Kat and I were only in the city from Friday night (our train arrived just past 7pm) until Sunday night (our train left Paris at 8:55pm), but even so, I managed to take over 350 photos. We also somehow accomplished the somewhat impossible task of exploring the city's main sights in basically two days. Note: my feet are a little sore from all the walking. I'm still amazed at all we saw, so much that it'd be foolish to attempt to explain everything in just one post!
So, the two of us set off Friday night, arriving in Paris at 7pm. We quickly navigated our way through the metro to the stop closest to our hostel. That is where the first problem arose, however. Trying to be a prepared adult traveler, I had taken a photo of a map that was zoomed-in to where our hostel was located in perspective to the metro station. Apparently I am terrible at orienting myself in an unfamiliar place, though, because I took us in a completely different direction. Kat and I ended up wandering the streets of Montmartre for an hour and a half, looking for our hostel and wondering why it wasn't were it should be. After giving up and taking a random flight of stairs "for shits and giggles" in Kat's words, the two of us accidently stumbled upon our first sight: Sacre-Cœur.
Sacre-Cœur at night is absolutely gorgeous. It is completely lit up, and the white stone of the Basilica is a beautiful contrast in the darkness. Even better, no one else was even there, so we had the Basilica to ourselves for pictures. This was also the beginning of our accidently stumbling upon famous sites and monuments.
After the welcome touristy break, Kat and I wearily continued our search for our hostel, and it ends up that we had been heading in the completely opposite direction the whole time (thanks to my poor sense of direction....). Finally, we arrived at the Caulincourt Square Hostel! Checking-in was a slight ego-boost, as the guy at reception was impressed (and relieved) that we could speak French. When he checked our passports and found out that we were American, he was even more impressed that we could speak French!
The hostel ended up being really nice. It had a very friendly atmosphere, and the rooms were clean enough. I had booked us a 6-person all-female room with our own bathroom, so it was a pretty easy (and cheap!) stay.
Our first night in Paris ended with Kat and I eating a late dinner (and for some reason getting laughed at by our annoying waiter), then hopping to a friendlier café for two huge ice cream sundaes. We were too tired (and too far away) to explore the rest of the city, or to even get a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower.
Saturday ended up being a day where we set off with an itinerary of three sights, only to walk miles and miles and accidentally happen upon so much.
After waking up early and taking advantage of the hostel's free breakfast, Kat and I took the metro to one of our priority sights: the Catacombs of Paris. Perhaps it is a strange first site, but we wanted to beat the lines as they get extremely long after 10 am due to the fact that the guards only allow 200 people wander the underground ossuary at a time.
Understandably, the tour through the Catacombs was a little creepy. One thought from my time 20 meters underground: I've never seen so many bones. It was absolutely astounding: there are just miles and miles of bones... and bones... and more bones just piled up in the tunnels (neatly stacked in some places, and haphazardly strewn in others). The tour is 2km long, and we didn't even see all the bones, as many sections of the dark, damp tunnels are closed to the public. It is estimated that 6 to 7 MILLION people are "resting in peace" down there! These Parisians were transferred to the Catacombs from 1786 through 1859 due to over-crowded cemeteries, although they were allowed to first decompose in the cemeteries. Overall, I'm really glad that we toured the Catacombs, as it was definitely something you don't see every day!
Then, after a quick Carrefour lunch (pre-made salads and sandwiches! bananas! chocolate bars!) in a park, Kat and I set off for the one and only Eiffel Tower.
This was the first time I had ever seen the Eiffel Tower with my own eyes. It was a strange feeling to hop off the metro and see it looming overhead--not disappointing at all, just very unreal. My first thought: it's huge! (duh, Karen...) But the sheer size of the massive iron structure really impressed me. Kat and I didn't even bother waiting in line to get to the top: the two of us simply relaxed in the greenspace near the tower and took lots of photos.
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| Kat taking Eiffel Tower pics |
Afterwards, we walked over to Trocadero, a great place a few meters away which gives a great view of the Eiffel Tower.
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| Kat and I at Trocadero |
The Eiffel Tower was the second planned site on our itinerary for Saturday. The third and final destination was Laurée, Paris' renowned macaroon shop. Like the organized adult I was trying to be, I had looked up maps of the shop's location, but alas, everything looks like a shorter distance on a little map. We decided to walk to the Laurée (located on Rue de Bonaparte) from Trocadero, and this allowed us to stumble upon lots of other sites along the way.
Walking along la Seine, we ran into a huge riverside photography exhibition, which I absolutely loved. It featured professional photographers from across the world--South Korea to Russia to Chile to Kenya to Indonesia--each of whom presented 5 to 10 photographs from one of their collections. One of the most striking collections for me was a photographer from China, who captured several families sitting in front of their respective homes with all their worldly belongings splayed in the yard/street in front of them. Another compelling collection belonged to a Mexican photographer, who featured aerial shots of different men sleeping in the backs of pick-up trucks.
Next, Kat and I encountered the Pont Royale, an extremely ornate bridge with gold-plated statues and magnificent street lamps. We stopped to photograph this extensively, although it was hard to capture the beauty of it.
While crossing another bridge, we noticed the silhouette of the Egyptian Obelisk that I've read about, and we wandered over to see it. There was a just-married couple getting photographed near the Obelisk, whom I creepily managed to capture in my photographs (I mean, they were in the way....). There was also a pretty fountain, which probably has a history unknown to me.
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| Egyptian Obelisk plus wedding photo! |
Finally, after what seemed like miles of walking, Kat and I arrived at Laurée. We each bought a few of the pretty macaroons--I chose framboise (raspberry), vanille (obviously, vanilla), and a special chocolat variety with cacao that originated from Colombia.
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| Special Chocolate Macaroon! Delicious |
After our successful purchase at Laurée, we again happened upon another famous bridge: the Love-Lock bridge (seriously, we weren't even trying to find these places, they just appeared out of nowhere). We took a break and sat on the Love-Lock bridge for quite a while, people-watching all the lovey-dovey couples displaying quite a bit of PDA and all the other camera-happy tourists.
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| Love-Lock Bridge! |
By then, it was almost dark. The two of us made our way back to the Eiffel Tower and ate dinner, then walked back to Trocadero for a great view of the Tower all lit up in the darkness. On the lowest landing of Trocadero, there were about thirty couples waltzing in the moonlight, just a kilometer from (and in full view of) the Eiffel Tower. Kat and I sat on the stairs with many others to watch the romantic spectacle for a few minutes, then made our way up to Trocadero's higher landing to better see the lit-up tower.
Sitting and watching the sparkling lights of la Tour Eiffel finished up our busy Saturday. We returned to our hostel afterwards (at half-past 11pm), and fell asleep. In the next post, I'll write about our weekend in Paris, part 2! Along with a few more photos, of course!
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