Forget Paris...is a chick flick. Paris is a cool city.

This past week my wife flew from Boston to Germany to spend the week with me.  Yay!  We spent the first couple days in Marburg and I took some half days at work.  On Wednesday we hopped in the Ford Fiesta and drove to Paris.  The drive to Paris is between 6 and 7 hours of highway driving through the countryside.  The Fiesta was not as efficient on gas as I thought it would be.   It was about 8.2 l/100km instead of the listed 5.1 l/100km.  Now I knew that it would not get the listed value but I did not think it would be that far off.  Most of the driving was in France where the max speed limit is 130 kph so I was in 5^th gear at 4,000 rpm.  I’m sure if I were traveling much slower I would have gotten better mileage, but ohh well.  After paying to park the car in Paris it probably would have been about the same price or a little cheaper (less than 20 Euro) to take the train for two people.  Ohh well.

Since the drive is rather boring and once we entered France the amount of English speaking songs diminished greatly, we amused ourselves with action photos.

• Bottom Right: I went with Ferrari and Lisa went with Blue Steel (see Zoolander if you do not get this).

We made it to our hotel (after circling it a couple times looking for a parking garage) and grabbed a quick dinner before bed.  We had an early morning planned.



We got up bright and early to beat the line at the Louvre.  We got there about 45 minutes before it opened so we got in within 5 minutes of it opening.

I don’t know what to say about the Louvre.  It is intense.  It is overwhelming.  I actually did not like the Louvre.  It was too much great art in one place and it made it hard to appreciate it.  The walls are absolutely lined with paintings and it is hard to keep track of who painted what and which pieces are spectacular and which ones are just great.  You’ll notice that I do not have pictures of some of the best pieces.  I prefer to buy postcards or books with professional pictures of the stuff I really like.  That way I don’t spend my entire time fighting through crowds and hoping people will move to snap a crappy picture in bad lighting with a terrible glare (see the Mona Lisa below).  Without worrying about pictures, I can spend my time appreciating the art and just purchase the photo for a memory.



After the Louvre (we just decided to leave after 3-4 hours, you could spend weeks..literally weeks in there) we walked over Pont Nuef to Sainte-Chapelle with the incredible stained glass.

• Multiple Cat poses throughout.  There were so many cats we could not pose by all of them!


• Bottom Right: Once again, we saw diversity (and once again for good measure, watch Anchorman if you do not get this).

After that we walked over to Notre Dame.  I’ve now been to a couple of grand cathedrals in Europe and on the outside Notre Dame is my favorite.  I can’t say the inside was as impressive as others I have seen, but the overall architectural feel of the building is my favorite.

After Notre Dame was walked down the river and then to the other side of the Louvre to walk down the Champs-Elysées (THE main street in Paris) to the Arc de Triomphe.  Overall a very nice walk, but mighty hot at that time of day.

• Bottom Left: Lisa is a hunchback in front of Notre Dame, obviously.

That night we went to see the Lido show which was fun.  I’ve seen it compared to a Vegas show but I have never been to Vegas so I would not know, but I would certainly recommend the Lido show.

The next day we got up early again and headed to the Musée d'Orsay which had a number of great pieces including some from Manet, Monet, Rodin, and Van Goh just to name some of the artists that I recognized (and I am NOT an art person by any stretch of the imagination).  This museum was a little more my size compared to the Louvre.  We were able to see just about every piece within a couple hours, stopping to really look at anything that caught our eye.  It’s just not really practical to really look at everything and still do other things that day.

• Bottom Right: Someone stabbing a gator.  This upset me greatly!

After that we went to the Hotel des Invalides with Napoleon's tomb and the Musée de l'Armée.

• Middle Middle: Napoleon's coffin was enormous!


• Bottom Middle: What Napoleon is looking at.


• Bottom Right: The dome above Napoleon.

I had a field day at the army museum.  I love military history (is there any other kind of history?).

• Top Middle: Cool guns from WW1 so that you could shoot someone without popping your head above the trench.


• Top Right: Interesting picture showing which parts of France collaborated with the Nazis.  I had a discussion about this issue (and American versus French impressions) with someone raised in France just two nights before, so it caught my eye.


• Bottom Middle: There was an absurd amount of medieval armor from France and other nations.  Awesome!

After that we went to the Rodin museum, which was fantastic!  I can’t recommend it enough.

• Top left: I’m thinking…


• Top 2^nd from Left: Still thinking…


• Top 2^nd from Right: The gates of Hell…I’ll probably see those again… :-)

Next we walked onto the Eiffel Tower, which is nearby (it's near in the sense that the incredibly long garden in front of the Eiffel Tower ends near the museum).  After the Eiffel Tower we hopped on the Metro to go the Basilique du Sacré-Coeur (high elevation in Paris) for a view of the city.  The Basilique was ok, but this was the only place I was seriously worried about pick pockets.  There were tons of people out who would just walk up to you and get close to “sell things.”  I saw some other tourist literally running a couple times to avoid people at the choke points.  I don’t know if the city allows it (it was not like this anywhere else) because it’s actually church ground there.  I’m not sure.  You can see from the picture below how packed it was there.  The view was good, but if you’ve already gone to the top of the Eiffel Tower (we did not) I’m not sure this place was a must see.

• Bottom Left: Forgot to include a picture of our hotel, so I threw it in here.


• Top Left: This place was a zoo, and while you can’t see it in the picture there were a ton of steps and garden area below this.  It’s a very steep hill.

On the final day we went to Versailles.  We go there at about 10 AM and proceeded to wait in line for over an hour.  I’ve tried to document the line experience below. :-)

• Middle Left: The line did some crazy loops and overall had about four sections.  You walked up and down the length of the courtyard three times (green, red, yellow) and then across the width (purple).


• Middle Right: Picture immediately upon entering the line.


• Bottom Left: after rounding the first corner (between green and red).


• Bottom 2^nd from Right: Almost there!


• Bottom Left: Inside!

After getting in, it was again like the Louvre with being absolutely packed.  You can get a sense of how crowded it is from the Hall of Mirrors picture.

• Bottom 2^nd from Left: Hall of Mirrors.


• Bottom 2^nd from Right: Room after room covered in art and cloth walls, each room a different color.


• Bottom Right: We went to McDonalds after we were done.  Not because we’re lame American tourists but because McDonalds is the only reasonably priced meal you can get and the only meal you can get quickly.  Naturally, I got a McFlurry when we were done.

Overall I left with a fantastic impression of Paris.  Between the Champs-Elysées, the park by the Eiffel Tower, the park in front of the Hotel de Invalids, the Luxembourg Gardens, Versailles, etc. you come to appreciate just how large Paris is and how many parks they have.  They really appriacate art and beautiful buildings there.  Overall, a great place to visit.

The ride home was uneventful, but we had fun.

• Top Left: “Liter is French for give me some F***ing Cola!”  If you don’t get this, stop everything and rent Super Troopers.  You can thank me later.


• Top Right: French cows prompts the phrase “Fetche le vasche” followed by “what?”  If you don’t get this, stop everything and rent Monty Pythons and the Holy Grail.  You can thank me later.


• Bottom Left: Had to pee on France.  France knows what it did.


• Bottom Right: Happy to be leaving France and entering Germany!