What a day.

We spent 8 hours on our feet today walking almost 7 miles around two museums and in between. We didn’t even get to see all of each museum either! We skipped probably 1/4 to 1/3 of the d’Orsay and 1/2 of the l’Armée. You could easily spend a whole day at each.

We got up early today (8:30am, yes, that’s early for us now!) and made our way to the Musée d’Orsay only to find a long long line. You see, most museums in Paris are free on the first Sunday of every month. We choose to get there early to try and beat the line, but it seemed many other folks had the same idea. Luckily, the line moved fast because there were no cashiers, just bag checkers. Amanda absolutely loved the time we spent here as impressionism is her favorite period of art and that’s what the d’Orsay is known for. We saw lots of Monet and Manet, van Gogh and Degas, Millet and Cézanne, Bouguereau and Pissarro. You can easily say Amanda was ecstatic to be there.

As soon as we stepped outside of the first museum, we realized it was raining. What? Raining? My weather app said it would be cloudy but it didn’t show rain! We schlepped it through the mild rain to the Musée de l’Armée.

At the Musée de l’Armée, we skipped SO MANY exhibits because we would have been there until midnight we if read everything. They have more sets of armor than you can keep track of and that’s only the stuff they have on display! We found a gun that shot in three directions at once, a cannonball about 2 or 3 feet wide, swords from the 1100’s, and Napoleon’s Tomb. We ended up buying an umbrella with Napoleon’s symbol on it before going outside for the last time and realizing it had stopped raining. Awesome.

Their World Wars exhibit is expansive and, while very interesting, you need a good two hours or more just for that. We did it in about 30 minutes as we were starving, and very tired from walking and standing all day. We decided to end our l’Armée visit and head home to cook some dinner. We had planned on getting an éclair at a bakery to hold us over until we cooked some pasta but everything was closed as everything does on Sundays in Europe. We ate some cardboard-like crackers with hummus that was supposed to taste like cilantro. But we didn’t care because we were finally eating and sitting, and the day was good.

For yesterday being a travel day, I’m pretty impressed that we managed to hit two tourist destinations. We checked out of our swanky hotel on the Champs and left our luggage with the concierge while we headed off for our first stop, the Eiffel Tower! We took a nice route to the tower that hugged the Seine and passed through a rather ritzy district of Paris where one could find Louis Vuitton next to Burberry, Gucci, and Fendi. Ryder was hot from the walk and decided to switch his pants to shorts by unzipping the bottom… what did I tell you? So very obviously NOT French 🙂

We rounded a side street and there it stood in all its iron spanned glory. I had known from photos that the Eiffel Tower was large, but nothing beats the impression of standing under it’s massive girth (that’s for you Rarig! Or should I say girthy?). I had absolutely NO IDEA it is THAT BIG! We stood and stared with mouths wide open to catch flies, then hustled off for a closer look! The line to get on to the tour was a half hour wait just to buy tickets. We decided, after seeing the views from the Arc de Triumphe, that our time would be better spent sitting on the grass with Ryder journaling and me attempting to sketch this massive, intricate piece of stunning architecture. For those of you who don’t know, the Eiffel Tower was erected for the Worlds Fair in 1889 as the main entrance to the fair. Designed by Gustave Eiffel, it was ment to be dismantled in 1909, but has remained intact as a symbol of Paris.

After our fill of the tower, we headed back to pick-up our luggage and catch the metro to our new home away from home, an airbnb in Montmartre. Montmartre is the artists district of Paris, full of cobble stones, outdoor cafes, street artists, and baguettes. After settling in, purchasing groceries at the near by market, and having lunch, we headed off to find the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, another icon of Paris.

The Sacré-Cœur sits atop Montmartre hill, and was begun in 1876 and consecrated in 1919. We stood in awe at the front of the Basilica  a mixture of Byzantine and Roman architecture. The basilica was massive, with 4 small domes and one large central dome. We purchased tickets to see the crypts and climb the 300 steps to the top of the dome for an entirely spectacular view of Paris. I found my self slightly claustrophobic, winding up hundreds of stairs in the cramped, narrow stairwell with no air flow. The view, however, was well worth the momentary panic.

