A Week in Paris

Our Paris apartment was less luxurious than the Provencal farmhouse, but it was convenient to the Metro and comfortable enough for our purposes. It was, it turned out, the home of a French actress named Nathalie Courval.

On our first night, we set out on foot to explore the area around the apartment. We walked down to Place Clichy and had an expensive, mediocre dinner at a touristy restaurant, then walked through Montmartre (in the photo) to Sacre Coeur (at left) hoping to watch the city lights come on. It was crowded and we were tired, so we decided not to stay. We walked down the hill to Place Pigalle, a place I remembered as being very lively at night, but it was nothing like my 35-year-old memories and we ended our rather disappointing first evening by taking the Metro back home.

At the top of the children's list for Paris was the Eiffel Tower (the photo, right, was taken by Liam), so we headed there first thing the next day. "First thing" for them is rather later than we would have liked, so by the time we arrived, the line was long, but we stuck it out and were repaid with a wonderful view of the city as the weather was clear and cool and the air was quite clear. It was the last time we had such nice weather. When we left we walked down the Champs de Mars and explored some of the streets near the Tower, well, actually we were looking for an ATM, but it amounted to the same thing. We had a nice lunch near Les Invalides. To get a bit of a rest from walking and to get to the main sights a little more quickly, we got two-day tickets for the Bateaubus, which took us along the Seine at a relatively leisurely pace and gave our feet a rest. In the evening we went to Notre Dame. As it was Sunday, we had a particularly interesting visit as we arrived during a high mass being celebrated by a whole group of priests, one of whom I think was the archbishop of Paris or perhaps a cardinal (he was dressed differently from the others). With the full choir and all the pageantry, the children got the full effect of this ancient and beautiful cathedral.

The second day we went straight to the Louvre and mapped out a short tour that would hit the highlights (Mona Lisa, of course) and some old favorites (Delacroix, Ingres, and others). I took the picture of the museum late in the day from across the Seine. Here I started pointing out the changes in art over the ages, the different styles, the evolution of perspective, national characteristics. This came in handy later in the week.

After the Louvre, we explored a little of the area around museum, including the shops along the Rue de Rivoli and the Comedie Francais, the French National Theater and the artistic home of Moliere. After lunch we crossed the Seine and walked through the Latin Quarter and the Marais. After visiting the church of St. Sulpice, we lingered a while in the picturesque square outside and just watched the people go by. From there we went to to the Malliol Museum for a special exhibit of the photographs of Weegee. The gruesome images were a hit with Liam and Lucy was interested in some of the people in the less grim photos, but she looked at the floor whenever we came across something too frightening for her.

Tuesday morning we waited in line under damp, threatening skies to see the Catacombs, Liam's first choice after the Tower. Lucy was reluctant but agreed to do it if she could, as she had the day before, look at the ground if there was anything disturbing to see. Well, of course most of it would have been disturbing, so she walked through the whole thing looking at her feet. Liam thought it was really cool the way they had arranged all the bones. In exchange for her bravery in the Catacombs, Lucy got her first choice after the Tower: shopping in Montparnasse. She got some tres jolis new French clothing in the mall beneath the Montparnasse Tower, once the tallest building in Europe. Our final destination for the day was the Arc d'Triomphe. We were hoping to get a view of the city at night from the top, but along the way it began to rain in all seriousness and we ducked into the Metro below the Arc and instead had one of our better dinners at a small restaurant near our apartment in Montmartre.

Wednesday was a big day, a major outing to Versailles. We got a good early start and had to wait only a short time to get in and to start our tour. Lucy was particularly interested in the lives of the queens and princesses who had made the place their home. Liam showed more interest in the battles of the Kings and of Napoleon. We were fortunate to have gotten through the tour so quickly that we had plenty of time to see some parts of the grounds that I had never seen before. Most particularly the Marie Antoinette's Petite Trianon and rustic Hamlet. Though the weather was still rather gray, it was very pleasant to stroll through the gardens in this part of Versailles. The Hamlet was the most inviting of all, the picture is one of Liam's.

On Thursday we returned to the Rue de Rivoli to do our souvenir shopping. In the afternoon we went the Foundation Cartier-Bresson to see another photo exhibit. In addition to some of Cartier-Bresson's best known photographs, the gallery also had an exhibit by the Indian photographer Fazal Sheikh who had documented the lives of women in India, particularly young wives who had been murdered by their in-laws. We had saved one of the best museums for late in the week and as it was Thursday, late in the day because the Musee d'Orsay is open on Thursday evenings and has a beautiful restaurant (that's us having dinner in the photo). We had had dinner there and saw only a bit of the museum, but got a good start on it. As I mentioned, earlier in the week at the Louvre I had pointed out some of the characteristics of art in various periods and told Liam and Lucy that we would later be seeing works by the artists who began to break the rules. At the Musee d'Orsay we began to see this happen. We had such a good time and had so much more to go that we decided to return again the next day to see what we had missed.

On our return trip to the Musee d'Orsay Friday morning we jumped right into the most interesting and most important of the Impressionists: Degas, Renoir, Manet, Monet, Van Gogh, Cezanne, Sisley, Seurat, etc. There was also a special exhibit, "From Cezanne to Picasso, Masterpieces from the Vollard Gallery," that showed very clearly the evolution of impressionism from its beginnings to the early cubist works of Picasso. It was an excellent way to see this wonderful art. After that we went to one of my personal favorites, the Rodin Museum, the setting of which is as beautiful as the art within the museum and on the grounds (in the photo, right). Since we were not far from Les Invalides, we took a quick trip through what must be the world's largest collection of medieval armor in the Musee de l'Armee. We also stopped at Napoleon's tomb and learned a bit more about his contribution to the history of Europe. We finished the day at the Trocadero, across the river from the Eiffel Tower. Every hour for ten minutes the Tower sparkles with 60,000 little lights, further enhancing the already stunning monument. It was a very special way to end our visit in Paris.