Day 5 – Sunday, April 8 – Paris
On Sunday
morning Jeremy and I woke up early and took the metro into the center of the
city. Unfortunately when we got to the station where we needed to change to
another line, we found that the line wasn’t operating. So, we ascended to the
street and made our way over to the Louvre. Luckily for us, Jeremy and I had
two-day Paris museum cards, meaning we didn’t have to wait in line to get
inside. The Louvre is beautiful in a completely different way than the Musee
d’Orsay. We started our visit by walking toward the Mona Lisa. Not so much to
see the painting, but to see the craziness of all the people trying to see the
painting. As everyone says, the Mona Lisa is much smaller than one might
expect, and seems even smaller with so many people crowding to take pictures of
it. From there we walked through two of the three wings of the museum, seeing
many masterpieces and famous works along our way.
At 12:30 we
met up with Becky and Eric in the lobby, and after a stop for lunch we made our
way to the Marais district. Like in Montemartre, Becky had prepared a walking
tour of the area, which was a great way to walk around and see the sights. We
started at the Hotel de Ville, and made our way to the Place Saint Gervais, one
of the oldest churches on the Right Bank (built in 1494). From there we walked
on the Rue Francois Miron and made our way to the remnants of a medieval Paris
fortress. It was neat to be able to see the remnants built into the more modern
buildings. Our next stop was the Village St-Paul, a cute network of courtyards
with small art galleries and shops. Unfortunately since it was both Sunday and
Easter, basically everything was closed. We made our way through the streets to
visit the Jewish part of the Marais. We saw lots of cute little shops and
restaurants and bakeries, most of which were kosher, and thus closed for Pesach,
although a lot of falafel shops stayed open and had surprisingly long lines. We
also visited the Shoah memorial to the French Jews who lost their lives during
the Holocaust.
From the
Marais we crossed the Seine to the Latin Quarter and stopped for a snack in a
local shop. I was very happy to find salted caramel ice cream on the menu,
which I had been dying to try. It was absolutely as delicious as everyone has
been saying. From there we parted ways with Becky and Eric and made our way
past the Sorbonne up to the Pantheon. The Pantheon is massive, with a crypt
underneath at least as large as the building itself. The paintings and art in
the domes was as impressive as any other church we had
visited. Built by Louis XV, the crypt houses many of France’s greats, including
Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, and Marie and Pierre Curie. It was really
special to be able to stand at the grave of such a leading scientist. From the
Pantheon we visited the neighboring church, dedicated to Saint Genevieve.
Jeremy and I had some time to kill
before our nighttime boat cruise, so we walked back across to the other side of
the river to search out somewhere for dinner. On our way, we happened to walk
right past Notre Dame and noticed one strange thing – there was absolutely no
line of people. So, we did what any good Jew would do on Easter: we walked
right in and attended Easter mass. Since we walked into the visitors’ line, we
were able to walk all the way around the cathedral while mass was going on,
with great views both of the worship and the architecture and stained glass.
Since last year we were in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for Easter and this
year we were in Notre Dame, we figured next year we’d better head to the
Vatican.
After mass we found a lovely little
restaurant (which had a great quinoa and vegetable dish with a poached egg for
me) to have dinner, then walked along the Seine to pick up our night-time boat
cruise. Even though it was raining, we really enjoyed getting to see the city
all lit up at night. The buildings are just as beautiful as they are during the
day. It was also fun to see the Eiffel Tower sparkle, which it does once an
hour. I believe I narrowed the 300 or so pictures we had of the tower at night
down to my favorite 5.
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