Emilie and I went to Paris for the weekend, taking the evening train from Lausanne on Friday night and returning by train on Sunday night. The travel time is under four hours “door to door” (i.e., apartment to hotel), so it is a fairly easy trip and much more convenient than flying from Geneva.
Since we took a relatively late train, we didn’t arrive in Paris until after 11pm. As a result we headed straight to the hotel and called it a night in order to get some sleep before an early start on Saturday. The guy at the check-in desk was a complete jerk. While I’ve found the common American stereotype of the French being snobby to be untrue, this guy appeared to be doing his best to single-handedly keep the stereotype alive.
On Saturday we began with a visit to the Notre Dame, which was a short walk from our hotel in the Marais neighborhood on the right bank. While I had seen the Notre Dame during my previous visits to Paris, I had actually never been inside. It was a little crowded, but nothing like during my previous visits.
We then headed to La Sainte-Chapelle, the gothic chapel on L’Île de la Cité that was built in the 13th century in order to house a number of holy relics. There was a bit of a line, and when we finally made our way to the chapel I was initially a bit let down. While it was nice (as can be seen from the pictures), my expectations were higher based on stories that I had heard from others.
But then I realized that we were only in la chapelle basse (the “lower chapel”). Once we went up to la chapelle haute (the “upper chapel”), I immediately saw what everyone had been so excited about. As can be seen from the picture below, the stained glass windows are absolutely beautiful.
The 15 stained glass windows (and related 1,100+ scenes) depict the biblical story of mankind from Genesis to the Resurrection. Here are some additional photos from the upper chapel.
My next stop was L’Église Saint-Sulpice, while Emilie did some shopping. The 18th century church was huge (though apparently slightly smaller than the Notre Dame) and had a number of interesting sights including the “Great” organ (supposedly the largest in Europe) and the Rose Line referenced in Da Vinci Code.
While I was exploring the church I began to hear wedding music and it turned out that there was indeed a wedding taking place.
It was kind of strange given that the giant church was relatively empty and tourists were taking pictures as the bride and groom walked down the aisle. The wedding actually took place in a chapel at the front end of the church, so I guess it ultimately ended up having a bit of a private feel nonetheless.
After grabbing a late lunch at a nice Italian Bistro that we stumbled upon, Emilie had some more shopping to do so I more or less tuned out for the next hour while she did her thing. I essentially just did my best to stay out of the way of the organized chaos that was taking place as the women in the stores darted about at a frenetic pace. And once Emilie had finished doing her part to stimulate the French economy, we headed back to the hotel to drop off the loot and rest for a bit.
Our evening began with a visit to the Galeries Nationales to see the special collection of Claude Monet paintings that were on exhibit.
The exhibit sourced the paintings from museums around the world and it was interesting to see how prolific a painter Monet was given the number of works on display. Each exhibit room was devoted to a specific period in Monet’s life and included some background on his life and inspiration during each period.
Following the Monet exposition we continued our evening of culture by seeing a play called Nono at the Théâtre de la Madeleine. The play starred Julie Depardieu (the daughter of Gerard) and was generally interesting despite being a bit hard to follow at times. While I understood the general plot and a good portion of the dialogue, the actors were talking extremely fast and using a lot of words that I didn’t recognize.
After the play we walked around near the hotel to find a restaurant. At this point it was around 11pm and I was absolutely starving. We ultimately found a restaurant with outdoor seating overlooking a plaza. The weather was unseasonably warm, which made it nice for enjoying a late meal outside.
Since we took a relatively late train, we didn’t arrive in Paris until after 11pm. As a result we headed straight to the hotel and called it a night in order to get some sleep before an early start on Saturday. The guy at the check-in desk was a complete jerk. While I’ve found the common American stereotype of the French being snobby to be untrue, this guy appeared to be doing his best to single-handedly keep the stereotype alive.
On Saturday we began with a visit to the Notre Dame, which was a short walk from our hotel in the Marais neighborhood on the right bank. While I had seen the Notre Dame during my previous visits to Paris, I had actually never been inside. It was a little crowded, but nothing like during my previous visits.
We then headed to La Sainte-Chapelle, the gothic chapel on L’Île de la Cité that was built in the 13th century in order to house a number of holy relics. There was a bit of a line, and when we finally made our way to the chapel I was initially a bit let down. While it was nice (as can be seen from the pictures), my expectations were higher based on stories that I had heard from others.
But then I realized that we were only in la chapelle basse (the “lower chapel”). Once we went up to la chapelle haute (the “upper chapel”), I immediately saw what everyone had been so excited about. As can be seen from the picture below, the stained glass windows are absolutely beautiful.
The 15 stained glass windows (and related 1,100+ scenes) depict the biblical story of mankind from Genesis to the Resurrection. Here are some additional photos from the upper chapel.
My next stop was L’Église Saint-Sulpice, while Emilie did some shopping. The 18th century church was huge (though apparently slightly smaller than the Notre Dame) and had a number of interesting sights including the “Great” organ (supposedly the largest in Europe) and the Rose Line referenced in Da Vinci Code.
While I was exploring the church I began to hear wedding music and it turned out that there was indeed a wedding taking place.
It was kind of strange given that the giant church was relatively empty and tourists were taking pictures as the bride and groom walked down the aisle. The wedding actually took place in a chapel at the front end of the church, so I guess it ultimately ended up having a bit of a private feel nonetheless.After grabbing a late lunch at a nice Italian Bistro that we stumbled upon, Emilie had some more shopping to do so I more or less tuned out for the next hour while she did her thing. I essentially just did my best to stay out of the way of the organized chaos that was taking place as the women in the stores darted about at a frenetic pace. And once Emilie had finished doing her part to stimulate the French economy, we headed back to the hotel to drop off the loot and rest for a bit.
Our evening began with a visit to the Galeries Nationales to see the special collection of Claude Monet paintings that were on exhibit.
The exhibit sourced the paintings from museums around the world and it was interesting to see how prolific a painter Monet was given the number of works on display. Each exhibit room was devoted to a specific period in Monet’s life and included some background on his life and inspiration during each period.Following the Monet exposition we continued our evening of culture by seeing a play called Nono at the Théâtre de la Madeleine. The play starred Julie Depardieu (the daughter of Gerard) and was generally interesting despite being a bit hard to follow at times. While I understood the general plot and a good portion of the dialogue, the actors were talking extremely fast and using a lot of words that I didn’t recognize.
After the play we walked around near the hotel to find a restaurant. At this point it was around 11pm and I was absolutely starving. We ultimately found a restaurant with outdoor seating overlooking a plaza. The weather was unseasonably warm, which made it nice for enjoying a late meal outside.
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