And we have another belated entry about my Europe travels! Continued from London.
November 14 2023
I arrived at the train station over a half an hour before my train left. I checked the departures board. My train was listed, but it didn’t say a platform. So I waited a little longer. Still no platform. Finally I went to ask at the ticket window. They told me where to go, sounding a little worried as they did so. I didn’t understand why until I arrived at the train line. They informed me that for this international train, you have to arrive at least half an hour early to go through a passport check. The gate was already closed. Nowhere in my reservation did it say anything about that. Nor did the departures gate even list the platform when I checked it over half an hour early! The guy made a big deal of saying he’d try to fit me on some other train later today. Maybe hours later. And the train change came with a 50 euro fee. What a scam! To not even tell their customers that they have to get here an hour early, and only let them ride later for a 50 euro fee. Disgusting. I was so pissed, and anxious because I didn’t know what the hell was happening. The guy said that I was lucky because he found a spot on the 10:30 train. Again, he made a big fuss about it. Lucky my ass. There’s nothing lucky about this scam. And there were tons of empty seats on the 10:30 train anyway.
After dealing with the international travel stuff, we were on our way. The screen on the train said we were traveling at 225 km/hr (about 140 mph). It was fast, though not quite as fast as the Japanese bullet train which can go over 200 mph. With the Japanese Shinkansen, you went through tunnels so fast that the pressure slammed into your ears. Here when you went through tunnels, you felt the pressure slower, and not as strong.
As we left England, the announcements were in English first, and French after. Then our train dove beneath the ground. At first I thought it was another tunnel. But this was the passage under the English Channel. I want to know how they built this thing. The dark tunnel stretched on and on, until finally we emerged under the sky once more. They gave an announcement saying we were now in France. And from here, they gave the announcements in French first, English after. I was called “madame” now too, instead of “lovey.”
I remained paranoid, wondering if any other passport or customs check would create more weird snags. But we arrived in Paris and I disembarked. I found a subway station. Well, in the US they’re subway stations. In London, they’re the underground. Here, they’re the metro. Once again, I have to figure out a new public transit system. Unlike in England, you can’t just scan in and out with your credit card. I managed to figure out the machine, and followed the signs. It’s not labeled as clearly as it was in London, and I wasn’t sure which side to go to. I tentatively asked someone if this was going to my stop. They just shrugged.
On this particular line, there are lights for each stop. I spotted the name of my stop, and it wasn’t lit up yet. I figured that must mean it would light up when we got there. I hauled my luggage on. We got two stops down, and I realized I was travelling the wrong direction. The lights go OFF when you arrive at the station. I quickly got off and went up and over to the other side. I climbed on again, hoping I was right this time. The doors between cars were open, so you could see down the length of the train as it curved around corners. It was kinda surreal. At least this time, I landed at the right station.
I waffled around a bit as I tried to figure which direction to go. Once I know which way I’m facing, I don’t have trouble with a map. It’s just knowing which way to start that confuses me. That’s why I love it when they have maps that are angled in the right direction – like in London. Eventually I figured it out and walked a few blocks to my hotel. I checked in and rested for a few minutes before heading out again. I'd lost an hour due to the train fiasco, but there was still plenty of light.
Mom came to Paris without me years ago (I was pissed XD ). Now it’s finally my turn. Just a few days before I left, Mom suddenly decided to give me several suggestions of places to visit. I wasn’t sure how much time I’d have since I already had plans, but I wrote down her ideas. One of them was a street that had some cool shops – Rue Mouffetard. That’s where she got the cheese. She showed us pictures from her trip, including this cheese that looked like a cantaloupe. It was round, orange inside, and had a rind looked like the rind of the melon. I wanted to try it.
I thought I had the map in my head. But the thing about Paris is that the streets go off in all these slants and spidery shapes. Rue Mouffetard was in one of these spidery areas. I turned a little too hard to the left. I walked along, not noticing anything interesting about the street. But eventually it was clear that I was in the wrong place. I pulled out my map and found that I’d been going up the wrong road, which had been steadily slanting up and away from my intended route. It would have been smart to check the map sooner, but I’m kinda paranoid doing even that. Maps are big and awkward and make it obvious that I’m not a local. Better not to look like any kind of target. Even if I do end up walking circles… (though apparently foreigners are easy to spot anyway). It occurs to me I’ve had problems getting somewhere almost every day.
