Pantheonic Paris

Sunday was a rather busy day, with lots of small things rather than a few great acts. First I returned to Notre Dame where the line for the tower was much shorter, and it only took about half an hour to get in to the towers. The first place in teh tower you visit is the gift shop, where I succumbed to temptation and bought a quill with some "Victor Hugo" ink. Then it was up to the actual interesting bits with the grotesques and gargoyles and all that. A nice view of Paris from the top.

After descending back to ground level, I went over to the Notre Dame crypt, which is mostly underneath the square in front of the Notre Dame with a small section underneath the church itself. The crypt shows ruins from various periods that have since been built over. The earliest were roman houses and then progressed until the middle ages.

After Notre Dame I headed over to the Grand Rex, where after a quick lunch I joined the line for the Battlestar Galactica screening at about 12:45. This turned out to be a good move as by the time the guests of honour arrived the line stretched far behind me. While I was waiting in the line I was interviewed by some guys for a bonus feature on the French release of the season 4 DVDs. I don't think I was at my most eloquent, and thought up many better things to say afterwards, but alas it was too late. They started letting people in about 15 minutes before it was scheduled to start.

The event began with an introduction of the three actors present, Mary McDonnell, Jamie Bamber and James Callis, and their characters on the show. Then there was a question and answer session. The answers from Mary and James were quite interesting, and presumably some were Jamie Bamber's, but he answered in French so I couldn't tell. After that was the presentation of the awards and finally the screening of the first episode of season four. I was a little disappointed as I had translated "premiere finale season" as the premier of the season finale, whereas it turns out it meant the premiere of the final season. It was still awesome though, and the show looked really good on a big screen.

Once all the BSG was all done, I headed over to the Pantheon, which I had assumed was a very old church/temple, as is the case of the Pantheon in Rome. It turns out it is actually a Revolution era building that while originally a church is now used as a burial site for great Frenchmen (and Frenchwomen), such as Pierre and Marie Curie, Victor Hugo, Voltaire, Louise Braille and many more. Also at the Pantheon was the original Focault's Pendulum.

I left the Pantheon at around 6ish. With most things closed I headed to the one thing that was open late, the Arc de Triomphe. This time I went up top, as entry was covered by my museum pass. The view from the top is pretty good. Not as good as the Eiffel tower, but still good. There is also one thing you can see from the top of the Arc de Triomphe you can't see from the Eiffel tower (I'll leave it to more astute readers to work out what this might be). When I arrived at the Arc it was closed as some ceremony involving the eternal flame was in progress, but it ended after 15 minutes and I was free to climb up to the top. On the way down I took the steps of the spiral staircase reasonably quickly, and was a little dizzy when I reached the bottom. Thus ended Sunday.

Monday was my last day in Paris. I started by returning to the Louvre. I took in the Egyptian collections, some other stuff that apparently wasn't too memorable, and some stuff from the Middle East. At this stage I got a bit arted out and decided to grab some lunch and head over to the military museum. Lunch was a ham and cheese sandwich. I started at the military museum by taking in Napoleon's tomb, which was really big and made of stone. Then I took in the arms and armour wing, which covered at least 1000 years of warfare, and then upstairs for the last 200 years of French military history. After this I went back to the hostel to pick up my bags and head to the train station for my train to Barcelona.

Partisan Paris and Valiant Versailles

On Friday a group of us, Mattheus, Mel, Elvis, the Chilean and I, went to the Eiffel tower. We went with the short line and climbed the steps up to the first to platforms of the tower. On the second platform I bought some croissants to eat at the top. Then we caught the lift up to the top of the tower which gave us a great view of Paris. On the way down the group got separated and Elvis and Mel went MIA. Mattheus, the Chilean and I made our way along the Champ de Mars to the Musee d Army, which contains among other things Napoleon's tomb. We only went into the church there, as the others were more interested in seeing other sites. We caught a train to Notre Dame and had a look inside. Unfortunately the crown of thorns was not on display, and I seem to have missed the statue of Joan of Arc I remember from my previous visit.

After Notre Dam I left the group as I wanted to climb the towers and they wanted to visit the Louvre. I went around the corner and saw the line to climb the tower, and decided to try another time. So I headed to the Grand Rex, the venue for the Jules Verne film festival, and picked up a ticket for the Battlestar Galactica screening.

