So we arrived in Paris on Saturday evening and, after settling ourselves settled in and having a good night's sleep, we decided on Sunday to tourist the crap of out this city.
We started off with a walk from the Louvre, down the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. On the way, we stopped off on the way to visit the Musee d'Orangerie (which had a rather lovely impressionist exhibition), the Grand Palais (currently exhibiting two very intriguing exhibitions - Boheme about the development of the French Bohemiem culture out of its gypsy roots, and also an extensive exhibition of Hopper's work, including the famous Nighthawks), and saw the end of the Armistice Day Parade (Sunday being 11/11).
At the end we arrived at the Arc du Triomphe. I think it's still going to be a while before one gets over the fact that one is in the prescence of these objects of cultural, political and popular history. Still, rather magnifcent and great just to be there.
So, afterwards we headed away down towards the Eiffel Tower (It's still there, you'll all be pleased to know). There was an exhibition of the Berlin Bears (2.5m tall painted bears - there was one to represent all the nations of the world), which was lovely. And of course, it being Nick's birthday, we celebrated by having a picnic in the surrounding gardens. Nick ate cake under the tower itself.
So, after our picnic lunch, we headed up to Montmartre to explore the area. This is (apart from the EXTREME red light district) a very interesting part of the city (Yes, we saw the Moulin Rouge) - in between the flat and the Cathedral there are some lovely squares and interesting little side streets with great little boutique stores, cafes, bars.
So a busy day!
Day two and three - well, this has been a pretty long post in itself, I'll post the other two shortly.
No comments:
Post a Comment