Paris: La Vie en Rose

After only a 2 day rest from London, my bags were packed and by the door again as I ventured to the next city on my list: Paris. If you’ve read the previous post about London, I warn you that this trip was far less climactic in the sense that everything went by plan, which was such a relief after the weekend in England.

Like in London, I had a friend who was studying in Angers, France, southwest of Paris. He kindly made arrangements with his friends so that I could come visit the city and the 5 of us rented a flat in the Latin Neighborhood for two nights. It was also helpful that the four of them spoke French, because it would have made the trip 100% more difficult had I not understood the language of the country…

I had one day in Paris. Call me crazy or even stupid for planning a trip to such a city in only one day, but I had to work with what I had. And to be honest, I saw everything I wanted to see in those 24 hours.

I arrived on Friday night to the Glaciere metro stop, where Memo (short for Guillermo) met me and took me to the flat they were staying at. We left immediately around 21:30 for Champs-Élysées, a well known street in Paris, where we ate dinner. Later, we walked around the area, passing the Louvre Gardens and seeing the Eiffel Tower in the distance by night in the rain. After about an hour, we returned back to the apartment and rested for the big day ahead of us on Saturday…

07:00 wake up call and I was ready to take the city. Tennis shoes on, umbrella in hand, and my camera in my pocket, I left the flat with the group towards the metro, stopping to buy fresh pastries in a bakery on the way to the city center. Our first stop was Notre Dame, a magnificent cathedral on the Île de la Cité. Quite literally, Notre Dame was taking on Notre Dame as we marveled at the Gothic work of art in the architecture and the stained glass windows.

After a brisk but through walk-through of the church, we then moved on to our next stop: the Louvre. I would consider myself a mild fanatic of art, especially after taking this Master Painters of Spain course in Toledo, so seeing the Mona Lisa, Michelangelo’s “Slaves”, and Venus de Milo was almost a spiritual experience for me. The obvious characteristics of the Renaissance were evoked in these masterpieces: the gigantic and muscular features of the slaves in Michelangelo’s sculpture, accentuating man’s importance and power in the world, as well as the precision of mathematics in Leonardo Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa.

 

Time flies when you’re having fun, and before we knew it, it was noon and time to eat lunch at a crepe restaurant, where I actually cheated and ate a gallette instead, which is a savory crepe (mine was a potato pancake, covered in eggs, bacon, cheese, and a tomato paste). It was perfect.

Next stop: Montmartre, the neighborhood of artists, where painters such as Van Gogh, Picasso, and Monet have all lived. At the peak of Montmartre (and after climbing 140+ stairs), we arrived at Sacré Cœur, a basilica which overlooks Paris. Also in Montmartre is the famous Moulin Rouge. Surrounded by erotic nightclubs and sex shops, the Red Windmill is a historic monument. I can only imagine what that part of town looked like in the late 19th century…

The finale of our day was going to the Eiffel Tower as well as taking river cruise down the Seine River. It was a rainy, but nonetheless beautiful, night. When the Eiffel Tower glimmers intermittently throughout the night, it is literally a break-taking view. What makes it even more special is that its impossible to capture on an average camera, so the only way you can really see it is by going their yourself and seeing the spectacular lights on Paris’s most famous structure. Staring at the Eiffel Tower, I was in awe of what I had experienced that entire day. I was able to go everywhere, with a great group, and just come back to Spain the next day. The ease of everything seemed unreal to me… As Edith Piaf would sing, life was definitely in pink for me.