Paris update

Here we are in Paris. We’ve been busy and it seems like we’ve been here a lot longer than 4 days. The plane ride over was the usual – uncomfortable – but it was uneventful. I just find it hard to sleep on an airplane. We’ve all adjusted to the time change (7 hours) fairly easily, so that’s good.

We checked into a hotel that we had stay in a few years ago. Nice cozy (read: tiny, by that I mean miniscule) rooms, but discovered they didn’t have AC! Uh-oh. We explored the area and quickly found a lovely hotel with AC and much larger rooms. Actually, the rooms are about twice as big, with bigger bathrooms, and they’re decorated like little french bedrooms. We gave our notice at the old hotel and spent one night there, then moved the next morning.

After we moved to our new hotel, we took the Metro to the Left Bank and explored that area. We toured St. Sulpice chapel and then went to Notre Dame. What a magnificent cathedral, it is soooo tall inside the cathedral and even full of tourists it has a reverent feeling about it.

That was Thursday, on Friday we visited the Musee d’Orsay. A magnificent museum, we spent over 3 hours there. My brain was on overload by then, I just couldn’t absorb any more. I give the kids a lot of credit for hanging in there for that long, though those 3 hours did include a 30 minute break at the cafe on the top floor for a snack.

Saturday we took the train to Versailles. I had never been before, the palace is like many other very ornate “over the top” palaces, but the gardens were like nothing I had ever seen before. They are so expansive, it’s hard to describe. We walked and walked, and then walked some more. We visited Marie-Antoinette’s farm/village and it was just charming. Apparently she had practically an entire village constructed on the grounds as her “get away”. All the building were charming, just like you might imagine in a french storybook.

Today we went to the Musee l’Orangerie in the Tulieries Gardens and saw Monet’s water lillies. There are two oval rooms, each houses 4 long water lilly paintings. The paintings are 2 meters high and total over 96 meters in length (both rooms combined). It was magnificent, it took Monet 30 years to complete this huge project and in total, he painted the water lillies over 300 times. Much of that was to work out the design for these 8 panels for this huge project.

After this we ate lunch in a cafe in the Tulieres Gardens. Food and drinks here are expensive. Our flight over was reasonable and our hotel is very reasonable, but the food! Diet Cokes cost on average 3.50 euros which is about $5.50. I had a grilled ham and cheese sandwich with a small salad for lunch and it was 9.80 euros, which is $15. Even sandwiches at little kiosks on the streets are a minimum of 6 euros ($9). And people are lining up to buy them. But worth every penny to have lunch in the Tulieres Gardens!

I was just going to write about the highlights but here I’m writing just about everything we’ve done! We’ve been to the Eiffel Tower and the Luxembourg Gardens where our son rented a sailboat and pushed it around the pond. A glorious moment! My husband, daughter, and I sat and watched, it was very relaxing. It reminded me of the impressionists who painted the Gardens. I am of course inspired by all the paintings I’ve seen, especially the Monets and the Renoirs. I have also discovered a couple of new artists (well, new to me) and been reminded of some of the ones I haven’t paid much attention to. Sounds like a couple of new art books from Amazon when I get home. I’m hoping to get back to the Musee d’Orsay for another visit before we have to go home.

Tomorrow we plan to take the train to the small town of Chartres. Small town, huge church. We’re trying to alternate big day trips with days in Paris. All in all we’re having a wonderful time, we’ve been lucky with the weather and feel blessed to be able to experience all we do each day. We still have another week here so I’ll try to do another update in a few days.