Paris: Strike 1, Strike 2, Strike 3, We’re Out (Of Europe)–Dec. 13-18

Our final stop in Europe required some flexibility because much of France was in the middle of a transportation strike at the time of our visit. During planning, we originally included Versailles and Reims (the champagne region near Paris) on our itinerary, but those were now out of the question. Paris was going to take some patience, but how often has anyone heard, “I was stuck in Paris…it was awful”?

We immediately struggled leaving the airport. We knew that the metro was almost entirely shut down. Taxis were charging 50 Euros from the airport to town. While the bus system was also running on greatly reduced schedules, the airport bus seemed to be available for 32 Euros. We optimistically ignored the mob waiting in one unsupervised mass for three different buses; I am pretty sure we cut in front of a bunch of people since no one knew where lines started or ended. After 90 minutes and a frustrating number of buses passing without stopping, we finally managed to crowd our way on to the bus. I’m not sure it was worth saving 18 Euro, but at least we made it to town!

The bus dropped us off right by the Eiffel Tower, so my first experience in Paris was standing right below one of the city’s icons. Here’s the thing, though: the Eiffel Tower is pretty darn ugly up close in the daytime! I was starting to wonder whether we’d made a big mistake (you might remember, this isn’t our first experience in a striking country), but Sarah assured me that I’d like the tower better when it was lit up and sparkling at night. Also, cheese.

This was Sarah’s third time in Paris, and she made a great choice in booking our room near Rue Cler market street. We enjoyed strolling along here with Parisians each day to “window lick” at chocolate shops with beautifully decorated morsels, fruit and veggie markets, tempting delis, and fancy boutiques. It was fun to go into wine stores that asked, “what will you be eating?” before making any suggestions, and the fromagerie featured more stinky cheese than I could consume in a lifetime of stinky cheese tasting! Each morning, we’d stop at the boulangerie a block from our hotel, and Sarah would use her French skills to order us amazing pain du chocolate (croissants) and café allonges (Americanos).

French people have a reputation to Americans as being snooty, but we found the opposite in our time; it’s amazing what a smile and a few phrases—“Bonjour, madame!”, “Au revoir, monsieur!”, and “Merci!”—will do to warm others. In our experience with French tourists in other countries, they are insecure about their English, which makes them seem unfriendly. However, I can relate to feeling hesitant to make mistakes in other languages, and we found Parisians willing to make us feel at home.

We spent our first morning on a self-guided historical city walk. Because of the strike, we spent nearly two hours a day just walking. Luckily, we had sunny days, and much of the walking was along the pretty pedestrian boulevards lining the Seine River. It was very interesting to watch the city attempt to operate during the strike; we saw a ton of wobbly old bikes, inexperienced scooter riders, and almost constant traffic jams. We also heard a ton of sirens and saw emergency response vehicles taking over bike lanes in order to get through the jams, but mostly I think everyone stayed safe.

Our first major site was closed not due to the strike but because of fire. Notre Dame Cathedral is still a beautiful building to behold, even if we couldn’t go inside. The front exterior is still mostly intact, and we found it remarkable that they were able to save the rose window during the fire. Even with all the damage and scaffolding, I enjoyed seeing it; someday, I will get to go inside!

The Sainte-Chappelle was the highlight of the morning. King Louis IX had it built from 1242-48 in order to house the supposed Crown of Thorns (no longer there). The cliché, “don’t judge a book by its cover,” is an appropriate description for this chapel; the exterior is quite dull, but stepping inside is like candy for the eyes! The basement level where commoners worshipped has an interesting low ceiling with narrow vaults and colorful floral patterns painted on the walls. However, it pales in comparison to the magnificent upper chapel where royals worshipped. Gothic stained-glass covers nearly the entire area of the walls. No grand statues are necessary here; this colorful light-bathed chapel is perfect as it is!

With the strike limiting our options outside of the city, we focused much of our time on Paris’ famous art museums, beginning with the Louvre. Trying to see everything in this giant former palace would be impossible, and we had no interest in overdosing on a million Madonna and Crucifixion paintings. Instead, we followed Uncle Ricky’s suggested path, which has served us well in the past. Highlights included two stunning Greek statues: the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory of Samothrace. It was cool that we saw these statues near the beginning of our week because these two female figures seemed to pop up often in various other art and architecture around the city.

We were a little disappointed that most of the Raphael and De Vinci works weren’t on display, but I enjoyed the Mona Lisa more than I thought I would; the museum has a new system to allow a few people at a time five minutes to see her without pushing and shoving. I think this made it easier to appreciate her since the painting is not very large. For me, the many ways of interpreting her famed half smile and mysterious eyes made her very intriguing; I think you could look at her every day and match her mood and story to your mood at that particular moment.

The Louvre may have all the heavy hitters, but we both preferred the d’Orsay Museum because of its focus on Impressionism. For Sarah, it was a chance to get to enjoy some old favorites, and I enjoyed getting acquainted with a very pleasant new style of art. The building itself, housed in a former train station, is a novel and cool place for an art museum. Two iconic clocks dress the place up, especially the window clock that offers fine views of the Louvre and famous Ferris wheel in the distance.

