We
stayed at Hotel Cluny-Sorbonne in the middle of Latin Quarter.
We
stayed at Hotel Cluny-Sorbonne in the middle of Latin Quarter.
For much of the afternoon, we walked around the Latin Quarter, along the Seine and to the Notre Dame Cathedral. Dinner is another challenge. We walked along Blvd St. Michel and found a couple of blocks around the intersection of St. Michel and St. Germaine that is filled with all sorts of restaurants. There were so many that we really can't decide which one to go.
The
day started at different hours depending on who you talk to. We seemed
to have different ways of dealing with jet-lag. I woke up at 6:00am and
have been up ever since. While Yulin was still catching up on her Pacific
Time Zone till 9:00am. She finally took pity on me and got out of bed so
we can go visit the Louvre. First things first. Breakfast!
This is the first time I get to practice my self-taught French. I think it went pretty well. Instead of ordering one Cafe au lait, I ended up with one Cafe au lait and one Cafe without lait. Oh well, I wanted it that way. Yeah, that's right, that's the ticket.
We
arrived at the Louvre via Metro, so we get into under the Pyramid (the
main entrance) without having to go through the long lines outside. There
is just too many different things too see in Louvre. Of course, there's
the famous stuff like Venus de Milo, Mona Lisa, and all the paintings.
We spent the morning inside the Louvre and I really loved the airy sculpture
gardens. It is even bright enough for nature light photography, so I took
quite a few.
When we are done with the morning, we went outside and had lunch at
Cafe Marly. It was a nice outdoor cafe that overlooks the pyramids. After
lunch, we took quite a few pictures of the surroundings of Louvre before
diving back under (through one of the side entrance that has much shorter
lines) to see other paintings and also the Mideval Louvre. The Mideval
Louvre is the relics of the old castle on which Louvre the Palace was built.
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| View of Arc de Triomphe de Carrousel from inside the Louvre Pyramid |
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That
evening, we stumbled into another section of Blvd St. Germaine near Metro
Mabillon where there are lots of restaurants too. The name of the restaurant
is Bistrot d'Opio. The highlight of the dinner was when Yulin told the
waitress to take back a bottle of Evian that we did not order. Mamma
Mia! We survived!
According to recommendation from Lonely Planet Guide, we bought sandwiches
at a nearby sandwich shop and had our lunch in Luxembourg Gardens. There
are lots and lots of chairs all around. The garden seems to be very "local"
since we did not see too many tourists there. Following our lunch, we went
to Musee d'Orsay. Orsay was an old railway station and a lot of the decor
still suggested its history.
Orsay
is famous for its Impressionists collection. We headed straight to the
top floor where the Impressionist paintings are on display. Instead of
rent the hand-held recorder thing, we bought a book instead. Yulin stopped
at each painting and read out loud the significance of the painting and
how the impressionist school of painting was started, and what are the
differences between impressionism, post-impressionism, divisionism. It
was very educational.
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| Catching up on the history of Impressionism |
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Fontainbleau
is a short train ride away from Paris. It's our first train ride after
arriving in Paris, so we allocated extra time to make sure that we know
how the system works. You get the tickets from the ticket window (duh!)
and then you punch the ticket at one of those orange ticket machines before
you board the train. It's an honor system although there are train conductors
who will come around to check your tickets.
Arriving at the Fontainbleau-Avon train station, we changed to the A-B
bus which took us to the center of town where the chateau is. 
The
"signature" of the chateau is the horseshoe staircase in the center of
the courtyard (the Cours de Cheval Blanc, "White Horse Court"). The place
looked deserted at lunch time. So we quickly went through the interior.
While we were inside, we took a picture of a breastful statue (with flash).
One of the security immediately screamed "No Flash!" at us. 
Gee,
who said French don't like to speak English to you.
For whatever reason, we bought two sandwiches from Paris and brought it in our backpack. It was great since we can now picnic in the Royal Gardens of Fontainbleau. Otherwise, we will need to go all the way back into town in order to get lunch. We saved a lot of time.
Late that afternoon, we returned to Paris and was early enough to go to Arc de Triomphe and Champs Elysees. We climb (actually rode the elevator) to the top of Arc de Triomphe where we can get a 360-degree panorama of Paris as well as an opportunity to observe the crazy traffic of Paris. Champs Elysees, on the other hand, is way over glorified. It's a wide and clean street with lots of shops and tourists. But there really is not much to look at.
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