm as I could and normal. The last thing I needed was someone realizing I was an American girl alone who just got separated from her friend. Audrey had our metro map but I remembered what connector I needed to get off on. When I arrived at our next stop there was no sign of Audrey. I contemplated getting on the next train and just meeting her at the our hostel; and she had the maps so I knew she would know how to get back. Although I knew that she had to get to this metro connector eventually so I decided to not get on the next train and wait for the next one. I was one of the only people at the stop after everyone piled in the first one. About ten minutes go by, but it felt more like 30 minutes, and then I see Audrey walking down the steps! I was so relieved and gave her a huge hug. From then on we agreed we would get on and get off the metro together! When we got off the metro station we were still a little shaken up and since we got off at a new metro station near our hostel we accidentely went down the street in the wrong direction of our hostel. We walked for about 10 minutes and realized that nothing was looking familiar and that we should have gotten to our hostel. We were both really hungry so we agreed we would find a place to eat then turn back to go the other way to our hostel. As we were walking we past this older man who began speaking to us in French and following us. He began to get a little upset since we were ignoring him and he persisted to keep following us. I told Audrey that up here we are going to cross over the street to the other sidewalk. We did and thankfully he didn't follow us. That and the metro incident were the scariest things that weekend but other than that we felt pretty safe most of the time. We went to the store and bought some French cheese, a baguette, wine and we also bought a cheese hot dog from one of the take away stands that were still open near our hostel. We met up with our friend Adam and we met a bunch of girls that were from our school that were in Paris for the weekend like us and they were on our same flight. Small world running into them at our hostel. We ate dinner and enjoyed some wine and chatted with our new friends for awhile but we were so tired from all of our walking that day and we were going to the Palace of Versailles the next morning so we called it a night and got a good night's sleep. 

Saturday: In the morning we had to pack up our stuff and check in at a new hostel because our other one was booked up for Sat and Sun night. We got lost looking for it but finally managed to find our next hostel, Peace and Love. You could probably guess, as we had assumed that a hostel called "Peace and Love" would have quite the character, and let me tell you, it sure did. We read all of the reviews online and they were all positive and it was in a decent spot with great price. When we got there we were really confused because we walked in and it was just a bar with some tables around. We told the bartender that we were here to check into our room for two nights. He got out from the bar, walked over to a small table with a laptop on it and began checking us in. Apparently the bar was the reception and the rooms were upset. It was so hilarious! We couldn't believe this was our hostel, but the people were very nice and our rooms looked clean so we put our stuff away and headed to Versailles. The Palace and gardens were incredible. The grounds of the whole palace was huge and we walked forever discovering smaller palaces and all of these fountains and such. We started touring the garden and had a panini for lunch and sat on a bench in front of the water. It was very nice! There were some smaller palaces deeper into the grounds that we walked in. The best part was is that because we have a garda (police) card that says we are temporary citizens in Ireland through studying, we got into everything for free at Versailles, it was awesome and we saved quite a bit of money! After spending hours in the gardens we went into the main palace. It was unreal! Each room was beautifully decorated in a color scheme. The ceilings were all painted with mythical and biblical scenes. It was all a sight to see. Versailles was incredible and I would highly recommend anyone in Paris to travel to Versailles for a day trip because it is very much worth it. You just felt like royalty getting to see all of this magnificent stuff! By the time we left Versailles it was probably around 4pm or so and we decided that we would do Eiffel Tower that evening and try to make it up to the top when the sunset at 6:30. We decided to take the stairs to the second stage to save some money (plus it was a shorter line) and then we would take the escalator all the way to the top! It was a pretty long walk to the second stage but when we finally got up there the view was amazing! And we weren't even to the very top yet! We were still doing good on time but we had to wait in line forever to take the escalator to the top. By the time we got up there it was pretty cold out and very windy at the top. But we accomplished our goal and got to the top just as the sun was setting and it created the most beautiful colors in the sky. You could see everything from the top and we could even see Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. Audrey and I were frozen by that time so we started heading down to the bottom. As we were making our way, the first light show started going off at 7:00 as we were walking down the stairs, it was pretty cool to see it from the inside. Everyone down below was cheering and ahhing at the Eiffel Tower being lit up, we tried to make it down in time to get out from underneath it so we could see it but right when we got out from underneath it stopped! We were kind of bummed but it was also kind of cool to be in it when the first light show was going off. On our way back to the hostel we stopped by the store to get some pasta, cheese, olives and a baguette to make in the kitchen beneath the bar/reception. Adam ended up switching to that hostel too so we ate our dinner in the bar area and it was still happy hour so Audrey and I both ordered a fruity cocktail drink to have with our dinner. The people from the hostel were very nice and we had a nice time talking to some new people and eating our French inspired dinner!