Rue Mouffetard is one of the oldest streets in the city, and has been here since Roman times. But most of the shops were closed. I suppose they have “siesta” here like they did in Italy - where everything closes in the middle of the day. I walked around, checking menus and hoping to find good French food. But it was mostly Italian, burgers, or sushi. What French food I did find was cheese plates and stuff. I did get a boba, though it tasted like it was made with vanilla milk or something. Unusual flavor, though not bad. I probably sounded like an idiot when I followed the boba sign and asked the shopkeeper, "do you speak any English?” all pathetic-like.
I saw a sign for the Pantheon. I checked my map and found that it was only a couple blocks away. I’d walked a lot farther than I realized. I still had some time, so I went to check it out. It was modeled after the Pantheon in Rome, which I also went to (the Rome one was cooler, but this was neat too). The inside of the Paris Parthenon was a lot more modern than I expected. A giant pendulum tracks the motion of the earth. Over the speakers, a sort of strange, eerie chanting began to play, echoing through the great open space.
I followed a sign for the crypt. To my surprise, I found myself facing the tombs of Voltaire and Rousseau. Further on were Alexander Dumas and Victor Hugo. Authors of Three Musketeers and Les Miserables, respectively. There were scientists too, such as Marie Curie. A bookshelf offered their works for you to read. I’m not sure if any were in English though.
To my delight, the Eiffel Tower was visible from the front doors of the cathedral. The first rose-and-lavender light of dusk was starting to color the sky behind it.
Back down Rue Mouffetard. It was a pretty street, but the few shops that were open didn't look that fascinating. As I neared the end, I spotted a stall with tables full of cheese. There was the cheese! I asked if it needed to be kept cold, but he said it was fine. I bought a wedge of mimolette cheese (and I now know that you can actually buy it near here too - I've seen it in some shops). The cheese was good, but not as much as I had hoped.
November 15 2023
In my haste to prepare for this trip, I didn’t do a very good job packing clothes. I have three pairs of pants and three pairs of socks. All of my clothes were still damp from getting washed yesterday. So I put on damp pants. It was uncomfortable, but they would dry soon. I wasn’t about to put on damp socks. I had to open the Book of Kells pair I bought for Dad. He won’t mind. He’ll probably think it’s funny.
I checked at the front desk to make sure of the metro line I needed to take. The guy was a little too cautious going over directions with me. I would have been fine on my own, it turns out. But it was nice of him to make sure I knew what I was doing.
I had a ticket this morning for the Louvre! To my surprise, the train let out in the bottom of a mall. I was bewildered about my surroundings, and asked someone where to go. He pointed around the corner, and there was the great glass pyramid reaching down from the ceiling. I can thank The Da Vinci Code for teaching me about it.
When it opened, we filed into the Louvre. The museum is so large that you’d need to come for several days to see everything. It looks like some areas are closed on certain days of the week, and some things get closed for restoration (Napoleon’s rooms were closed today, for example).
As seems the case for many museums in Europe, the building itself is historical. It was built in the 1200’s as a royal residence, then turned into a museum during the 1793 French Revolution.
I figured I should see the Mona Lisa first, before the room got too crowded. Though the real reason I came here was to see the Winged Victory statue. It's my favorite work of art (that I know of). A gorgeous larger-than-life statue of an angel. Her arms and head are missing, and she’s stepping forward with regal confidence. I first heard about it in college. I even have a metal Winged Victory, a couple feet tall, which I got from a family friend. It stands looking out over the living room. Mom saw this statue when she came to France. I was jealous.
I figured that once I’d seen the Mona Lisa, I would seek out the Winged Victory. It was easy to find the Mona Lisa. Not only were there signs, but everyone else was going there too. As we headed down a long hall and up the stairs, I froze. There she was.