After our tour, we headed back to our flat for dinner, some nice French wine, and skyping with family and friends. We watched the newest episode of Suits and went to bed!

First, I’d like to mention that Ryder and I really appreciate all of the comments we’ve gotten so far from all of our posts! It’s so great to get feedback and support from family and friends while being so far away. So, thank you!

Today was a bit of a slow start on account of our late night last night and loads of travel yesterday. Ryder was up at 8:30am and I slept until 9:30am. We went down to the breakfast at the hotel which consisted of LOTS of food, packed up our bags for the day and headed out of the hotel. We got about a block, then decided it was cold and raining so we should probably go back and put on pants.  Once we were all nice and toasty, we ventured out into the wild streets of Paris!

At first glance, anyone and their mother can tell we are not from around here. I had always thought people exaggerated when describing Parisians, but turns out most of the things we heard are true. Like, for instance, every single Parisian we saw today was dressed well, like what you would see in upper class areas of the East Coast. Not suit and tie nice (though there was LOTS of that), but Sunday stroll after church nice. We, on the other hand, looking like traveling alien vagabonds with our pants that turn into shorts and synthetic t-shirts. The difference is so noticeable that no one mistakes us for knowing how to speak French. Another thing, Parisians have good manners and respond much better when you have good manners in return (thank you Dave for your French lessons, they have helped immensely!!). We always start with a “Bonjour madame/monsieur” followed by “Parlez-vous anglais?” (meaning “Hello mam/sir” & “Do you speak English?”) and usually the conversation goes smoothly after that.

Unfortunately, after my college years of studying European history and art, I came to Paris with a completely un-realistic view of what it would be like. I had imagined manicured lawns, plenty of shrubs in geometric shapes, people strolling down the Champs-Elysées with parasols and bonnets, men on horses… basically Pride and Prejudice with the Louvre thrown in. Sadly, this is entirely not the case (apparently I was born in the wrong era). Though Paris is quite lovely, it is a city and it comes with all things every other city in the world has in common including bad traffic, and lots and lots of people.

We walked down the Champs-Elysées to the closest metro for a ride to Notre Dame. We had to change trains and at the next station realized our connecting train was under repairs (this took us quite some time to figure out) so we walked back up to the street level and caught a bus set up for that line. We got off near Notre Dame and had to walk through the busy streets leading to the Cathedral. We arrived and waited in line to enter. The Cathedral was very beautiful with lots of stained glass and 4 rose windows (my favorite). Unfortunately, I’ve been spoiled by Sagrada Familia and will probably find every other church I visit to be quite underwhelming. We purchased one audio tour and used our head-set splitter (Thank you Dr. Burke for the suggestion!) so we could both enjoy the tour without having to buy two! Yay for saving money! We walked around the Cathedral for awhile and then I went into the Treasury room.

It was quite an interesting experience to view the wealth of this church including 3 relics said to belong to Jesus. They have a piece of the cross to which Jesus was crucified, the crown of thorns laid on his head, and one other piece I couldn’t find information about in English (just checked their website and discovered its one of the nails from the cross). I was able to get a close look at the piece of the cross and the nail, but couldn’t find the crown of thorns. They also had the robe, staff, and pendant from a saint among other historical and resplendent artifacts. I left the treasury, met with Ryder and we continued the tour around the back of the nave. After we’d had our fill, we headed back out to the square in front of the church looking for the path down to the crypts.

