The Sisters in Paris

Saturday - Our Last Full Day Together in Paris

Saturday, our last day together. We decided to walk to the two big department stores, Printemps and Galeries Lafayette. The two stores are side by side on Boulevard Hausmann, in gorgeous old Art Deco buildings. When I lived in Paris, their windows were always amazing. 

Before we set out, I consulted the map AGAIN, and plotted our course, with room for meandering. And meander we did, so much that we ended up going in the wrong direction (I didn't let on to Cathy, as she didn't trust my navigational skills quite as much as Dar). When we FINALLY arrived at the stores, we were disappointed that the windows were all covered up! They must have been working on displays-to-come. We worked our way through the levels of one store, admiring clothes we could neither afford nor fit into. I was vaguely looking for a dress for my school Christmas party, but I mostly liked the size 0 dresses that cost thousands of dollars. 

Inside Galeries Lafayette

We had decided to have lunch in the rooftop restaurant of Galeries Lafayette, as suggested by Rick Steves. 

The restaurant had great views, but it was a self-serve canteen, and the only thing that I could have eaten were french fries. So we backtracked and went back to Printemps. 

The gorgeous ceiling of the restaurant in Printemps, where we had a FABULOUS lunch, which included more champagne, and my last creme brulee of the trip.

After lunch, we wandered through the store some more. Finally, I told my sisters that I couldn't bear to look at any more clothes that would never make it into my closet or onto my body. They both heaved sighs of relief. They had both reached that point ages ago. 

The next plan for the day was to take the long-postponed boat cruise. But first we had to make it to the river. We knew which metro stop we were looking for, but we couldn't find the entrance! Finally Cathy asked for directions, and we were off. 

Moments after we boarded the boat, it started to rain. We were grateful that we were on a covered boat, and not wandering through the streets, looking for a dry spot. 

After the boat ride, we walked home, and bought the same dinner supplies we had had our first Saturday in Paris. We spent a lovely evening together, talking about trip, and thinking about our plans for next year. 

Sisters in Paris

Friday - Lunch in the Subway, and a Gourmet Dinner!

Friday we spent more time knocking places off our list. Dar & I slipped out early to buy croissants for breakfast, and then the three of us dropped down into the subway. 

Our first destination today was the Musee d'Orsay.

view from inside the Musee d'Orsay, Sacre Coeur can be seen in the far distance.

The building that houses the museum was originally a train station, the Gare d'Orsay. In 1970 the train station was about to be demolished, but the minister of cultural affairs stepped in and stopped it from happening. It was then decided to turn the beautiful old building into a museum to house Art from the latter half of the 19th and first part of the 20th century. Darlene loves impressionist Art, so she was in her glory wandering through halls of Monet and Renoir. 

We had a very exciting celebrity sighting in the Musee d'Orsay. As we were leaving, Cathy nodded towards a woman and said she looked familiar. It was Helen Mirren! She was conversely politely in French with a small circle of fans. She is even more beautiful in person than on the screen. 

We had brought cheese sandwiches with us, to eat on a bench somewhere. Well, it was pouring rain when we left the Musee d'Orsay. So we opted to take our sandwiches down into the subway and eat them there. We sat on a platform, and munched away. It was actually pretty interesting to sit still at the subway, watching the people come and go. 

After our funny little lunch, we got on another train and headed to the Georges Pompidou Centre for Modern Art. This is one of my favourite museums, partly because of its design (it's inside out), and because it houses the work of one of my favourite artists, Kandinsky. 

After I had had my fill of Art (I think my sisters had patiently been waiting for that moment for a while), we set off to wander through the Marais neighbourhood to dinner in the Bastille district. 

My biggest pet peeve of this trip was the number of narcissistic people who stand in front of incredible works of Art and take pictures of THEMSELVES!

We headed to the Bastille neighbourhood, because we had a reservation at a VEGAN gourmet restaurant. It is called the Gentle Gourmet, and the meal was wonderful. 

Sisters in Paris

Thursday - Mind-blowing Art and Views! and Prices!

At Tiffany's. They didn't invite us for breakfast.

Part of the planning for our trip involved each of us choosing at least one thing that we really really wanted to do. Thursday we made a real effort to check some of those things off our list. 

We started the day with breakfast at the cafe on the ile de la cite where we had our first Parisian meal. Darlene was very pleased with the design on her cafe au lait. 

After breakfast, we headed to Sainte-Chapelle, because that was a major attraction on my list. Even though I have lived in Paris, and visited many times, I had never been into Sainte-Chapelle,  because of the extremely long lines. One of the reasons the lines at Sainte-Chapelle are so long is because it is inside the Palace of Justice complex, which is a working government institution. So visitors all have to go through security, which is time-consuming. 

Sainte-Chapelle was built in 6 short years, between 1242 and 1248, to house the Crown of Thorns worn by Christ.

When you enter the chapel on the ground floor, you see lots of pretty windows and painted columns. 

And then you climb up a set of windy stairs in dim light. When you step out of the stairwell, behold! 6,500 square feet of stained glass; 1,100 different panels! You literally step into glorious coloured light. 

And remember, every one of these panels was made by hand. The glass itself had to be manufactured and coloured by hand, and then cut into the necessary shapes to make the incredible details in the panels.  

There were two school groups in the chapel while we were there. The teachers had given them mirrors to use as drawing aids. Whenever one of the teachers "shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'd," ALL of the people in the chapel, even the tour guides, lowered their voices!

After reluctantly leaving Sainte-Chapelle, we strolled along the Seine (Cathy bought a painting on the way), and through the Tuileries Gardens. Our destination was the Orangerie, an Art Museum near the Place de la Concorde.

The Orangerie is the home of Monet's incredible 'Water Lilies,' painted over six  years at Monet's home in Giverny. The paintings were Monet's gift to the French people, a gesture and a prayer for hope and rest and peace. There are eight huge panels displayed in two oval rooms. Visitors stand or sit in the middle of the panels, immersed in a way in Monet's vision of the beautiful lily pond. He painted different parts of the pond at different parts of the day. The paintings are about more than flowers, they are about light, and water, and change. They are about Monet's strange and beautiful way of looking at the world. 

The next item on our wish list was a walk up the Champs Elysees. One of the highlights of the stroll was a stop at Tiffany's, where I was gobsmacked by the outrageous amounts of money that some people can spend on jewellery. 30,000 euros for a watch!!! A million dollars for a ring!!!! I can be a bit foolhardy with my money (artwork, books, artwork, books, artwork, books), but I can't even wrap my head around having that amount of money, and then SPENDING that amount of money on a watch!!!! 

fashion victim?

Our goal for the day had been to arrive at the Arc de Triomphe before sunset, so that we could see the change over the city with nightfall. We did it. We climbed 284 steps. We did it. 

And it was worth it.