This post is dedicated to the last half of our trip in Paris. We had the best time, and Paris is just as beautiful-romantic-magical as it seems in the movies. We've never been anywhere like it! The city is just sooo big. It's overwhelming to look out at the horizon and realize that your eye can't see anything beyond Paris buildings. It is all encompassing in a way that makes New York feel small, and I certainly never thought that was possible.
We took this photo during a run to the top of Montmartre. I mean, look at that view! It's just incredible.
We started off our first day in Paris with a long run through the city. After dropping our luggage off at the Airbnb (which had excellent instructions on how to get in, thank goodness!), we headed back out to explore. We ended up run/walking for almost 3 hours, and we saw so much of the city!
This is a picture of the cuuuuutest street ever where our AirBnb was.
Next, we ran to the Arc de Triomphe. I didn't know this beforehand, but we discovered that it is in the middle of a huge traffic roundabout. You have to walk through an underground tunnel to get to it! The traffic roundabout surrounding it is so dangerous to cross that they built a tunnel for pedestrians to safely get to the center.
{Luxembourg gardens}
We didn't really spend time at the Luxembourg Gardens because it wasn't one of the "top 5" sites to see in the city. But that is the amazing thing about Paris! Everywhere you look there is a building that would easily be the main attraction anywhere else, but in Paris, it's just another street corner.
We went to the Eiffel Tower the first night we arrived in Paris, and it really was magical. For starters, the engineering is so intricate and incredible. I can't imagine designing it, much less building it. We were waiting in line just as the sun was setting, which was perfect timing to see it in all the different kinds of light. By the time we got to the top of the tower it was dark, and the city was glowing! We also learned that Mr. Eiffel had a private apartment built at the top of the tower where he would occasionally entertain visitors. Thomas Edison was one of his visitors. Personally, it was a little too high for me to just hang out up there...but to each their own.
{View from the top!}
We decided to spend one of our rainy days at the Louvre. We arrived at open and left at close, which wasn't too difficult to accomplish with the help of the audio guides. There is so much history packed into one building, it's pretty unreal.
We made sure to see the Mona Lisa, of course! Although the painting is unexpectedly small, it was still such a bucket list thing to do. I'd say she's worth it.
My favorite piece in the Louvre though, is this statue of Athena Nike. Not only did I learn about her in my Art History classes in college, but I've always had an affinity for her because of what she means to me as a runner. She was the original inspiration for the Nike logo, and I just feel like she represents so much of what I love about running: speed, strength, victory, grace, beauty...all in one. Her official name is "Winged Victory of Samothrace" or the "The Winged Nike". I just love her so much!!
One of the coolest things we did was the Paris Catacombs. The catacombs are a network of underground tunnels that were originally rock quarries used to mine limestone. The tunnel system is located directly underneath the city of Paris. For many years, the limestone was mined without thought to the structural damage that it might be causing the city above. In the late 1700's (during the reign of King Louis the XVI, of Versailles fame), entire blocks of the city began to sink and collapse into the ground.
At the same time as this structural damage was occurring underground, even more problems with the city's cemeteries were occurring above ground. The city's dead had long ago exceeded the capacity of Paris' cemeteries. As a result, older graves were being dug up, and bones were being placed into cemetery walls in order to make room for more bodies in the graveyards. Eventually, things got so bad that cemetery walls were collapsing, and the stench was too much for the locals to bear. Yikes!
To make a long story short...the Parisian government decided to kill two birds with one stone. They agreed to reinforce the entire underground tunnel system, and at the same time move the bones of as many bodies as they could to these tunnels for storage. It took the city 2 years to move the majority of the bones from the city's cemeteries to the underground tunnels. In total, the Catacombs house the bones of over 6 million people. It wasn't until 1810 that the city transformed the catacombs into a public museum.
{The mining tunnels}
{The bones...pretty creepy}
{Notre Dame!}
Notre Dame was incredible, both inside and out. We listened to the audio tours everywhere we went, and we learned so much about everything. It was so awesome!
We also spent an entire day at Versailles. I cannot even begin to describe the Palace of Versailles...I have never seen anything like it. The opulence and excess of the palace and gardens is just so extreme. Every tiny detail seems to have been painstakingly hand crafted, and almost nothing is not gilded in gold. It is stunning and crazy all at the same time. It's no wonder that the French people started a revolution. Both King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (the last absolute monarchs to live at the Palace of Versailles) were beheaded in 1793.
{The entrance gates}
{An overview of the entry}
{Hall of Mirrors}
The property from the Palace to the end of the gardens is 3 miles long!
Originally, the Palace of Versailles was built to be a summer home away from the city. Apparently, that wasn't enough. Eventually, the King and Queen required summer homes away from their summer home. At the edge of the property sits the Grand Trianon, which was a separate "quiet" home for the king. Next to it sits the Petit Trianon, which was a separate home for the Queen.
In addition to their homes away from their home away from home, Marie Antoinette required her own separate gardens that were called the Queen's Hamlet. She was always intrigued by the life of English peasants, and so she requested the recreation of an entire English peasant village, complete with a farm. So basically, Marie Antoinette, who literally had everything, wanted to pretend to be a poor English peasant who had nothing. That wouldn't make anyone mad or anything.
{The lake at the Queen's Hamlet}
{One of the farmhouses at the Queen's Hamlet}
{A fake English peasant home}
We stayed at the palace until closing time. We were some of the last tourists to leave, and I actually got some really neat photos of the entrance without a single person in the picture!
This is a picture of the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, or Sacre-Coeur Basilica in French. It sits at the summit of Montmartre, which is the highest hill in the city! Besides the top of the Eiffel Tower, this spot has the most amazing views of the city.
Just down the hill is the Moulin Rouge. It's much smaller than I expected. We literally just ran by and took a picture.
On the last day, we went to the Musee d'Orsay. This is the Impressionist museum, and possibly the thing I was most excited about seeing in all of Paris! It didn't disappoint! I saw SO many of my favorite pieces of art that I had read about in my Art History classes. This is only one of my absolute favorites. This is a sculpture by Degas called "The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years". The original wax sculpture is actually in D.C., but there are bronze copies of this little dancer in museums all over the world. They made 28 copies of her to share with the world.
This is a picture of our last breakfast in Paris, enjoying our final Parisian croissants! Oh Paris, we miss you so much!
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