Saturday, January 19, 2013

Paris

We arrived in Paris at night. It's a pretty bicycle friendly city so we felt it wouldn't be too bad navigating the streets to find the campground. I should learn to shut my mouth. Actually we did pretty good until we hit the Bois de Boulonge, where the campground was, and got backwards. Ok, Paris at night? I was so giddy. The park at night? Ufta, as stated in the last post, the prostitution is alive and well there. We got a bit stressed finding the campground, as they were closing at midnight and we were wondering around the park around 11:30, afraid we'd get stuck out in the cold. The grounds had a few dedicated spots for walk up tent camping, but by the time we got there, they were pretty packed. We opted for a patch of grass that people for some reason didn't want to use. Not sure if it was an actual spot we decided we were too tired to care and set camp for the next 5 nights. We discovered later, due to the amount of bird poop on the tent, that maybe that's why no one had a tent there.
The Lourve at night. I was tired but I didn't care!
Of course we had to stop and watch the light show. This was the closest I got to the Tower while in town

We saw so many churches on this trip that we had this running joke "oh look, another church" or in perspective "look kids, Big Ben, Parliamentt". The Sacre Coeur was actually quite stunning though. Unfortunately with many big tourist attractions, photos are not allowed, as they want you to buy their official swag. And with sweeping views of Paris from the tops of the steps, it's worth the hike up to the top.

case in point, the views. This picture does not do it justice
so much great street art in the city
and some creepy stuff





This is worth enlarging to see the details. This was on the side of a tomb

We visited a lot of cemeteries. So much history




feces in a box? Nah, but one hell of a tasty pastry from Paul's

We arrived at Notre Dame when they were closing so we didn't make inside. This is totally going to sound horrible but as I stated above, we'd seen so many churches on this trip that by the time we got here, we were ok with not going in. "What the shit?!" you say. I know, I know, but trust me when I say that by this point in our trip we had seen so, so many amazing beautiful things that we got to a stage of sensory overload and began to not appreciate things around us. How horrible does that sound? Really horrible. We learned that we may have figured our travel limit, about 6 weeks, and maybe a country at a time in that time frame, to fully appreciate what each place has to offer.

Paris is chalk full of art and museums. We ventured into one: Musee d'Orsay. Wait, that's not completely true, we did go into the Lourve, to the gift shop, for the sake of seeing what a shit show it is. And it was just that. When it comes to art and museums, I can't do crazy crowds, so the d'Orsay was nice. A little crowded, yes, but still manageable, and I was able to take my time with the pieces on display.





One day we decided to check out the Comptoir des Catacombes, a massive display of bones from all the uprooted cemeteries that made way for more buildings and less smell of rotting flesh. The line to get in was like Disney land; it wrapped around the block and it was about 2.5hours. We were also graced with some torrential downpours. In fact, for the 5 days we were in Paris, it rained on us for every one of them; not consistently every hour, but some good rainfall nonetheless.











Department store




Paris was a bit like Rome with regards to history. You basically can't piss anywhere and not hit something of historic beauty. By the way, if you want to shop the major fashion labels or if you fancy yourself an antique blood hound, I highly recommend bring A LOT of money because there is some great shopping to be had. I recommend spending a lot of hours at the St-Ouen flea market. You'll walk through a kind of bustling Oakland, California ghetto feeling section of the city to get to it but once you happen to find it's entrance, it's like you've walked into a different shopping world.

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