U of R Invasion Part II: Paris

Adam and I finally arrived in Paris at 8:00am on Thursday morning, and by the time we took the bus in to the city and the metro to our hotel it was around noon. So we dropped our bags, grabbed some lunch and got started on the sight-seeing. Our first stop was Montparnasse Tower because it has great views of the city. From there we walked to the catacombs, which I thought would be really cool. You enter by descending the tightest spiral staircase I have ever been on for what seems like forever. Once you are 86 feet below the streets of Paris you enter an old limestone quarry. After walking under the low ceiling (Adam hit his head) in very little light for a very long time you enter a room where the bones begin. At this point I was pretty creeped out because on both sides of you for as far as you can see are rows of skulls and bones stacked neatly against the walls. It was interesting to see, but I was not interested in lingering too long, so we finished the walk and climbed back up into the daylight.

We then decided to walk from the catacombs to Notre Dame. On the way there we stopped at the Luxembourg Gardens and the Pantheon to look around and take pictures. I thought that the Luxembourg Gardens looked a lot like El Parque de Buen Retiro in Madrid. Adam thought the Pantheon looked like Rush Rhees Library on Meliora Weekend because of the yellow banners hanging on it. It was being decorated for a special event for Marie Curie, who is buried inside. We went inside Notre Dame and looked around and also sat outside and studied the facade for a little bit. We then tried to go into Sainte-Chapelle, which is nearby, but it had just closed. Same goes for the Deportation Memorial which is behind Notre Dame. That was a bummer, but at least we got to see them from the outside. After that we were hungry for dinner, so we went off in search of a restaurant. We turned down a little street and ran in to two other U of R students who were in Paris for spring break, how crazy! We then had dinner at a Parisian restaurant with a bunch of Scottish men in kilts sitting behind us.

After that we followed the Seine from Notre Dame back to our hotel which was by the Eiffel Tower and Ecole Militaire. It was kind of a long walk, but very beautiful. Then we put on some warmer clothes and went to see the Eiffel Tower lit up and sparkling at night and took a cruise down the Seine River.

The next morning we were in line at the Eiffel Tower when it opened. This was a good idea because the line was short and it wasn´t crowded once we ascended, but a bad idea because it was so foggy out in the morning that we couldn´t even see the top of the tower. So we rode the elevator up to the first level, then walked up to the second level. It was a nice view and there was interesting information, but I don´t think either of us enjoyed it very much because it was freezing.

From there we met for a bike tour of the city. It was basically a group of 30 Americans trying to fight Paris traffic on bikes, which a recent college grad from Texas as our guide. It was an excellent way to see a lot of the city quickly, since we didn´t have very much time left. We stopped at Napolean's Tomb, Ecole Militaire, Place de la Concorde, Les Invalides, Assembly Nationale, among other things, had crepes at a cafe in the Tuileries Gardens then saw the Louvre and then headed back. That took about 4.5 hours because there were so many people and everyone had to have to guide take their picture at every single stop. We only had time to do one more thing really, so we took the Metro up to Montmarte to climb the stairs and see Sacre-Couer. The inside of the church, as well as the view were beautiful. We sat down on the steps to listen to some guys singing and playing guitar and rest for a little bit. Then we bought some souvenirs and headed back to our hotel to pick up our bags. We realized that one of the things we hadn´t seen, the Arc de Triomphe, was a few blocks away from where we needed to catch the bus to the airport. The metro ended up taking longer than we had planned though, so when we got out at the Arc we had about 30 seconds to snap a picture before we had to take off Amazing Race style for the bus. We ended up making it on time to the bus and got to the airport only to have to wait in line for 2 hours to get through security at Beauvais airport (which has only 2 gates.) Our flight was delayed, so we didn´t get in to Dublin until around 2:00am and were definitely exhausted at that point.