So this past weekend, we traveled to the most well-known city in France for a bit of fun. At base price, it was very economical as the Montpellier program subsidized the trip - I'll explain more about our program organization in a future post - but of course that was before we tried out several crêpe stands and went shopping on the Champs-Eylsées. But I'm getting ahead of myself! Here's a account of our getaway to the city of lights.
Packing Light
Since it was just a weekend trip, most of our group showed up at our meeting point with just a backpack, but some opted for the carry-on suitcase size as well. We caught a TGV train out of Montpellier, making the journey a short 3.5 hours even with some stops along the way. We played cards, ate chocolate and researched the catacombs for that night. Here is myself and my seat mates, Becca, Erin and Mercy:
Underground Lights
Almost all of the group chose to visit the catacombs the first night. Paris is perhaps the most well known for this concept, but in fact this happens with many cities around the globe (see: Palermo, Italy; Dublin, Ireland and Odessa, Ukraine). Venturing down into these creepy tunnels was one of the top items on my list for Paris, so I was pretty excited.Basically, over the 18th and 19th centuries the city of Paris moved millions bones moved from cemeteries to space underground because of the risk they posed to public health. At the beginning of the project, the tunnels closely followed Parisian streets, and so there were engravings marking this information:
Over the course of the project there were also multiple architects and engineers. They periodically engraved their worksite, initials and the year, such as this one denoting that this was the 65th intervention carried out by Charles-Axel Guillaumot in 1781:
Here's some of the crazy facts we were reading about on the train ride there: http://www.catacombes.paris.fr/sites/catacombes/files/editeur/pm_catacombes_depliant_gb.pdf. Some of the architects of the project seemed to be a bit artistically minded for moving bones around, but I'll let you all be the judge:
"Stop! Here lies the empire of the dead."
Information about the cemetery from which these bones were taken
Becca checking down the well
They're trapped!
A juxtaposition between death and life
I had a lot of fun reading all of the quotes they had engraved in Latin and French. Here are a couple:
"Thus everything happens on earth
Mind, beauty, prayers, talent
Like an ephemeral flower
That is blown over by a low wind"
"It is by the mischief of a demon
that death
entered the world"
Eating Light
After our time with the dead, we were all pretty hungry. Pretty much ravenous. So, we set out to find a nice Italian restaurant in Paris. I was hoping to get some chicken parmesan, but when we had finally found a place and sat down there was only pizza, pasta and calamari. For the regular joe, this choice would be easy, but since I can't digest gluten, I was left with the calamari.Now, let me clarify, I have liked calamari in the past. My Uncle Sam was known for his calamari, and I had it at his house several times. The difference, I think, was that that was breaded. This was grilled:
Grilled and with little octopuses on top as a garnish. How cute! As I was ordering this, I was commending myself on how adventurous I was being. How great it was that I could find something to eat in a bread-infested city. Long story short, I made a bad name for americans everywhere and doused it in lemon juice and parmesan cheese. I ate light that night.
Tower of Lights
Not a minute to waste, after a quick stop at the hotel for some gluten-free bread we were off to see one of the most famous landmarks in Paris, the Eiffel Tower. It was fun to see close up when it was illuminated, and it was a lot less busy than during the day!
Fleeting Moments of Light
The next morning we woke up bright and early for Musée d'Orsay:
Not only is this museum home to countless Impressionist and Post-Impressionist works of art, it also had a special exhibition while we were there titled: "The Spectacular Second Empire, 1852-1870.
"Against a background of social unrest, this prosperous era was a time of splendor and of economic euphoria, of ostentation and numerous lavish celebrations that are worth revisiting. It was also a period of moral and aesthetic crisis, torn between the old cultural frameworks and the new practices, between increasingly excessive decoration and the quest for the real - conflicting currents that determined much of French artistic creation in the 1850s and 1860s"
That was from the museum website and that's all I can give you, because we weren't allowed to take pictures in this exhibit! Nonetheless I did have a lot of fun reading all the informational pieces in French like a pro and ogling at the diamond jewelry and the crystal fountain.
The Impressionist and Post-Impressionist sections had no problems with pictures, however, so here are some of my favorites/some of the more well-known pieces:
POST-IMPRESSIONISM:
IMPRESSIONISM:
For Mom!
The view from the Impressionist exhibit:
Light of the Lord
One can't see Paris without including a couple churches!
First, Sainte-Chapelle:
And Notre Dame de Paris:
And Sacre-Coeur (even though we did this on Sunday) (during mass):
This was inside the church, I kid you not
In Light of Being in Paris...
We of course had to walk the streets, take photos by the Seine, and find the most famous ice cream shop in Paris! No joke, the Berthillon brand is sold all over Paris:
A Creative Light
On day two in Paris we went to the creative neighborhood of Montmartre, a place where artists, writers and bohemians once gathered to work on their craft, share their ideas and partake in debauchery. Today Montmartre still holds its historic charm, but has become an expensive neighborhood in which mostly actors and hipsters choose to live.
Known as one of the cutest streets in Paris
"salt pancakes" (crêpes) taste better than they sound
The well-known art vending area of Montmartre
An artist at work
They walked past the Moulin Rouge to take photos elsewhere, but I couldn't resist snapping a shot as if that was their destination:
Light(er) Pockets
With our remaining time in Paris, we decided to spend the afternoon on the Champs-Elysées:
(looks photoshopped but it isn't)
Lots of security here. Our bags were searched upon entering the famous street as well as each store:
McDonald's on Champs-Elysées is pretty high tech:
My friends bought a shirt or two, but I gamely window shopped as I had bought some shoes right before the trip. The girls of my program have noticed that Adidas are very popular in France and we have taken on the trend:
On an anthropological note, it's amazing to me that a country the size of Texas can have such drastic differences in culture between cities. While Montpellier is very laid back, Paris possesses that hurried big city attitude. Perhaps in some ways the size of a city influences a culture more than its nationality.
It was difficult to see the city of light in just a weekend, but we made the most of our time and fit in lots of adventures. And of course, it not always where you are but who you're with, and already I know I'm with some pretty great folks.
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