Barcelona was a weekend blast mainly centered on the experience of taking in all of Park Guell. There wasn't really a plan after that. Fortunately there's this thing you can do when traveling in the age of smart phones, where you're on the fly, checking prices of airfare to places, ordering tickets from a site like momondo, and booking a place from AirBnB or Booking. You pull up TripAdvisor and figure out what to do--all while sitting somewhere for lunch or what have you. And... this is what we did. This took us to Paris.
Here's how: it turned out that there was a flight from Barcelona to Paris the next day for something like 70 Euros, or about eighty bucks. Don't know why it was so cheap, but we snatched it up, and impromptu-like blasted off to Paris the next day. Paris like Barcelona, too, was a whirlwind, made memorable by a lot of excited talk about seeing the Musee d'orsay and never seeing it. Closed on Monday and somehow closed just before we arrived on two separate occasions (screw it), we never made it into the museum, a kind of stupid and funny part of the trip. Other notables: I found some of the old cafe haunts of the ex-pat writers like Fitzgerald and Hemingway, and of course we visited the Eiffel Tower. It was a quick trip, but worth telling in a few photos.
We arrived at night. I think this was the first photo I took--couldn't say what the building is. T
In Paris.
Somewhere on, errr, Boulevard de Clichy? I think yes.
Yeah.
You need this shot when you go to Paris. Mandatory. The Eiffel Tower was actually bigger than I expected, actually. The park is full of people and there's a zip line going off the top for people to zip down to the park. It's an experience just standing there, taking it all in. It was a really nice summer day when we were there, and even with all the people in the park, there was a relaxed and kind of subdued sunny feel in the air.
Instagramming it.
Fitzgerald and Hemingway used to eat here. I think it was La Closerie des Lilas on Montparnasse. I say "I think" because I did quick Googles on my phone and didn't document the trip very well. I DO remember it being super expensive. We ordered Americanos and bottled waters and passed on the fifty Euro dinner.
Famous hangout of the American writers.
Snapped this shot en route to one of our failed attempts to find d'Orsay before it closed.
La Fontaine Saint-Michel. Constructed in the 1850s as part of the reconstruction of Paris commissioned by Napoleon III.
Constructed in 1993.
Along the Seine. Tourist central but worth seeing. Where all the museums and mostly everything is, and beautifully spectacular out in the open air.
Another haunt of the Americans in the 1920s.
The, you know, the big attraction in the heart of Paris there. That one.
Jefferson (yes, our Jefferson) is commemorated in Paris. He was the American minister to France and he symbolized the American-French relationship that existed for two hundred years at that point. He was also, of course, one of the architects of the Declaration of Independence making explicit the American colonies break from British monarchy. Anyway, yep, he's there.
So is this dude. Condorcet was one of the architects of the French Revolution and a noted mathematician and philosopher, a proponent of what we now call the age of Enlightenment (actually, they called it the Enlightenment back then too). What can you say? Condorcet.
Our hotel. I stylish little spot located centrally. Fun fact: the concierge asked me to "speak more French" when I was talking to him--like a movie script lampooning French haughtiness. I loved it. I said au revoir or some thing. In shitty French no doubt.
Life in Paris is really on the boulevards. I noticed how quiet the city is in spite of its population. People really do sort of whisper passing you by--"wi, wi" and so on in hushed French tones. It gives the city this homey feel sharply contrasted with, say, New York City which is a bull horn of urban sounds by comparison. Not judging, just reporting.
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