Paris- A Miracle at the Louvre

No trip to France is complete without a visit to Paris. I think it is the most visited city in the world and probably deserves to be.

Nick and I began our exploration of the great city by first getting familiar with the Metro (the Paris subway system) and how to figure out where we wanted to go by looking at the system maps. We were able to get to Les Halles-Châtelet which is a major station and walked to the Eiffel Tower via the Seine river. That stretch of the Seine goes past lots of well known museums and landmarks and helps get oriented for later places to visit. It took about an hour to walk there.

Once upon a time, you could walk right under the Eiffel Tower and have a picnic lunch on the grass there. Now, the area is fenced off with security gates to go through if you want to ride the elevator to the top (or walk 330 meters up). I think that was a result of 9/11 and the global terrorism threat. No matter what though, it is an amazing landmark and the true icon of Paris. To think that they were going to dismantle it after the World Expo it was built for way back when. Glad they came to their senses.

After seeing the Eiffel Tower, we got some lunch at one of the thousands of sidewalk cafes that Paris is famous for. I was on a mission to find the best bowl of French Onion Soup. Only on the english menus at the cafes did they call it “french” onion soup. Otherwise, just Onion Soup, right? Makes sense. The soup was pretty good! Mmm.

Next, we took the metro to the Arc de Triomphe and the crazy Round-About that surrounds it. I find it difficult to negotiate a 2 lane round-about in the US. The round-about that circles the Arc de Triumph is about 5 lanes, but they don’t even bother to paint lane lines. It is an automobile circus, but somehow it seems to work. Just glad I am not trying to drive around it. And the French are probably glad too.

From there, it was down the Champs-Elysees, maybe the most famous shopping street in the world after 4th Avenue in NYC. Just looking though. No Rolex’s or Gucci in my budget these days. I did see a couple of Ferrari’s on the street. I have now seen more Ferrari’s in France than I have in Italy! Not sure what that means…. That was about enough for one day.

The next day, we got an Uber from our motel and got dropped off in the Montmartre district of Paris. We took the Uber instead of the Metro because the station were we would normally get off the metro was closed for some maintenance and the subway was not running in that direction from the neighborhood we were staying in. That was a pain, but we eventually figured out a way to circumnavigate that problem by an alternate route.

We went to Montmartre to see the Scare Coeur cathedral. It is visible from most of the city since it sits on the top of a large hill and is bright white. Most old European Catholic churches are impressive and this one didi not disappoint. It was actually a Sunday, so they were having Mass. I made Nick sit in the pews for the beginning of the service, but only to hear the massive pipe organ play. After a few minutes of music, we left since neither one us is Catholic!

From there, we made our way through the cafes and art kiosks of Montmartre down the hill. We wanted to see the Famous Moulin Rouge. The cabaret shows are in the evening and a bit expensive, but we at least saw the exterior and now know where it is. After some lunch (and more onion soup) we just saw more of the city and sort of called it a day early. We were both tired from all of the walking that day. We did get some bad news though. We were talking to a couple of young american girls who said that tickets to the Louvre were sold-out for the week! We had every intention of going there tomorrow so that was a bummer.

The next day was to be Nicks last for his trip. We WERE going to go to the Louvre, but the ticket situation made us change our plans. But we at least wanted to go see the glass pyramid entrance to the museum and the surrounding Palais Royale buildings that the actual museum is in. I could see why the tickets were sold out. There were thousands of people waiting in line to get in the museum. After all, it is probably the most famous museum in the entire world so who could blame them. Just to make sure though, we asked one of the many Louvre staff who were guiding and monitoring the tourists. He said that we could actually get tickets if we stood in a particular line. And we did… and we got in! Amazing (but not a miracle). We got to see the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and all of the other famous paintings and sculptures. Towards the end of our visit we took some time to navigate the museum and eventually found the section that held the Dutch Masters. They had a very nice collection of Rembrandt which I was appreciative. We were both pretty weary by then and decided we had seen enough (I think we saw almost everything anyway). As we were leaving the plaza, I had decided to take one last photo of the plaza and the crowd. But ….. my iPhone was missing! Somehow, I lost it. Either I was pick-pocketed, or I left it somewhere, but it was definitely gone. After a few moments of panic and being more than a little upset, I settled down and resigned myself that it was indeed gone. Nick and I decided to go get some lunch and I started trying to figure out what I was going to do next. Get a pre-paid phone and go from there I guess. After lunch (and more onion soup), we decided to just go back to the museum and check the lost and found there. Just to make sure. When I got there, I told them what happened and asked if my phone might have been turned in there. The staff just sort of rolled their eyes at me, but checked anyway. They had two phones in the basket. One was mine! A miracle at the Louvre! We were all pretty amazed, including the museum staff!

Lastly, we walked further down along the Seine River to see Notre Dame. It had caught fire years ago and sustained major damage. It has been under reconstruction ever since. It is scheduled to re-open next year, just in time for the Paris Summer Olympics.

So it turned out to be a pretty excellent day. Got to see the most famous painting in the world (the Mona Lisa) in the most famous museum in the world!