Paris Part 2

Our next day in Paris we started with a historic walk of Paris.  That is, after we got almost all the way to Notre Dame and we realized I had left the camera battery in the charger at our hotel.  So Stephen went back and got it while I sat in a cafe and then we started our tour.

Notre Dame was first:

Outside Notre Dame, this marks the very center of Paris

After Notre Dame we went to the Holocaust Memorial, but we couldn't actually go down into it.  (It was locked, not really sure why).

We went across the Seine and through the streets a bit until we came to this bookstore:

It has been the hang out of many struggling as well as popular authors throughout the years.  Ernest Hemingway, James Joyce, Ezra Pound, and others have hung out here.  There's tons and tons of books stacked on bookshelves floor to ceiling.  Pretty cool little shop.  

We went through the Latin Quarter and it's narrow streets.  This is narrowest house in Paris (2 windows wide):

Place St. Michel, where many protests have taken place.

We went in the Conciergerie, a famous prison.  It held many prisoners during the Revolution, including Marie Antoinette.  You can see her cell, complete with furnishings and mannequins to reenact what it was like when she was there.

We saw the Palais de Justice, home of the French Supreme Court.

For those who don't know the layout of Paris, Notre Dame and much of the historic part of Paris is actually on an island in the Seine.  It's shaped like a boat, and the "stern" is a point called Pont Neuf, which has a nice park.

Then we headed for the Louvre.

Venus de Milo

Uhh, excuse me, there's a hand on your back....

The Winged Victory

This was on the front of a ship originally, I think.

This is Victory's hand, but don't worry, it's the ring finger.

Crowns of France

The courtyard of the Louvre

The Mona Lisa

Crazy crowd to see the Mona Lisa

It was very busy, but people would work their way to the front and then leave, so it wasn't too bad.  Except for this one older woman who didn't really speak any English and was incredibly rude.  She was literally pushing against me while we were in the front and when I finally turned to look at her, she gestured strongly toward the Mona Lisa with impatient raised eyebrows and said something in (I think) Japanese.  When I didn't move, she point to her camera and tried to push me again.  We had barely gotten to the front, long enough to take the picture above the last one.  And then she tried to push around me and in front of the woman who was behind us patiently waiting to take a picture of her little brother.  As we tried to turn and work our way out (trying to give the nice woman and her brother space to move to the front), the old woman shoved us out of the way and took the place we'd been standing.  And I'm not exaggerating when I say shoved.  Sheesh.

Prisoner in stone

Inside the glass triangle of the Louvre.

Then we headed back to Sainte Chapelle (which is by the Palais de Justice) because it had been closed earlier.  I'm really glad we did, too, because it has been my favorite church.  The stained glass is amazing.  It's much smaller than some of the great cathedrals, but I love the stained glass.

Every wall has floor to ceiling stained glass.  In the photos it just looks like colored pieces of glass, but it's not just colored pieces.  Each one is a picture of a Bible story.  These windows taught the population about the Bible when they were unable to read it.  Now how they saw the stories at the very top, I don't know, but they make for a beautiful church.

After this we went back to the Apple store in the Carousel of the Louvre so Stephen could watch the live blogging of the World Wide Developer's Conference.  And there were lots of people doing the same thing :-).  

We had dinner on the Ile de Cite in basically a tavern.  It was a tiny place, but the food was good.  I had snails (aren't you proud of me Megan?), and they were actually pretty good.  Less chewy than cruise ship snails.  And really good garlic butter.  I ordered fish...and literally got a fish.  Head, eyes, tail and all.  Cooked, but not exactly what I was expecting.  We stopped at the famous gelato place on the Ile on the way home.

I've been trying to eat foods that are local to each region while we are there.  Italy was easy because I love pasta, bread, and ice cream.  I don't tend to like alcoholic drinks much (just because I don't like the taste), but I did like some of the house wines.  They come in carafes, and we usually ordered white or rose since I don't like really strong wine.

Germany food was better than I expected.  I'm not a big fan of gravies, and it seemed like everything had gravy on it.  Not think Thanksgiving gravy, but a brothy brown gravy.  I did like the cheese, though.  Grilled cheese and macaroni and cheese that my mom would have loved  And I definitely liked the pretzels and sweet bread.

French food was ok, not as good as Italian though.  I had French onion soup (made me think of my dad), which was good for French onion soup (they just call it onion soup), but I don't really like onions.....so....didn't like it much.  I ate escargot twice, and both times it was quite good.  And the creme brulee was pretty good too.  I had it several times, and the first time when we were at a little cafe on Rue Cler was the best.  

The next day we headed out to Versaille, but it is getting late so I will write more on that later.