She was bigger than I expected, standing on top of a huge pedestal with her fluffy wings stretched behind her. No one else was around. The other visitors had already vanished up the stairs toward the Mona Lisa. I studied the details of her wings and flowing dress. The fabric looks so real. One of the wings has supports in the back, to stabilize a break. But the head and arms remain lost.
I looked online to find some images of what the complete statue might have looked like. But none of them have that same power that the real statue does. All of them made me grimace, in fact.
I hung out with her for a while, then went to visit the other madame. I always heard the Mona Lisa was tiny, so I guess I was expecting it to be really small. But it wasn’t that tiny. The room was already pretty packed, considering how early it still was. I sat at the back of the pack and steadily eased my way forward. You can’t get too close, so you can only guess at the details. But I took photos with my good zoom. The model for the Mona Lisa is a mystery. But there’s an account that she was a merchant’s wife, named Lisa Gherardini. Another story says that Da Vinci had jesters and musicians perform for her, to keep her relaxed during the painting (and thus with a nice look on her face). The painting was actually stolen in 1911. I wonder if anyone has made a movie of that.
I decided that today’s museum project would be to walk around this floor. That ended up being way more massive than I expected. And it’s not just the walls to look at. The ceilings often have massive paintings across them. There are even carvings on walls and ceilings.
There was so much art that I ended up stopping only if something looked interesting (which more often than not ended up being artwork of animals-big surprise).
John Green made a Youtube video of all of the paintings in the Louvre that feature very scary looking babies. I have now witnessed some of them myself. “This artist has never seen a baby,” John would say.
To my surprise, I had looped back to the Winged Victory. The room was now packed. I’m glad I got to spend time there while it was empty. But I still lingered, taking even more photos.
The crown jewel room was amazing.
There were rows of old pottery and Etruscan artifacts. Around the other side of this floor there were belongings of Marie Antoinette, and other royals.
And much like the British Museum, many of the works here were stolen. I’m looking at you, Napoleon. Other pieces of work were accepted if someone was paying off a debt.
There was a nice Egypt collection.
In the shop, they had a full size replica of one of the wings of the Nike (Winged Victory). There were also stuffed animals and childrens books of the little blue Egyptian hippo. It’s a popular little hippo!
I left the museum and crossed the river to one of the islands. In the middle was a place Mom told me about: Sainte Chapelle (pronounced “san-shapelle”). I got in line to buy a ticket. My timing was impeccable, because they closed up the lines just after I got in
Inside was beautiful. The ceiling between the arches was blue and painted with rows of fleur de lis.
There was an upstairs too. When I emerged from the spiral staircase, I was amazed to find myself surrounded by floor-to-ceiling stained glass. When the ceiling is about 50 feet high, the effect is stunning. This ceiling was also bedecked with fleur de lis.
Onward, to Notre Dame. It’s closed after the disastrous fire in 2019. But I wanted to see what I could. Cranes rose high above, and scaffolding lined some of the walls.
The walls surrounding the cathedral/construction site were covered with panels about the restoration, and photos of the destruction. One paragraph caught my eye. The statues from the base of the spire had been removed just a few days before the fire, to get some restoration. They were spared. Amazing.
People watching this burn must have been in tears. I almost was just looking at the photos.
In the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Quasimodo introduces Esmerelda to the bells. I always assumed that he had named the bells out of loneliness. But it turns out that each bell actually does have a name.
The spire was damaged during the French Revolution. The book of The Hunchback of Notre Dame book encouraged its restoration.
A few years ago, Notre Dame was having some work done. A mistake in the restoration lead to the fire. Now the spire has burnt again, and collapsed into the cathedral. It was a work of archaeology to remove the burnt and collapsed debris from the inside. They had to mark where the fallen stones had been, so they could be returned. Beams and rock that hadn’t been touched for 800 years were suddenly exposed, or fallen to the floor.
The scaffolding from that original restoration project remained a big problem for months. 200 tons of it stood on top of Notre Dame, melted into an unstable, tangled mess. They couldn’t address it for months, as they worked to stabilize the parts that were still standing. Otherwise the whole thing could fall in and damage Notre Dame even more.
