(The following is a letter from Joe to our families detailing our trip to Paris.)
Greeting from the old
world! We are back from our Christmas in
Paris. Based on input from our German friends and
our own desire to eventually see Paris, we
decided that Christmas is a good time to see Paris.
We
arrived on 22 December by TGV train, on the very same tracks that set the world
speed record for wheeled trains. The
train hit a top speed of 200mph –I was tracking it with my GPS.
 |
| Cathedral Sacre-Coeur |
From the train station we
walked to our hotel, for about 2.5km. Navigation
was a little difficult, because Paris is a big city, and from street level most
of it looks the same –5 or 6 story tall buildings built in the 1800s, the
streets are straight, but don’t intersect at 90 degree angles.
After checking into our
hotel, we spent the rest of the evening walking around. We were in the neighborhood of the Basilique
du Sacré-Cœur (Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paris). We came across a Christmas Market there. And because the Sacré-Cœur is on a hill in relatively
flat Paris, we got our first view of the Eiffel Tower. We walked through the streets and eventually
made our way to the river Seine. It was quite dirty and fast flowing; and
completely surrounded by stone walls. On
an island in the Seine sits the Notre Dame
cathedral. We marveled at the front for
a while at sunset. Then we used the Metro
(subway) to get back home for dinner at a Parisian Café.
On Friday we visited some other famous sites,
including the 300m tall Eiffel
Tower. We purchased a baguette with cold cuts and
cheese, and we had lunch in a park viewing the tower. It was hard to comprehend the size until we
were under it. We went all the way to
the top and got a view of the city, and we could just see the land beyond the
sprawl of Paris. We also walked under the Arc de Triomphe
which is also impressively big. We
wandered around the National Residence of the Invalides, which is also the
national military history museum and the burial site for Napoleon. Finally, we
went into some more churches. |
| La St. Chapelle |
On Christmas Eve the
skies were blue. We walked around town
–in total we walked about 40miles in our 2day +2half day stay! We visited the Louvre, and saw the most
famous painting in the world –the Mona Lisa.
I was reprimanded for taking a picture of the crowd of people taking a
picture of the picture. I am still a bit
upset that they didn’t reprimand all the people who were using their camera
flashes, despite all the signs that say “No Flash”. On average there was a camera flash at the
Mona Lisa every two seconds. That
evening we enjoyed a fantastic meal at a corner café with some good wine, and
then listened to an organ concert at the Sacré-Cœur. After the concert we watched the Eiffel Tower,
which was lit up with hundreds or maybe even thousands of strobe lights.
On Christmas day we walked
around town and took our picture by Notre Dame.
We had a three-course lunch at a nice café. And we departed Paris around 3:30 for Tübingen.
At home we unwrapped our
presents, and talked to Betsy’s family by Skype.
Love,
Joe & Betsy
I (Betsy) have a few things to add to Joe's narrative. First, in the above picture I am not pregnant or fatter than normal, I am just wearing the tourist waistbelt with both of our passports, money, credit cards, etc., and I didn't want to take it off for the picture.
There are some other observations I made about Paris in addition to Joe's. I spend about two weeks in Paris and surroundings when I was 14, and saw it quite exhaustively, but that was more than half a lifetime ago now and these three things really stood out to me:
1. Paris is really dirty. I know, it's beautiful, but I sort of feel like I should throw my shoes away now. We saw so much poop, gum, cigarette butts, barf and litter on the streets. Each morning water flowed out from the sewers and maintenance people swept what they could away, but really, doesn't it just end up in the Seine then? Gross, Paris. I thought we'd moved past the Middle Ages.
2. Paris has a lot of rocks. Wow. It is a big city and just about everything is made of stone. Where did it all come from? Napolean must have employed an army to move it all in. Oh wait, I think he might have actually done just that.
3. Paris is really expensive. I was prepared to see a good amount of upscale boutiques, etc, but that was about all that was there, aside from a few immigrant neighborhoods and tourist districts. I don't know how people actually live there. It was nice to return home to "spar"-conscious Germany.
Last of all, Joe forgot to mention our most magical Paris experience. On Christmas morning we saw a motorcade heading down a broad avenue. I thought, "It must be French president Nicolas Sarkozy". Actually, it was Pere Noel (Santa Claus). He waved to us and went on his way. I couldn't figure out though what he was doing parading around Paris when it was still night time in the western hemisphere. Shouldn't he still be out delivering toys?
