Paris (Day 2, Part 1) - Montmarte

Sacre Coeur

We woke up well-rested and ready to dive into Paris with a vengeance! The morning was to be spent in Montmarte which, to us, is the place where Amelie lives. If you have no idea what I mean by that, then you must see the French romantic comedy Amelie with Audrey Tautou.

We started by heading up to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur, which is positioned impressively on a high point in the city. The views from the basilica were amazing, with all of Paris stretching out below. The interior was equally impressive and, again, there was a mass going on while we walked about the basilica.

Although I enjoyed the basilica's statues, art and ambiance, I had a problem with the way money was being pulled out of visitors. Okay, I should reword that. Nothing was 'pulled out' of anyone; it was all donations. However, I've been to the Vatican and seen the immense wealth the Church has, so I find it hard to swallow placards suggesting donations are needed to keep the basilica going. And when these placards and donation boxes are situated below a five foot tall - apparently solid silver - statue, I have an even tougher time with it. Of course, we don't want people melting down art for operating funds, but there was a lot of other revenue streams flowing in this church. There were the usual spots one could make a donation and light a candle to a saint. Plus there were machines with commemorative coins for sale and a 'gift shop' of sorts. There's a part of me that cannot get past this overt commercial aspect in what is allegedly a house of religious worship.

Okay, point made. 'nuff said. The basilica was quite beautiful and we enjoyed seeing it.

St. Pierre de Montmarte, spookified

Outside, we saw the mountebanks begging for alms and then made our way past St. Pierre de Montmarte, which seriously made me think of a haunted mansion. Check out the photo. All I had to do is give this photo a slightly darkened black and white and - voila! - instant spooky home of the undead vibe. Gotta love that gothic(?) architecture!

We spent the rest of the morning enjoying Montmarte. First we jumped into the Place du Tertre, where we took in some of the local art, admired a few shops, and sat just outside a little restaurant to people watch and partake of escargot and snacks. It was always good to find time to sit during our stay in Paris! After thinking about entering the Dali Museum but getting a distinctive 'tourist trap' feel from the place, we headed down the Rue Lepic towards the less touristy part of Montmarte and made our way to the Montmarte Cemetery.

At the grave of Emile Zola

The Cemetery was enormous and jam packed with mausoleums from the 1800s, some of them absolute towers. Loads of sculpture, mossy tombs, and shady lanes made the place very atmospheric. There was even stained glass windows on some of the tombs. It could totally have been the set for a vampire movie. Aside from the graves, there were plenty of wild cats running around. I tried luring one over, until Jim suggested they were probably crawling with bugs and might not be the friendliest critters to ever walk the earth. Pet Semetery?

There are plenty of famous people buried in the Montmarte Cemetery. I believe Jim Morrison is one, but I wasn't all that keen on seeing his grave.  We did located what I thought was the grave of Alexandre Dumas, until I remembered that the fils after the name means it was his son. But, while I didn't get to see the grave of one of the greatest romantic writers ever, I did get to see the grave of the master realist: Emile Zola.

Literary Geek Moment #1 of this trip!

Paris (Day 1) - Sunday at Notre-Dame

Arriving in Paris in the afternoon was a good thing. We'd slept a bit on the plane so facing the prospect of staying up until night wasn't as bad as it might have been. Unfortunately Paris is dead on Sunday, and we could not find any restaurants that were open...except American fast food. Let me tell you there could not be a less enchanting first image of Paris than to see a well-dressed French man sitting pensively at an outdoor cafe....that was a KFC.

So we sucked it up and consumed caloric content from McDonalds. We were staying at the Place de la Republic along the edge of the Marais, and the square was fantastic for people watching (plus the metro access was phenomenal). So we got some energy before exploring.

By the way, have you ever noticed that famous French novelists had a habit of almost always naming the streets their characters walk down? I haven't picked this up in other country's literature. It's like these authors draw you a map. You feel you could walk the route Jean Valjean and Cosette used to escape from Javert into the Petit-Picpus convent. Or the path D'artagnan took towards the Musketeers barracks. Or follow one of the winding rambles of Claude Lantier from The Masterpiece. Trusting their genius, I will adopt this convention in my Paris posts!

So after our...is there an ironic synonym for 'meal' I could insert here?...we went walking. We took the Rue du Temple toward the Hotel de Ville and then walked along the Seine. While almost everything was closed and shuttered, we could still enjoy the architecture and get a feel of the Parisian vibe. Old Paris has an odd but appealing mixture of grit and historic ambiance. It was a bit jarring against what 'Paris' was like in my imagination but, once I connected with reality, I quickly warmed to it.

We crossed the Pont d'Arcole, evaded hoards of 'deaf' gypsies, and found ourselves on the Ile de la Cite. Passing a dozen tourist trinket shops, we arrived Notre-Dame. I didn't take many pictures of the church itself as there are loads of brilliant stuff to be had on the Internet. What I liked best about the church was the intricacy of the facade. All those dour looking priests and saints and such! (Click on photos to expand them)

The inside was magnificent, naturally, and there was a mass going on so the singing and the sermon lent atmosphere to the medieval interior (fortunately the sermon was in another language so we could relegate it to background noise).  Loved the art on the ceiling with the giant white bird flying from a white bearded God to a Byzantine-looking Jesus. There was also this atmospheric smoky quality to the way the light passed through the air. Maybe from all the candles that are lit? And of course there was lots of stained glass, statues, woodwork and mystical niches to be seen. 