Sunday was our last day in Paris and since it was the first Sunday of the month all of the museums were free. We started our free-museum Sunday at Musee d' Orsay which is a museum that used to be an old train station and it now houses some of the most famous works of art from the Impressionist and Post-Impressionist period. This period of art is what I mostly studied last semester in one of my art courses at Linfield. I got to see all of the artist's work that I had studied and I was just awed that I was up close to so many works that I was familiar with. It was incredible! Now I really was in art heaven! Almost every room we went into I told Audrey a story about a specific painting or what the artists intentions were when he painted the piece. I felt like such an art nerd, but Audrey loved it! Musee d' Orsay was definitely my favorite museum, I even enjoyed it better than the Louvre. The buildings layout was a really cool design and you didn't feel as overwhelmed by paintings like we did at the Louvre. This museum is a must if you are in Paris. It was definitely my favorite and also had some great sculptures in the middle of the museum. Next we went to Musee de l'Orangerie, the coolest part of this museum was that it held the entire collection of Claude Monet's Water Lilies. You walked into these three rooms that were completely white and there were signs that said "Please remain quiet in the gardens!" and on the walls were the huge canvases of the water lilies. It was pretty incredible! Monet's water lily paintings have always been one of my favorite motifs he has done and I couldn't believe I was getting to see some of this best works of them. They were beautiful! After that we grabbed a bite to eat at one of the crepe stands and hopped onto the metro to head back to the Latin Quarter. We went back to St. Michel Place and our first stop was Notre Dame. This church was beautiful and the architecture on the building was incredible. There were a ton of people there and I felt bad because there was a service going on as tourist were walking around it. But I am glad that we got to see the inside and walk around. After that we walked to Saint Chapelle, another church that Emily has told us we can't leave Paris without going to see. The line was very long so we decided to walk to the Pantheon building in the Latin Quarter. The Latin Quarter had lots of little shops that we went into and the Pantheon building  was really cool looking. We went back to Saint Chapelle and waited in line for like an hour and a half. Saint Chapelle was a smaller church and we had to travel up a spiral staircase to get to it. I could not believe how beautiful it was when we first walked in. All the walls were covered with stained glass windows and the sun was still out so it was shining through all of the glass. Waiting in line that long was definitely worth it! The stained glass were depicting different biblical stories and I had never seen a church so magnificent. After that we were getting kind of hungry and since it was our last night we went back to the Latin Quarter and found a cute little restaurant on the corner. We had a three course meal and I had a glass of wine with my dinner. The food was really good and it was fun to sit outside at the restaurant and talk about our amazing trip so far. It was about 6:15pm when we got done with dinner and we had an extra metro ticket left that we weren't going to use so I asked Audrey if she wanted to use it to go to the Eiffel Tower  and catch the first light show at 7:00. She agreed and we hopped on the metro to get to the Eiffel Tower in time! We sat on the railing of a nearby bridge with a perfect view of the Tower. We only had to wait for about 10 minutes and then the lights started going off! They were incredible and so bright! I was so excited and it was one of my favorite parts about Paris. It was definitely the perfect way to end our amazing trip to Paris! We got a good nights sleep that night and we were up early to catch a bus back to the airport to head back to Galway. Our adventures in Paris was a success and we both had a blast! 

Sacre Coeur

streets of Montmartre

Artist's square 

Street performance on the steps of Sacre Coeur 

First sight at Notre Dame

Bridge of Love :)

The Lourvre

The Louvre

invisible pyramid

Tuileries Gardens

Famous fountain that was in the movie Devil Wears Prada

The Obelisk 

Champs-Elysees

Pont des Alexandre III bridge in all of the movies

We could see the Eiffel Tower

Arc de Triomphe

Opera House Garnier

Back to the Louvre to see the museum

The Mona Lisa..a lot smaller than expected

On our way to Versaille a random guy playing accordion on our metro  

The Palace of Versaille

The Gardens

Inside of one of the smaller palaces on the grounds

Inside of the Palace

After Versailles we went to go up the Eiffel Tower

Amazing view! And this is only the second stage up!

We got to the top right when the sun was setting...it was incredible!

The Eiffel Tower at night!

Our museum day started at Musee d'Orsay

The museum featured the best works from the impressionist and post-impressionist. This was my favorite museum! I was in art heaven!

Musee d' Orangerie that featured the Monet's water lilies! They were so beautiful! 

Notre Dame

The Pantheon in the Latin Quarter

Waiting in line at Saint Chapelle 

There were so many stained glass windows, it was unreal!

St. Michel fountain near the Latin Quarter 

The little restaurant we ate at on our last night!

Such a good dinner! And a great glass of French wine!

Adorable little carousel next to the Eiffel Tower!

Our last night we hopped on the metro and went to the  Eiffel  Tower to catch the first light  show at 7...it was my favorite!!! We sat on the bridge railing and watched the bright lights!