Paris in three days

Leaving Chartres, I took the train to Paris, arriving at my hotel on the Left Bank in the early

afternoon.  I wasn’t sure how long it would take me to get to Paris, so I had not scheduled

anything until a visit to Sainte Chapelle at 4.  So I had time to make a quick visit to one of

my favorite museums.  Musee D’Orsai or Musee Rodin?  Which one if you only have time

for one?  The question answered itself:  museums are all closed on Mondays!  So I went

for a long walk around the highlights of Paris.  First the Eiffel Tower which you can see from

the street in front of my hotel.  Then across the Seine to the Arc de Triomphe, down the

Champs Elysee, past the Tuilleries and the Louvre (waving to the Musee D’Orsai across

the Seine), and finally to the Ile de La Cite to visit Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame.  The

highlights of Paris in three hours.

The Eiffel Tower hasn't changed since the last time I was here.

Sainte Chapelle has become much more popular and crowded since I last visited it.  It used to be a hidden gem around the corner from Notre Dame, but while it is still a gem, it is no longer hidden.  It had always impressed me as having the most beautiful stained glass windows, but now that I have been awed at the Chartres Cathedral, I’m not so sure.  Then again, original windows from the twelfth and thirteenth century … that’s pretty incredible.  I did not remember that Sainte Chapelle has more than beautiful windows; it was built to house relics that were brought here in the Thirteenth Century:  pieces from the True Cross and the Crown of Thorns.  Of course.

I was hoping that I could at least walk into Notre Dame to see the damage, but it is

completely closed during renovations, and will not reopen until last next year.  Much

of Paris is under construction in preparation for the Olympics next year.

I had scheduled two walking tours each on Tuesday and Wednesday with very mixed

results.  On Tuesday morning the World War II and Nazi Occupation tour was

disappointing as I knew more about the topic than the guide did, and I had a lot of

questions which she could not answer.  But the afternoon tour (with the same company)

on the French Revolution was great.  The guide knew everything, and answered all of my questions and then some.  He turned a three hour walking tour into a four hour lecture with a little walking every so often.  My kind of tour.

On Wednesday morning I got lucky again as my walking tour of Le Marais neighborhood

had an excellent guide and no other participants.  My kind of tour again.  Le Marais is

known as the Jewish neighborhood but it has become very expensive and upscale

because of its location close to the center.  It was kind of like visiting the Lower East Side

in New York which was also a Jewish neighborhood - a hundred years ago.  There was

Hebrew writing on a few buildings, one Jewish bookstore, two bakeries that carried challah,

and several falafel restaurants.  The guide pointed out one which she told me had the best

falafel in the world, and always has long lines.  I refrained from saying that I have eaten

falafel in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and think I have had the best falafel in the world.  It was

morning when we walked by the restaurant and it was not yet open.  When I returned a

couple of hours later, there was a line outside of over a hundred people.  Who knew that

Parisians and tourists are willing to wait for an hour for the best falafel in the world?

I guess I got lucky again on Wednesday afternoon although it did not seem like it at first.  My already booked afternoon walking tour of Literary Paris (does that tour have my name on it?) was canceled.  I was looking forward to communing with Hemingway, Fitzgerald, Hugo, and Dumas.  The previous day we had passed the cafe where the American Lost Generation hung out.  It is called Les Deux Magots which, it turns out, has nothing to do with insects or larvae.  The guide said a magot in French is a kind of bird but the internet says the deux magots are two statues or columns.  Ya got me.

With the literary tour

canceled, I decided to

take a tour of the Palais

Garnier, the Opera House. 

I was there so many

years ago that I did not

remember it well.  I

thought I was going there

to visit the Chagall ceiling,

which is still worth seeing

again, but the rest of the

building is over-the-top

amazing.  The guide called

the style eclecticism.  Why

design in Gothic or Romanesque or baroque or Renaissance style when you can combine

them all?  And somehow it works and impresses.

And I still had time in the late afternoon to finally visit Rodin.  I do like stopping in on him.  One of the first bronze nudes that he cast was so perfect, showing every muscle and detail, that he was accused of simply making a cast of the model.  His sculpture is truly alive.

And that is (almost) three days in Paris.  Tomorrow I fly to Greenland to begin Part Deux of this trip.