Paris Day 3, Amsterdam Day 1

18 October 2007

Paris -> Amsterdam

We were due to travel to Amsterdam on a 1255 Thalys train from Paris Gare du Nord station, but we were unfortunately caught the transport strike. Very thankfully, our hostel is located not far from the train station, and we planned only to walk around our hostel area in the morning before we left, so we weren’t really affected much.

The Basilique du Sacre-Coeur (dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus), is located on the top of Montmartre (or the Butte). The Butte is as tall as the top of the Eiffel Tower, and offers fantastic views of Paris as well. The Sacre-Coeur is the hippest church I’ve ever been to, because the art and stained glass within the church is decidedly more “modern” than other churches. No wonder, as artists used to congregate in the Montmartre area which is more laidback than the rest of Paris.

View from the Butte, the top most point of Montmartre

On the streets of Montmartre

We left Montmartre early, and reached the Gare du Nord station to take our train to Amsterdam.

Paris Gare du Nord station, the statues on the top represent 7 of the cities that the trains go to, including Amsterdam, Paris, Cologne etc.

The train was very crowded, but it was a good train ride as we were sitting next to a Dutch lady and her young daughter who just returned on a trip from Paris. She spoke good English and was very chatty, talking about her experiences as a reporter, asking us about Asia, Singapore, even though initially her daughter thought we were from Japan. And we also talked about how Asians can’t tell Ang Mohs apart, much like they can’t tell Asians apart. She also gave us tips on where to go in Amsterdam, and suggested we rent a bicycle to get around the place. They got off at Rotterdam, and after 45 min we arrived in Amsterdam Centraal.

We got to our hostel, a hip and happening place, abit too rowdy for our liking, and we had a very bad experience there, won’t blog about it, but ask me if you do happen to be interested. But our hostel was close to the Rijks and Van Gogh museums. We took a leisurely walk around the area, went to the supermarket and was pleasantly surprised to finally see cheap food, bought a lot of stroopwaffels , and got microwave meals to have for dinner. They sell Nasi Goreng and Chinese fried rice! You can even find beansprouts in the vegetables section.

Paris Day 2

17 October 2007

Paris

We’ve designated this “Museum Day”. First up was Notre Dame de Paris, which to me, was a humbling experience. The cathedral was lovely on the outside and somber on the inside, and I rank this the best church I’ve been to on the whole trip. The stained glass, paintings, sculptures inside were amazing. We didn’t go up the tower though.

Next, Sainte Chapelle, a Gothic chapel not far from the Notre Dame. It’s really small, and we spent quite a lot of time looking at the guide and identifying the biblical scenes depicted on the stained glass windows. The guide called the stained glass “a comic book sketch of the bible”. A pretty and interesting place, but not really worth the entrance fee in my opinion.

The delicate spire of Saint Chapelle

The lower chapel

The "comic book" stained glass

It started to drizzle lightly, the first and last time throughout our whole trip. We made a brief stop at the flower market on the Île de la Cité before heading to the Pantheon.

The art-deco Metropolitan sign designed by some famous artist

All the metro stations look romantic when taken on digital camera/film, but in real life, it's really quite filthy. I call this the "hard at work studying the maps"

We followed the recommendations on our guide book to this delightful little Creperie for some delicious French crepes. Yum!

The Pantheon is modeled after the Pantheon in Rome and was originally a church dedicated to St-Genevieve, but now functions as a burial ground. We spent quite a lot of time here, and it was great. The interior is filled with huge and very old paintings, sculptures and a famous scientific experiment, the Foucault’s pendulum, demonstrating the rotation of the earth. The pendulum actually tells the time very accurately. We also joined the free walking tour to the top of the Pantheon, and it was very good, we got to see the dome up close, stand on the outside of the dome, and admire the architecture up close and personal. Finally, we visited the crypt, burial ground to many famous French people including Voltaire, Victor Hugo, Louie Braille, Pierre and Marie Curie etc. Not much to see there though, because all the write ups were in French.

Don't know what this painting symbolises, but the fallen head is quite disturbing

Saint Joan of Arc. All these paintings are hundreds of years old, and yet still preserved wonderfully

Foucault's Pendulum

We made our way to the Musee de Lourve, through the Place de la Concorde and saw a small student protest near the entrance of the Tuileries Garden. We walked through the Tuileries Garden, but as it was autumn, there wasn’t many pretty flowers, and the very strong winds blew lots of sand into our eyes. There were many interesting sculptures around the garden too.