The crypts offered an extensive museum surrounding an archeological site of Roman and medieval buildings unearthed from beneath Notre Dame. We spent about an hour looking at the different dig sites and trying to find explanations in English. They had unearthed pottery, jewelry, and other artifacts at the site that shed some light on what the buildings could have been used for. One of the sections turned out to be a Roman bath house with all three chambers clearly marked. After our tour, we went off to eat lunch and found a place not too far that seemed more decently priced than everything else (average price for a dish in Paris is 14 euro), but the service and food turned out to be terrible. It was now 3pm and we thought we might have a enough time to see the Musee d’Orsay. We stopped at a pâtisserie for a real French crepe of nutella and whipped cream, and then headed off down along the Seine river.

On the way, we happend upon the love lock bridge, or it’s real name Pont de l’Archevêché, in Paris. For those of you who don’t know, couples purchase or bring padlocks with them to this bridge which they then lock to the metal fences surrounding the bridge and throw the keys into the Seine while making a wish. Ryder and I purchased a lock and after some searching, found and strapped our true love right next to that of my best friend and her husband! We kissed, made a wish, and threw the keys into the river. It was all mushy and romantic 🙂

Instead of making it the Musee d’Orsay (they were closing in half an hour, not enough time to enjoy it), we ended up skirting the back of the Louvre on our way to a metro stop back to the hotel. Now we are hanging out in the room before we find dinner and go see the Eiffel tower at night!

Adiós Barcelona! Bienvenue à Paris! At 6:30am our alarms went off, we ate a quick breakfast of peanut butter on bread, finished packing a few things, and bags in hand, took off to the Metro. Once we got out at our stop, we walked a few blocks to the train station in Barcelona. The place was pretty huge with lots of bustle and activity. Luckily, we already had our tickets printed out so all we had to do was find the right platform. It turned out to be easier than we thought and then we were on the train to Figueres, Spain.

Our first leg was about two hours and at Figueres we switched trains for one bound to Perpignan, France. We had a 2 hour wait in Perpignan for our next train to the center of Paris. In Perpignan, we walked around for a bit down the main drag. We bought some shampoo and detergent for laundry then went hunting for an ATM to stock up on our euro supply. After a fruitless search, we headed back to the station where of course there would be an ATM available. Duh.

We bought fresh sandwiches, practiced our rudimentary French, and watched an episode of Suits as we waited for the train. We boarded this train at around 12:30pm and arrived in Paris at a quarter to 6pm. It was quite a long train ride. We both napped a little on the way and spent time admiring the French country side. I noticed every single cow I saw was grazing out in an open field. Thank you France for being so progressive and providing free-range grazing of natural grasses for your cattle. Healthy cows means better lives for them and better food for us!

When we arrived in Paris we were blown away by the sheer size of the train station. We had to go up about 5 different levels of escalators to reach the city streets! Of course we hit in rush hour traffic and had to jostle our way through the streaming crowds of people. It took a bit to figure out the ticket system for the metro and then we boarded and headed off to our hotel. We arrived only to find the hotel not at all what we expected or what the pictures led us to believe. A little upset, we decided to eat first before we made up our minds of what to do. The closets place with no wait was a Thai restaurant were we paid way too much for way too little.

We left the restaurant and entered out onto the Champs Élysées. The street was pretty crowded for 9pm at night and we were reminded briefly of Barcelona minus the very narrow streets and humidity. All of the stores were still open, even this late, for some last minute high-end shopping. The Arch de Triumph was lit in the distance so we thought we’d walk to it for a look. It was definitely further away than we thought, but we kept going and it was well worth it! Because it was night, there were hardly any people and we had an hour to walk the 280 steps to the top for a breathtaking view of Paris by night!

We stayed on the Arc de Triumph until 11:30pm and decided to walk back to our crummy hotel, cancel our reservations, and move to a nicer one we found a few blocks away. The a**hole at the crummy hotel insisted we pay for TWO nights instead of one for canceling. It was bogus and left us super frustrated. After showers and fresh clothes we feel a thousand times better and are ready for a good night sleep!

Today marks our last day in Barcelona and it was a great day! I woke up MUCH earlier than I have for any other part of our trip so far to skype with family and friends back home. It’s so hard to find a good time to talk with them as we are 9 hours ahead of everyone! I made the mistake of telling my mom I would skype with her at 9:30pm on Wednesday, when I had planned to get up at 6:30am on Wednesday to skype. The problem is 6:30am Wednesday in Spain is actually 9:30pm Tuesday in California! Silly me! Luckily it worked out and I was able to talk to everyone I had planned.

After skyping until 8am, I went back to sleep until 11am and then we got up to begin our day. We had a quick breakfast of bread and peanut butter in the hostel, and then went off to the market for fresh fruit juice and sandwiches to pack with us for lunch. Our plan today was to visit the Picasso Museum. We navigated our way through the Gothic quarter to the museum. When we arrived, the line was a half hour wait and it was boiling hot! We were able to stand in the shade, and I bought a 1€ fan from a vendor to help us keep the air circulating. The wait didn’t seem too long because before we knew it, we had purchased our tickets, stuffed our backpacks in a locker, and were off touring the museum.

This museum houses about 3,000 works by Picasso, mostly sketches done with pen and ink on paper and oil on canvas. Most of the collection highlights his earlier work, leading up to his studies in cubism. With my art history background, I found the museums chronological progression to be quite fascinating. Ryder enjoyed Picasso’s early realist work, but wasn’t too impressed with the small collection of early impressionist and cubist work that quite didn’t reflect what can be seen in his most famous pieces. I feel that what the museum lacks in famous pieces, it makes up for in the quantity of work and quality of his earlier work, including two pieces, Science and Charity and The First Communion, which won him numerous awards in public exhibitions. All in all, it was worth the wait. After we left the museum, we headed to Güell Park.

We had heard that there would be a 3 hour long line to get tickets for the Sagrada Familia and man was I glad we bought our tickets online. The line stretched around a corner and then at least down a full city block more. It was a short four minutes metro ride to the basilica (wikipedia link for those, who like me, didn’t know what a basilica was) and we walked right past the line. We had to pass a school building with a very curvy roof to get our audio guide headsets and started on our tour.

The Sagrada Familia culminates into a masterpiece by the artist Antoni Gaudi who left the basilica incomplete upon his sudden death. Gaudi created this building using his love of nature to drive the development and symbolism of the structure. He wanted the clergy to feel as if they were standing in a forest, so he created an entirely new way of creating columns and vaulted ceilings to mimik the trees and leaves of a canopy. His main focus for the basilica was his love of nature and Christ. His modernist style re-creates a classic form into something entirely unique and inspiring.

The first time you see the Sagrada Familia you have to stand in awe. There are no other options. The ornate detail and the size of the church are too much to ignore. We listen to the background info on the church and walk on in. Even more stunning than the outside and the size is the inside. I’ve never seen a building quite like it and I dare say it may be the most beautiful building I’ve ever been in, and it’s not even finished! Work was started on the church in 1882 and is scheduled to be completed in 2030. There are huge stained glass windows on almost every wall that let in a rainbow of colorful light during the day.

While at the Sagrada Familia, we finally met other friendly travelers! I didn’t think it would take this long, but we’ve been staying at hostels without much common space. We met Chris, Joy, and Mary when we took the elevator up one of the towers. We exchanged photo taking for each other, and continued on our way only to meet up with Chris again after we descended the 400 something stairs in a spiral staircase. He invited us to grab some food with them and we headed on down to a place just across the street. We exchanged traveling stories while Amanda and I split a Paella de Verduras and potatoes in a garlic mayonaise sauce. They are all teachers for an international school in Tokyo traveling during their summer break.

We both enjoyed each other’s company enough to tag along with them to a Flamenco and Opera show on La Rambla. The singing was pretty horrible, and the dancing was OK. The live music saved the experience for sure. Amanda and I both fell asleep but not because the show was boring. We’ve just been having some late nights recently.

After the show, we were starving again, ready to eat the first thing in site, when we found PaTapas. We had another meal with the entertaining and lively group and then split up to hopefully get to bed early.