Europe!

Saturday, August 25

Louvre – I spent about 3 hours in the Louvre, and, if you’ve been there, you’ll know that I didn’t even make a dent into all the things there are to see there. I started out in the sculptures, with the Venus de Milo, made my way over to the Winged Victory and Michaelangelo’s Slaves, and then to the paintings where Mona Lisa is. I also took a look around the Dutch paintings, because I loved the ones at the Rijksmuseum so much.

Conciergerie – This building didn’t look anything like what I expected it to look like. 🙂 The tour was okay, and it was really interesting to see Marie Antoinette’s room. My favourite part was the courtyard though. 🙂

Hotel de Ville – I just stopped by here to take a look, and arrived just as a program was beginning to celebrate the 57th anniversary of the liberation of Paris from the Nazis. So I stopped and watched a while, it was very interesting!

Sunday, August 26

Notre Dame – I got up and went to the 8:00 mass at Notre Dame. It was not in the cathedral proper, but in one of the side chapels. It was still pretty cool though. I took a quick look around the cathedral afterwards, which is gorgeous inside. I actually found it was a lot smaller in height than I had thought it was, but the craftmanship is amazing! I also climbed to the top of the towers, and went to the crypt to see some of the excavations.

Sainte Chapelle – This was my favourite church that I saw in Europe! I knew there were two levels, and that the top one was the impressive one, but as I walked into the lower one, I thought it must be the top one, because it was so pretty. But no – the upper chapel *was* even more impressive. I’ve never seen anything quite like it. The stained glass was so beautiful!

Sewer tour – This was a little gross, but interesting as well. 🙂 I thought it was fun that they mentioned Jean Valjean and Marius in the little museum (they even showed the path that Valjean would have taken! 🙂

Versailles – I arrived at the palace at about 3:00, and went first to the gardens (looking desperately for shade – it was HOOOOOOOT), and the fountains were turned on at 3:30. That was really neat because they

played a program of classical music over the loudspeakers throughout the whole grounds that really added to the atmosphere. The grounds are *huge*. I spent nearly two hours walking through the gardens and didn’t come close to seeing it all. I then went and took a quick look at the Petit Trianon and a more

thorough tour of the Grand Trianon. I didn’t get down to the Hameau at all. 🙁 Finally, I went to the palace. The Hall of Mirrors was gorgeous. Everything was gorgeous. I definitely thought it was prettier than the palaces at Vienna, which are more strictly white and gold, while Versailles has richer colours. I will need to go back!!

Eiffel Tower – I took the elevator all the way to the top, which was a LONG wait. 🙂 But it was worth it, just to have done it. And the view is amazing, of course. I probably wouldn’t do it again though!

Seine nighttime cruise – This was so lovely. The sun was just finishing setting, so it was finally cooling off a bit, and Paris is just beautiful by night. I took more than a roll of film! 🙂 And on every bridge, people would stop and wave to the boat. 🙂 It was just magical.

Monday, August 27

Arc de Triomphe – I climbed up this too, but after already seeing the view from Notre Dame and the Eiffel Tower, it wasn’t all that exciting. 🙂 I did, however, have fun watching the traffic in the circle below – I can’t imagine trying to drive in that!

Champs Elysees – I walked from the Arc de Triomphe down to Place de la Concorde, stopping to do a bit of shopping along the way!

Opera Garnier – I think if anything in Paris totally lived up to

my expectation of it, it was the Opéra. What a *splendid* building. Really, I think the interior is better than Versailles. And, of course, I had to go

take a peek in Box 5. 🙂 The door was locked though, so I just had to peer through the window. I took entirely too many pictures.

Though this was a little out of the way, it was nice to get a chance to see some of Montmartre, and we had a lovely view of Sacre Coeur. My room opened directly onto the terrace, which was nice. We had to keep the door open all three nights though, because it was just stifling in the room!! My favourite thing about this hostel though was that they had a resident cat! He was so friendly, and just made it feel more like a home.

Check out the Le Village Hostel website!