Autumn at Tuileries Garden

A nude sculpture with a super gay pose

We went to the Lourve at around 5pm since it’s open till 8.30pm on Wednesdays. The entrance fee is further reduced at 6pm on Wednesday, but we headed in at normal price anyway. As expected, we headed straight for the Mona Lisa. There were many tourists there, but the queues weren’t as bad as if you were to go in the morning. Up close, the Mona Lisa, though a tad small and grey, was fabulous. The brush strokes and everything made her very lifelike, and no reproduction in the world can ever replace seeing her up close and personal. Other than that, the museum is HUGE, and you can really get lost in it, as we got lost as there was something wrong with the maps. We spent about 3 hours walking around there, and by the 10^th Madonna and the Child painting, they started to look alike to me, and I was getting abit restless. I think, to really appreciate all the priceless pieces of art here, you’ll have to budget at least 2 full days, and take ample breaks in between to prevent fatigue. My camera battery was also flat, thus I didn’t get to take many photos of the Lourve L

It was a chilly, windy day and we were both craving for something hot and soupy. We found a little Japanese restaurant near our hostel and though the SGD 15 bowls of udon tasted more like mee suah instead, the tasty soup and noodles eased a little of my homesickness.

Paris Day 1

16 October 2007

Paris

As the Lourve was closed on Tuesdays, we decided to make this the attraction day, then tomorrow we can go explore the Lourve. Having being forewarned of the horrible queues to go up the Eiffel Tower, we decided that we would try going up at night, but I still wanted to take daytime photos of the Eiffel and so we headed there in the morning.

It was breathtaking to see the Eiffel Tower for the first time, and up close. Look at the photos and you can probably see why…

The interesting thing is that Paris was hosting the World Rugby Cup during this period, so there was a giant rugby ball hanging right in the middle of the tower, and even the All Blacks had their own rugby ball on the ground. And yes, Paris loves Les Blus (even though by the time we arrived, Paris was already kicked out of the competition).

We headed to Hotel Les Invalides just to see what it’s like and take some pictures. The Napoleon’s Tomb really looked spectacular from the outside, especially the Dome.

Entrance of Les Invalides

Napoleon's Tomb

We wanted to squeeze some time to tour the Musee d’Orsay, a museum that was converted from a railway station, but by the time we got there, it was late, and we were pretty put off by the queues, so we left to find lunch.

Beef Steak with Fettuccine, Chicken Salad

Next on the itinerary was a stroll down the Champs Elysees, past the Petit and Grand Palais, towards the Arc de Triomphe. The sun was out, the weather was lovely (about 22degC) and we took lovely pictures.

Grand Palais

Entrance to Petit Palais

Champs Elysees is a great place to shop. And I found Sephora there! Girls can really go crazy in that store, lotsa lovely, tempting perfumes and cosmetics! Had to practice a lot of self restraint, but managed to get gifts for the family as well as the girls too!

Super sleek car in the Citroen Showroom

Disneyland Paris was not on our itinerary cos we didn't want to hear Mickey Mouse and friends in French, but I still took a picture outside the Disney store

The Arc de Triomphe is situated right in the middle of a “star”, 6 streets radiate outwards from it, so although it was a pretty long walk scaling the monument, we were rewarded with breathtaking views. But if you are just there for some history, do you’ll be much better off joining the rest of the crowd downstairs admiring the Arc and it’s architecture and sculptures. While we were there, plenty of military personnel gathered around for some ceremony, and it was very interesting to see their decorative ranks, the beanie shaped berets, and the numerous old men who could be war veterans.

It was finally time for us to go up the Eiffel Tower. I was pretty tired by then wearing my cool boots that unfortunately weren’t very suited for long spells of walking but it’s the Eiffel Tower! But the queues were absolutely horrible, I think we spent a grand total of 2 hours queuing for the tickets and lifts up and down the Eiffel. There was a long queue to visit the ladies as well, and I was pretty disappointed with the ang mohs, as there was this old and frail lady queuing up to go to the ladies (the handicapped toilet was out of use), but not one of them let her go first, choosing instead to look the other way. That aside, it was really a once in the lifetime experience to ascend the Eiffel Tower, we even managed to see the sunset which was gorgeous.

Views from the Eiffel

Can you see the All Blacks Rugby ball in the middle?

The giant screen on the Tower plays highlights from the Rugby World Cup 2007.

By then, we were absolutely bushed, so we headed back to our hostel, grabbed a kebab on rice on our way back and retired early.