Sarah was excited that they had a full exhibit on Degas and his “Dancers” series, so she got her ballet fix for the month, and we both enjoyed the section on Van Gogh. I thought it was interesting the way you could see his chaotic view of the world in the combination of wavy lines and bright colors he used to depict typically serene subjects like churches or his bedroom. Most of all, though, we both loved Monet for his beautiful open-air landscapes; it was amazing to me how he could layer simple broad strokes of different colors to create detailed impressions of nature in its best light.

We spent our afternoon in the Rodin museum; going in, I only knew that he was “The Thinker Guy.” I actually liked much more of his work; he was a stud when it came to depicting twisting lovers doing twisting loving things. Like the Impressionists, his works were often very pretty. He also took risks, though, and some of his more interesting works portrayed very average (even homely) humans.

Still, though, The Thinker was one of those things you need to see before you really get it…on one level, those jokes about sitting on the pot might still not be too far off the mark. On the other hand, though, the subject is a physically gifted worker struggling with deep reflection; the statue’s garden setting seems perfect for avoiding distraction or hiding from buddies who might mock him. It would have been easy for us to skip Rodin after all the art museums we’d done, but I’m glad we went.

We rounded out our art fest the next morning at The Orangerie, which houses Monet’s The Water Lilies. His masterpiece captures the pond outside his home in Giverny. It was sort of interesting to see a museum that was originally intended to hold a specific piece of art; how would you like to have Claude Monet as your interior decorator? He was old and nearly blind by the time he finished but still managed to create an opus requiring 2 rooms and 8 walls—6 ½ ft. tall and 55 ft. long per canvas. Each wall is an impression of the pond in different light; Sarah and I both preferred the morning best because the colors were pretty, but the details were more defined than the blurs of late afternoon’s intense light.

That afternoon we walked the overrated Champs Elysee to the impressive Arc de Triomphe. Napoleon commissioned it to celebrate his army’s surprising victory over Austria’s much larger army at the Battle of Austerlitz. It’s 165 feet tall and very stately. The views from the top were awesome; you could see pretty much any landmark in the city, including a cool view of the Eiffel Tower.  It was also interesting to watch traffic in the gigantic round-about below; unlike anywhere else, incoming cars have the right-of-way. To add to the fun, there were quite a few nubes on bikes trying to join in the fun! I also heard several tired tourists echoing our thoughts, “man, we’ve walked a LONG way this week”!

At this point, we were pretty much over museums, and major protests were planned all over Paris (not because we were tired of art…there was a strike, remember?) the next day. One might ask, WWTRD? You got it: wine tasting! Sarah booked a French wine class with a real sommelier! We learned a few tricks about visual cues (you can judge a wine’s age by the curved meniscus you see when tilting the glass), and it was very cool to learn about the regions of France. Bordeaux, for example, is surprisingly small but produces 6% of the world’s wine! The tasting was the best part, though, and we got to enjoy real champagne and several wines with creative cheese pairings—who knew that bleu cheese and sweet wine play well together? What a fun way to spend a strike day!

 On the way home, we stopped at Napoleon’s Tomb. Sitting below a lovely domed chapel, it’s as grand as you might expect. The walls are carved with images of Napoleon as a Greek god doing wonderful things. While his actual “coffin” looks big and fancy, it’s only the outer shell of several increasingly smaller cases—like one of those Russian babushka dolls. Apparently, his body was perfectly preserved when they opened it to move him nearly 20 years after he died. I don’t know much about Napoleon, but our week in Paris has intrigued me; thanks to Waterloo (and Bill and Ted), he’s often portrayed as a joke, but the dude conquered most of Europe within 5 years of taking the throne at age 30!

We chose to keep our last day in Paris fairly light…no museums! Instead, we walked 500 miles to walk 500 more just to be the couple who walked 1,000 miles to walk around the trendy Marais neighborhood. Actually, it was pretty fun and included the Place de Bastille, the building where Jim Morrison died, cool old mansions that have been turned into public spaces, the Place de Vosges where nobles (and Victor Hugo) once lived, and the Jewish Quarter. We ended at the beautiful city hall where Charles de Gaulle announced liberation from the Nazis. It was an interesting afternoon.

I could write a separate blog just on the food we ate this week (yup, I tried snails), but I will instead describe our most unforgettable meal in Paris. We donned our best hiking pants and $20 sweaters for a 3-course meal at an intimate little place called Bistro Belhara; it was the romantic warm environment that we picture from French dining! Our waiter was charming, funny, and so confident in his recommendations that we just followed his lead. The result was a rich, satisfying meal with an extraordinary dessert! We started with creamy pumpkin soup with a bit of duck confit and spice, and our main course was a flavorful take on boeuf bourguignon. Dessert was an amazingly aromatic, light and fluffy Gran Marnier souffle. These two foodies felt like we’d gone to heaven!

We capped off our week in Paris by standing below the Eiffel Tower as it shimmered in sparkling lights at the top of the evening hour. While I wasn’t impressed with it at first glance the week before, I’d learned to appreciate its beauty from different angles around town, and it was dazzling at the right moment in the right light. Considering some of the limitations of our visit, it was a fairly good metaphor for two very casual art fans being “stuck” in Paris during a strike before we finally came home for the holidays.