Finally, a day in Paris
My wife and I finally got a chance to experience Paris in leisurely style yesterday. We started in Île Saint-Louis around lunch time and had a very nice meal with a great view of the back of Notre-Dame and a pleasant breeze off the Seine.
After our meal and some coffee we strolled the island while enjoying some ice cream and sorbet, supposedly the best in Paris. We bought some gifts for folks back home and sat by the river, chatting about how fortunate we are to be able to do this.
From there we crossed the pedestrian bridge to the cathedral and walked around the gardens. The front of Notre-Dame is always so busy with tourists, but the gardens in the back are very quiet. We thought about going inside, but the line was crazy long.
We then wandered back over the river, this time to the right bank, and looked around to see where we should go next. The Pompidou Center caught our eye, to put it mildly, so we headed there. The thought of exploring the museum was a bit too much for us at the moment, so we just checked out the ground floor and enjoyed the activity in the square out front.
We checked the map and decided to head to the Louvre next. After a walk through Les Halles we entered the museum grounds through the courtyard, which is a fantastic reveal of the magesty of that building. The fountains around the glass pyramids were very pleasant, especially on a sunny day, and gave us some interesting ideas for a water feature back home.
The Louvre is a huge museum. First thing upon getting tickets you need to decide which wing of the building to visit. We hadn’t done any research, so we went with what seemed oldest: the Egyptian stuff. That direction started off Medieval — we walked around the base of a castle and checked out a dungeon — then we got distracted by traffic signs for the Venus de Milo.
We saw the statue and I enjoyed it as much as any untrained eye could. I’m sure there’s a lot I don’t know about that piece that would have enriched my experience. Then we headed through the grand hall and spent about an hour in the presence of some amazing Renaissance art. By the time we got to the Mona Lisa I was pretty tired, but it was a real privilege to be in her presence.
At the end of the day we felt like we had finally experience Paris, and we had done it in a way that didn’t involve a schedule or too much mass-transit. It was definitely a day I’ll remember for years to come.
