Life in the Old World: Paris Day 1

We took the metro into Paris to the Hotel de Ville and walked across a foot bridge to the Isle St. Louis where we stopped at a pastry shop for breakfast. Our plan for the day was to do a walking tour from Rick Steve’s France book. It started at Notre Dame. The cathedral was beautiful! Also, while we were there, there was an all-boys choir performance; Les Petits Chanteurs de Bratíslava. They were really good. We also found out that this year is the 850^th anniversary of the Notre Dame Cathedral. Across from the street we saw the Memorial de la Déportation for the 200,000 French victims of Nazi camps.

After that we walked around in the Latin Quarter, which is where medieval Paris was and it also has the narrowest house in all of Paris! Then we went to the St. Severine chapel. It wasn’t very big and it was really old! We walked over the Pont de Sully where lovers write their initials on a padlock and lock it to the bridge as a symbol of their eternal love for each other. The bridge was FULL of locks!

We then moved onto to Sainte Chapelle, which was built to house the crown of thorns that Jesus wore. The chapel was built by King Louis IX and it only took 6 years to build which was unheard of for a Gothic cathedral during that time period. The bottom floor, for the commoners, was covered in fleurs-de-lis, the symbol of the king. In the upper room, reserved for royalty and where the crown of thorns used to be has 15 separate panels of stain glass, 6,500 square feet in total and has 1,100 scenes from the Bible. It was breath taking!

The Conciergerie’s prison, where they took people who were sentenced to the guillotine was right next door so we went to check that out too. Here we got to see Maire Antoinette’s prison cell. The Palais Justice, next door had the phrase: Liberté Egalité Fraternité written across the entrance as a reminder of the French Revolution.

We started to head back to the metro to go home and rest for a bit. As we were walking across one of the bridges we ran into two girls from my program! It is funny how no matter where we go, we seem to usually run into someone we know. After chatting with them for a bit we walked around in a flower market, grabbed some lunch and then went back to the hotel.

After a couple of hours of rest we went to the Louvre where we saw the Mona Lisa, Venus Milo, famous because it is one of the few remaining authentic Greek statues and we also saw Michelangelo’s Slaves statues as well as many other pieces by Batachelli, Rafeal and, art from the French and Italian Rennassiance.

After the Louvre, we headed towards the Eiffel Tower. It was pretty neat to see such an iconic figure in person. We had dinner at a little restaurant nearby, Le Royal, where Ben and I tried pate. After dinner we went back to the Eiffel Tower for the light show. It was a good ending to our first full day in Paris.

We are here!