Paris

Cathedrals. Gelato. Cathedrals. Gelato. Eiffel Tower. The summary of our Parisian adventure.

We picked Camryn’s little brother, Ty, up from the airport to join us on our French adventure. There’s no better place to start that than in the massive, powerful French capital, Paris. After arriving at the hotel, we were all hot, hungry and tired, so we made it half a block to a bakery to obtain some lovely baguette sandwiches. They also had quiche, which became our breakfast the next morning. We munched them in a park nearby, watching kids take over a playground and an intense ping pong battle.

Feeling much better, we started to head towards the metro, with our destination being the Eiffel Tower. Ty had two requests for Paris. The first was gelato. Easy. The second was a beer at a restaurant with waiters that all have the same outfit and a view of the Eiffel tower. We could make that work. But before we even made it two blocks, we walked by a cathedral, and he had a 3rd request.

“What’s that? It looks sick?”

“I don’t know,”

“Can we go in it?”

“Hell yeah.”

And we entered what we later learned was Eglise Saint-Ambroise. A gothic cathedral with two large clock towers, ornate interior, and not another living soul inside. Here, we discovered that Ty really likes cathedrals. Really likes them. We eventually ended up attending quite a few. He finds the architecture of these old massive buildings and their construction fascinating. And he will stare at the stained glass and other decorations for as long as he can. Cam and I also find them quite impressive, daunting even. The religious power that these cathedrals hold when you enter is intense.

One cathedral and two metros later, we made it to the Eiffel Tower. It’s wild. Just, BAM, a massive steel tower you see in photos all the time, pasted onto the skyline like its photoshopped in. The way it peeks out from behind buildings to remind you of its presence in quite striking. Like it shouldn’t be there, a thematically modern structure imposing over the stone gargoyles throughout the city.

We found a restaurant with waiters who wore matching outfits and a view of the Eiffel tower, and settled in for dinner and a drink. Ty ordered his first drink, a double pina colada. We got various salads, and just watched the world go by for an hour or so. After a while, we wanted to explore the city streets, so we aimlessly wandered, with no real direction in sight.

Somehow, after touring another cathedral I can’t remember nor find the name of, we wandered to the Arc de Triomphe. Nestled into a chaotic roundabout, the colossus of stone is quite impressive. This was the first place where we bought tickets for the landmark, and made our way up 191-194 (depending on which of us you ask) steps to the terrace overlooking the city. The views of the city were interesting. We discovered that there are massive skyscrapers in Paris, just way to the west, away from the old city and tourism infrastructure. Ty pointed out a bunch of cool looking buildings he wanted to attend to, and Graham had a wonderful time watching the cars and motorbikes navigate around the chaotic traffic circle.

We started our journey the next day heading our first cool looking building we discovered yesterday, Sacre Coeur, another cathedral. Up 300 steps this time to the top, this building is impressive from the outside, and striking from the inside. All you hear are small whispers and the shuffles of feet, as swarms of tourists admire the internal artwork. The view overlooking the city is impressive too. We headed back down, and found Ty some gelato at the base. The cherry was fantastic.

We took the metro to the river to visit Notre Dame. The cathedral is still under restoration after the devastating fire that took out the spire four years ago. The hole that catastrophe left in the hearts of Parisians is clearly visible by looking at the structure. The shell of the Notre Dame is very impressive, though surrounded by scaffolding and cranes. The whole area symbolizes loss very well.

We had lunch, Ty had a crepe and milkshake, Cam and I had wonderful shawarma’s, and we wandered around the river, stopping by the Pantheon (closed on Mondays, oh well), Eglise Saint Serevin, and Tour Saint Jaques, a tower in a park, before heading to a croissant making class, which will appear in its own blog. It was great though. The dough is really hard to make. The fact that Parisian croissants are 1.60 Euro blow my mind.

Afterwards, we took our tired feet to Eglise Saint Eustache, reccomended by Chef Audrey, which became our favorite cathedral. It was relatively empty and massive. The roof was incredibly tall, and the organ at the back was incredibly large. Graham really liked the organ. Cam liked resting her feet. And Ty was enamored at the whole thing. He especially liked the postcard of a deer that got in the church at one time.

The Louvre was next on the list, not to go in, but to admire from the outside. With a backdrop of the famous glass pyramid, a violinist was playing Canon in D in a tunnel connecting the enclosed courtyard to the open front. The reverberations of the violin and portable speaker backing track gave the performance a somber regal effect, and a large crowd had gathered to listen. He switched songs, and the crowd dispersed. Many passers by would then stop for 15-20 seconds, phone in had taking a quick snapshot, to only continue on, giving the moment online for the world to enjoy, but not themselves. The violinist nestled into the setting as if he was one of the hundreds of statues lining the outside of the museum, sweat dripping of of his tired, expressionless face. Maybe it was cause I had sat down to watch that I took in the gravitas of the moment. Gorgeous classical music from an exhausted and sad musician reverberating in the tunnel of the Louvre, with no one to listen to it. The sheer importance and futility of artistry and creativity was exposing itself in the most obvious way, like the violin was crying out to be taken seriously in a sea of people who saw it as a novelty. Only two people, myself (Graham) and a French woman in stripes who stayed to listen seemed to accept the power of the performance. But it didn’t last long. Another busker approached the violinist, an the two began to chat, thus ending the performance. The woman looked over at me, and I can only wish to know what she said. I nodded in agreement, as we both acknowledged the beauty of the moment, and moved on with our lives, two strangers to never cross paths again.

Our day ended with another gelato in the royal palace gardens. We reflected on what was an incredibly busy last day in Paris, and fine tuned our journey ahead, as we now know what we like to do as a trio.

On to the Atlantic Ocean! See you there!