Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Sunday 8/10 New York is Frank's town and Paris is mine!...
Oh boy, I walked today. Started the day discovering how the Paris Metro workds - just like London except you get buskers on the trains. Free live music! In fact I think the Metro is better than the tube. Sacrilege...they are cleaner, quicker, better headroom, and having a numeric rather than alpha naming system makes it much easier when you dont know the language. Anyone can go on red no.7...
Explored the 2 islands, Ste Chapelle, Notre Dame and then watched the sun set over the Eiffel Tower. Certainly Paris hums on weeekends. The French certainly know how to take advantage of their leisure time.
Hindsight: The weekends in Provence were like this too. So weekends are obviously for markets, street entertaining, eating, drinking coffee while people watching, late starts and late finishes.
Sorted my accomm and moved into the hostel. Clean and great postion right on Canal Saint Martin - just past where the canal goes underground/finishes. So there is a park with a fountain outside my window. Writing this with hindsight, it is actually a great room. I'm in a 4 bed dorm on the first floor - big and airyand only three girls sharing. We are all getting on really well. I've had other dorms this size with 8 sharing. We have plenty of room for the table and chairs and we have our ownvanity and two big opening windows. All for €20 each. So our trio is Hannah a Korean American from New York, Clemins from the Canary Islands off West Africa but of Spanish decent and myself. Hannah is younger than Clemins and I and a bit niave but we are respectful of each other and are getting along well. Being France, smoking is allowed throughout the hostel but we have made out 'pad' smoke free. We have little meals up here away from the crowd and it feels like out own flat.
Food is cheaper in Paris than UK but still good food costs good money. Breakfast is easy - bread and cheese or vegemite and coffee. Lunch, again with hindsight, has become bread with cheese or pate or tomato and fruit and maybe a 'sweet' bread. Eg. a small pastry with custard and sultanas. Coffee is expensive so have stuck to 1/day. But it is always good. I've been using the local outlets which is great fun as they have such yummy things to smell and look at. The drill is to go specially to the Patisserie for bread and pastry, Fromageer for cheese, Boucherie for meats and fruitand vege from the, you guessed it, fruitand vege man (can't remember the proper name). Dinner on the first few nights was in a park or at a view with left overs from lunch or from a market; but later the girls and I went out to dinner a couple of times.
Visiting Notre Dame was interesting. After UK cathedrals it is quite different. Much squarer and chunkier on the outside but the most amazing flying butresses. Reallly interesting to see the reality of what you study at school. Unfortunately being a Sunday and a beautiful sunny day half of Paris was there. A guide Ispoke to explained many French visit as an anlternative to actually attending a service (they are predominantly Catholics - although there is a significant jewish and muslim community - it is Ramadan at the moment too).
Ialso found people incredibly noisy in the church. Although there were signs everywhere saying silence - no-one was! It was rather like I imagine the cathedral was in the early days when the nave was used for meetings and gatherings. Notre Dame still has all it's chapels (which are missing at Canterbury and York - thanks Oliver...) around the walls and so gives a much better impression of past reality. Quiet prayer and service in the chapels, sung services in the quoir and noise in the nave.
France has so many musee and monument their government funds must be stretched. Notre Dame is not in as good condition as Canterbury. I did stay to hear an organ recital but the music was very heavy and dark so I left after a short time.
Ste Chapelle was very different. Being the kigs private chapel and then enclosed within the Palais de Justice (the law courts) it has fared much better. In fact its stained glass (and the architecture that allows such huge expanses of glass) is FANTASTIC. There was an english speaking guide who knew stacks about religious art and architecture and she helped us understand what brilliance we were looking at. The wooden carvings of the saints were also amazing - as much that they had survived. Luckily no fire found the chapel in its 600 year history.
This afternoon I wandered all over Isle St Louis and Isle de la Cite. Sat in parks in the sun watching boats on the Seine (pronounced Sen), people watched in plazas. Discovered little back streets and squares where the locals were lunching. I think I really am slowing down...at last. No plans and no must does...Even qued for icecream that was worth the wait and ate it window shopping - that's when I found your snake bike locks boys. Being Sunday there were buskers and noise and crowds - it was wonderful to be part of, and be a watcher of, it all.
This would be one of the posh bits of Paris to love in although it is old. Ile de la cite us actually the original stone age Paris. Easily defendedand the rest grew from here. Notre Dame is on this island and is 'point zero' for all distances around Paris - like we use the GPO.
The sun disappeared about 6pm but not the light (still day light saving til the end of Oct) and I wandered across town to the Eiffel Tower and sat at the top of the hill across the river from the actual tower. Tehre was Paris laid out beforeme. I am here! Although it is October the trees are still 90% green and all the summer gardens, although not prime, are still flowering. It is a beautiful picture. Monsuire Eiffel did his country proud. As the light faded the lights on the tower came up. A perfect finish to the day.