During the fire, 200 tons of lead from the roof melted, or was vaporized into the air.
But incredibly, many of the stained glass windows remained intact.
After five years, Notre Dame was finally restored!
November 16 2023
It was a rainy day. That may have worked in my favor, since some people probably cancelled their plans. I wanted to go up the Eiffel Tower, but I hadn't been able to get a ticket ahead of time. It was supposed to open at 9:30. But 9:30 came and went. The line behind us piled up farther and farther, but no staff member came out to explain anything. People were getting pissed. Someone checked on their phone, and saw that the opening was delayed, though it didn’t say by how much. A few people left. But I waited, and finally at about 10:00, they let us in. They didn’t say why they had been so late.
I was prepared to take the stairs to the top if I had to, though it sounds like that half-kills you. Especially considering the stairs seem to be outside, on a rainy windy day like this. So I was lucky to get a ticket all the way to the top.
I went all the way up, and found myself standing in the clouds, surrounded by a cage. The wind was fierce, and whipped the rain around. I couldn’t see very far because of the weather, but it was fascinating to look out over the cloudy city. When I went back inside, my face was so cold that my nose and ears were numb.
There was the scene with the figures of Eiffel and Edison inside. Apparently Eiffel used this little room as an office. What a view! He had the tower built for the 1889 World’s Fair, and as a commemoration of the French Revolution 100 years before. It’s 324 meters tall, and weights over 10,000 tons. Despite what it may seem, the Eiffel Tower was not universally beloved at first. There was a whole movement protesting its existence. People said that the tower would be the “shame of Paris,” and that it looked like a “black gigantic factory chimney.”
Originally the tower was only meant to last 20 years. Eiffel did would he could to make sure it would stay. Its height above Paris made it a great place for meteorology. It spent time as a telegraph station and radio station. And today the top of the tower is covered in a number of dishes and other devices for radio and television.
I rode the elevator down to the second floor and grabbed a pretzel and hot chocolate. There were only about ten chairs in the whole area. I couldn’t balance my stuff and eat, so I went to sit on the floor. Hot chocolate sloshed over my hand and umbrella. I set the drink on the ground, and pulled out a napkin. My pretzel bumped the cup and sent the whole contents across the floor.
Great.
I tried to tell the lady in the gift shop, but she didn’t seem to have any idea what I was talking about. She kept smiling and saying it was fine. Finally I gave up, saying “well, it’s a mess, so someone should clean it up.” Meanwhile, people were dodging the puddle of chocolate and warning others not to step in it. But others stepped in it anyway.
I headed back down and stumbled across the House of Culture of Japan in Paris. There was a shop in the bottom floor. I had to go in there. In the shop, they had a table of Ghibli stuff. Score!
My next stop was Saint Sulpice (pronounced San Sulpeese)– a cathedral that shows up in The Da Vinci Code (I've seen that movie many times with my parents). The original rose line runs through, marked by a line across the cathedral floor. The line meets an obelisk, which is situated so that the sun falls across it on the solstices. This Meridian Line was drawn in 1743 to help create a consistent system of time.
From there, I walked a few blocks to the Cluny Museum. I went straight to the unicorn tapestries.
Appropriate considering I’m still editing Starsung. I spent a long time in there. My favorite was "sight."
There are six tapestries– for the “six senses.” Though the sixth one is a bit ambiguous. And in one of them, the unicorn just looked quite bad…
Much of the origin of the tapestries is unknown, but they were woven around the year 1500. Apparently there used to be more, but the owner of the property cut them up as carpets and such. Ouch.
The tapestries appear in the Harry Potter movies. You see them the first time Harry steps into the Gryffindor common room, and you see parts of them in the other common room scenes. At least in the first movie. I haven't checked the others, but I’d guess they're only through the first two movies, since the style totally changes after that.
Finally I moved on, exploring the rest of the museum.
There were statues from Notre Dame, since they get replaced over the centuries. And a display about crystal artwork. That was cool!
Part of the crystal exhibit showed movie posters from films that featured crystals. Such as:
