It had been a long standing joke that my mum would take me to Paris for my 21st birthday. One of those things that was always said in passing when the Eiffel Tower was shown on the TV that just became an ordinary statement to make. It was joked about so much that I laughed it off, joining in with the joke, when my mum asked if I wanted to go Sunday to Wednesday or Monday to Thursday. Good one, mum!
Needless to say, my mini-break was the perfect dissertation distraction. I swapped the library for art galleries, Forum hill for Montmartre and Arena for cocktails in the heart of Paris. It didn’t really seem real; because so many of the sites are so familiar, it’s quite difficult to see them in the flesh for the first time when you know almost every detail about them from films, TV and books.
I’m a firm believer in the fact that the early bird catches the worm and in Paris, that is definitely the case. We were up and at the Eiffel Tower at 8.55am on the Monday and the queue was already about 50m long (it doesn’t even open until 9.30!). The views at the top were well worth the queue and the climb (we took the stairs). Being up the Eiffel Tower before 10am let us see Paris wake up in a beautiful, crisp light that only clear days in February have. It really was beautiful; it’s such a cliché but it has to be done!
My favourite tourist trap had to be the Notre Dame. I’m a sucker for churches, I love the intricacies of the architecture, the beauty of the artwork and the sheer scale of dedication and work that went into building them. I’ll always pop into a church, not because of a religious pull, but just to indulge my appreciation for them, so you can imagine how amazed I was at Notre Dame, with its silent chapels, intricate stained glass and expressive paintings. Again, we were there at 9am and we walked straight in, but we had tried the day before around lunch time and were faced with a queue the length of the square before the cathedral.
Now, it would be very strange to go to Paris and not visit any art galleries, especially when your travel companion, mother, is an art teacher. Contrary to popular practice, we didn’t visit the Mona Lisa, although we did go and actually see the Louvre pyramid – saving Da Vinci’s masterpiece for next time. Instead we saw about as much Impressionist art as you could fit into two full days in Paris. Seeing Monet’s ‘Water Lilies’ in the Musée de l’Orangerie was absolutely breathtaking. Located in Jardin des Tuileries, this art gallery has two oval shaped rooms with windows in the ceiling which allow natural light to flood in and show Monet’s spectacular paintings in all their glory. I liked this gallery because it was relatively small, so I could see everything and take it all in. Contrastingly, Musée d’Orsée was massive. There was so much to see, the sheer volume of art was overwhelming. Having said that, we headed straight for the Impressionist floor and spent an afternoon viewing all the Cézanne, Manet and Renoir that I had only ever seen in books.
Obviously, we couldn’t do everything. We did walk from the Place de la Concorde up to the Arc de Triomphe and we put a lock on the famous love lock bridge, Pont des Arts à la Kim Kardashian. We watched the sun set and the lights from the Eiffel Tower come on from the Montparnasse Tower. I had a wonderful time in Paris and the return to the Sanctuary has really brought me crashing back to reality.
Photo www.pinterest.com
Madeleine Parsley