Oh boy, I walked today. Started the day discovering how the Paris Metro workds - just like London except you get buskers on the trains. Free live music! In fact I think the Metro is better than the tube. Sacrilege...they are cleaner, quicker, better headroom, and having a numeric rather than alpha naming system makes it much easier when you dont know the language. Anyone can go on red no.7...
Explored the 2 islands, Ste Chapelle, Notre Dame and then watched the sun set over the Eiffel Tower. Certainly Paris hums on weeekends. The French certainly know how to take advantage of their leisure time.
Hindsight: The weekends in Provence were like this too. So weekends are obviously for markets, street entertaining, eating, drinking coffee while people watching, late starts and late finishes.
Sorted my accomm and moved into the hostel. Clean and great postion right on Canal Saint Martin - just past where the canal goes underground/finishes. So there is a park with a fountain outside my window. Writing this with hindsight, it is actually a great room. I'm in a 4 bed dorm on the first floor - big and airyand only three girls sharing. We are all getting on really well. I've had other dorms this size with 8 sharing. We have plenty of room for the table and chairs and we have our ownvanity and two big opening windows. All for €20 each. So our trio is Hannah a Korean American from New York, Clemins from the Canary Islands off West Africa but of Spanish decent and myself. Hannah is younger than Clemins and I and a bit niave but we are respectful of each other and are getting along well. Being France, smoking is allowed throughout the hostel but we have made out 'pad' smoke free. We have little meals up here away from the crowd and it feels like out own flat.
Food is cheaper in Paris than UK but still good food costs good money. Breakfast is easy - bread and cheese or vegemite and coffee. Lunch, again with hindsight, has become bread with cheese or pate or tomato and fruit and maybe a 'sweet' bread. Eg. a small pastry with custard and sultanas. Coffee is expensive so have stuck to 1/day. But it is always good. I've been using the local outlets which is great fun as they have such yummy things to smell and look at. The drill is to go specially to the Patisserie for bread and pastry, Fromageer for cheese, Boucherie for meats and fruitand vege from the, you guessed it, fruitand vege man (can't remember the proper name). Dinner on the first few nights was in a park or at a view with left overs from lunch or from a market; but later the girls and I went out to dinner a couple of times.
Visiting Notre Dame was interesting. After UK cathedrals it is quite different. Much squarer and chunkier on the outside but the most amazing flying butresses. Reallly interesting to see the reality of what you study at school. Unfortunately being a Sunday and a beautiful sunny day half of Paris was there. A guide Ispoke to explained many French visit as an anlternative to actually attending a service (they are predominantly Catholics - although there is a significant jewish and muslim community - it is Ramadan at the moment too).
Ialso found people incredibly noisy in the church. Although there were signs everywhere saying silence - no-one was! It was rather like I imagine the cathedral was in the early days when the nave was used for meetings and gatherings. Notre Dame still has all it's chapels (which are missing at Canterbury and York - thanks Oliver...) around the walls and so gives a much better impression of past reality. Quiet prayer and service in the chapels, sung services in the quoir and noise in the nave.
France has so many musee and monument their government funds must be stretched. Notre Dame is not in as good condition as Canterbury. I did stay to hear an organ recital but the music was very heavy and dark so I left after a short time.
Ste Chapelle was very different. Being the kigs private chapel and then enclosed within the Palais de Justice (the law courts) it has fared much better. In fact its stained glass (and the architecture that allows such huge expanses of glass) is FANTASTIC. There was an english speaking guide who knew stacks about religious art and architecture and she helped us understand what brilliance we were looking at. The wooden carvings of the saints were also amazing - as much that they had survived. Luckily no fire found the chapel in its 600 year history.
This afternoon I wandered all over Isle St Louis and Isle de la Cite. Sat in parks in the sun watching boats on the Seine (pronounced Sen), people watched in plazas. Discovered little back streets and squares where the locals were lunching. I think I really am slowing down...at last. No plans and no must does...Even qued for icecream that was worth the wait and ate it window shopping - that's when I found your snake bike locks boys. Being Sunday there were buskers and noise and crowds - it was wonderful to be part of, and be a watcher of, it all.
This would be one of the posh bits of Paris to love in although it is old. Ile de la cite us actually the original stone age Paris. Easily defendedand the rest grew from here. Notre Dame is on this island and is 'point zero' for all distances around Paris - like we use the GPO.
The sun disappeared about 6pm but not the light (still day light saving til the end of Oct) and I wandered across town to the Eiffel Tower and sat at the top of the hill across the river from the actual tower. Tehre was Paris laid out beforeme. I am here! Although it is October the trees are still 90% green and all the summer gardens, although not prime, are still flowering. It is a beautiful picture. Monsuire Eiffel did his country proud. As the light faded the lights on the tower came up. A perfect finish to the day.
# posted by The Essence of Good Taste @ 2:30 PM 