Then I headed back to Notre Dame, hoping the line would be shorter, and indeed the line was shorter, to the point of non-existence, since the towers had closed 15 minutes earlier. I then headed over to the Louvre since it was open late on Friday evenings. I bought a 4 day museum pass for €48. This was a good buy as I ended up getting at least €75 worth of admissions out of it. While in the Louvre I checked out the classical sculptures and the Italian painters hall, leading up to the Mona Lisa. It was not as crowded as when I saw it in 2003. I exited through a hall of large French paintings with a detour to see the Venus de Milo. At this point it was getting close to 9pm when they start lighting up the Eiffel tower, for which I'd agreed to meet up with Mattheus and the Chilean to watch. I caught the subway and returned to the park in which we'd taken in the tower the previous day.

I was the first to arrive, so I sat down and watched the lights on the tower brighten. Mattheus and the Chilean turned up at about 9:15, and the sparkly bits turned on for the first time at around 9:30. After taking in this nice sight we headed back to our hostel, stopping to have dinner at a nearby kebab shop, where I ended up having the rest of my dinners in Paris.

On Saturday I ventured further afield, going to Versailles with Mattheus. When we got there, the line was reasonably long, which presented a minor moral dilemma. My pass allowed me to go straight in while Mattheus had to buy a ticket. While I didn't want to wait in a line I didn't have to, I didn't want to just leave him behind. We agreed to meet in a few hours in the garden after having gone through the main palace on our own.

The palace was pretty impressive. Lots of paintings, statues and rather small beds that were still quite fancy. There were some very ornate clocks that I liked. After touring all of the palace I went out into the garden, which it turns out wasn't covered by my pass since they turn the fountains on on the weekend and it costs extra to get in. It was well worth the extra money. The gardens were cast and magnificent, even though a small fraction of their original size, and full of fountains of various sizes. They also had music from the era playing from speakers hidden in the gardens which was a nice touch.

We took a mini-train to a few of the auxiliary sites of the complex, the Grand and Petite Trianon and Marie-Antoinette's village, which was quite nice. Then we walked back from the grand lake to the palace, taking in a few other fountains off to the side. All in all it was a good day with lots of walking.

Paradisical Paris

The hostel in Paris was pretty good, in fact it would have to rate as the best I've stayed in. The bunks were very solid and built onto the walls, each bed had a light, two power points, a curtains and a large drawer underneath. The room had lots of space and was very clean. The price for all this though, was the price. €25 a night, and the restaurant downstairs was pricey too. I arrived at around 5pm Wednesday afternoon and bludged around at the hostel all evening.

On Thursday I started out by taking a free walking tour. Also taking the tour were Elvis and Mel, the couple I'd met in Nice, a Brazilian named Mattheus, a Chilean whose name we never got, and a bunch of others. Our guide was an Australian girl named Spike (it was not made clear if that was a first name or a last name). The tour started at St Michel, a fountain near Notre Dame with a statue of the Archangel Michael defeating Lucifer. We then crossed the river onto the Ile de la Cite and walked along the Seine to the Ponte Neuf, crossed the river again, continued down the Seine a bit more to the artist's bridge which we crossed and then entered the Louvre complex. We passed through the Louvre and onto the Palace Royal, followed by one of the fancy shopping streets. Needless to say, I did not buy anything there.

Lunch was at a sandwich shop that was alright, but a little pricey. After lunch we took in the Tuilleries, the Concorde, Champs Elysees, and finished up near the Grand and Petite Palaces.

After the tour finished I went to the Arc de Triomphe with Mattheus and a few other people from South America who had gone on the tour. The Arc de Triomphe was huge. I was expecting something on the scale of the Arch of Constantine, but it was at least three times the size. I did not go up top at this time. After the Arc we went to see the Eiffel Tower. We sat in a park across the river from for a while just basking in the view.

We split up at around 5, with Mattheus, the Chilean and I catching the Metro to Montmarte for another walking tour, although this one was not free. Our guide was again Spike, and Mel and Elvis were also on this tour. The tour took in the many sites in Montmarte including haunts of artists like Picasso, locations from the movie Amelie, the work of the space invader guy, the last vineyard in Paris, and of course the Sacre-Coeur, which was close to the end of the tour. After the end of the tour, Mel, Elvis, Mattheus and I went back to the Sacre-Coeur to see the night view of Paris which was pretty good. Then we had dinner at a fondue restaurant that served the drinks in baby bottles. It was a very good meal of meat fondue and cheese fondue.

Me in front of some metal contraption.
The lovely tour guide Spike
Sacre-Coeur