We spent a good amount of time inside Notre-Dame but, to be honest, Jim and I are not the 'let's see every church in Europe' types. Yes, the history and architecture are amazing, but we prefer to pick the highlights and move on to other activities.  Once we left the church, we  checked out the Square Jean XXIII behind Notre-Dame. There was a garden with plenty of roses in bloom. We sat and watched people (and the absolutely enormous Parisian pigeons trying to mate) before wandering across the Pont Saint-Louis to Ile St. Louis and then across the Pont Louis Phillippe back into the Marias.

We found plenty of cool little back streets, which we slowly wandered about in as we made our way back to the hotel. I can't really remember where we ate dinner as, by this point, I was all about wanting to get some sleep. I think we just ate around the back of the hotel at a little bistro we could see from our window. Then it was back to the hotel room for planning which activities we would undertake on our first real day in the City of Lights. And then...sleep!

Paris!

No, not a photo I took!

At the end of June, Jim and I took our first trip to Paris. Aside from having tons of history and culture, Paris is home to some of my favorite artists and writers. Matisse made his mark here, as did other giants such as Picasso, Monet, Dali, and countless others. Great artistic movements, such as Impressionism and Fauvism, were born here. As for literature, there's Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, Albert Camus, Jean-Paul Sartre, Emile Zola, Andre Gide, and so many others. Being part French, I was excited to visit the land of some of my ancestors.

As on most of our trips I'd made a laundry list of things to do and see, knowing that we could not possibly do it all. However, I feel it's best to have options and run out of time rather than run out of things to do. We were on the go almost all day, everyday. While we worked the metro system, we believe walking is the best way to absorb a city's spirit. Plus Parisian cafe-style restaurants make people watching easy. Long story short, we had a fantastic time in the City of Lights and we were totally wiped out by the end of the trip.

Some broad takeaways:

• Rude French People - I didn't find people in Paris rude. They could be abrupt, but that's often true of people in Europe generally. I think this is a myth propagated by tourists who earn the rude treatment they receive.
• Ugly Americans - Not so much, but I could often spot Americans based on their clothing. Our "come as you are" attitude towards attire stands out in fashionable Paris. Ultimately, however, I think the British dress worse than we do.
• Through the Eyes of a Cell Phone - There are a lot of people who experience the world through their cell phones. Whether we were on top of the Eiffel Tower, in front of the Mona Lisa, or sailing down the Seine, there were people who didn't look at anything. They just took pictures or a video and then moved on. Insane! 
• The Fashion Capital - Paris lived up to its reputation for fashion. The men are gorgeous, even when they are roughing it. They exude an effortless chic, and I was eyeing their clothes and shoes for ideas about how to polish my appearance. 
• Great Wine - The wines were wonderful, and we enjoyed them with almost every dinner (and a few lunches).
• Great Food - Good marks here, including treats from the bakeries scattered all across the city. That said, in my opinion, the French don't 'get' pizza. At all.
• Romance - Yes, it is romantic in Paris. Jim even gave me a kiss while we were walking through a park from the Eiffel Tower at night!

I'll be posting photos of our travels over the next few weeks.

Back to Las Vegas

Haven't been posting for a while, due to lots of travel. Had a trip to LA for business, we just got back from Paris, and at the very start of the summer we took our goddaughter and a friend of hers to the Bellagio in Las Vegas to celebrate their college graduation. So I need to get back in the saddle, so to speak.  I did a post on LA, so let's tackle Vegas.

We wanted to give our goddaughter and her a friend a real experience, so we started off with the stretch limo to the airport. However, the fun really happened in Vegas where our guests partied hard for the weekend. For Jim and I, there was the usual gambling, eating, and shopping. The girls and I rode the New York, New York roller coaster. I couldn't get Jim to ride it though (last time it banged his head around pretty hard). So instead, I coerced him into doing one of those video, lip syncing booths in the arcade. By the time he realized I would likely post the resulting, it was too late (insert scheming, villainous laugh). Of course, I was thwarted by the proprietary software used to create the video. I'll have to cam it.

Anyway, the highlight of the trip was taking the girls to see Mystere, as they had never seen any Cirque. We had a surprise treat in that Jim became an inadvertent part of the show. Some people question whether those audience members randomly selected to participate in the show are plants in the audience, but I can tell you they are definitely not. Jim would never have volunteered for this sort of duty.

Before the show started, the 'clown' was wandering through the audience messing with people. He started tossing popcorn at people for them to snap up with their mouths. When he came by Jim, he tried a few times but remained unsuccessful in getting him to catch the popcorn. Poor Jim had to take the brunt of the clown's frustration, as he dumped his popcorn all over Jim!

Then he went off and got another, much larger, box of popcorn and came back over. After a few moments...dump! It was really very funny, and it was perfect that it happened to Jim because he's not the kind of guy who likes to be 'center stage' like that. Still he bore it like a trouper.

So we had a great deal of fun in Sin City and managed to give the girls a great weekend after four years of hard work.