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The train from Florence made its way through Northern Italy, until Turin which is close to the border and I changed trains there. Then we went through the Alps and entered France. There was snow right outside - according to my mother, the ideal distance from snow!
Finally I was at Paris' massive Gare de Lyon station. The crisscross of signs to the various metro and RER lines was a bit overwhelming, but I would figure it out soon enough, plus my friend Dia had come to pick me up. I made a note of the station that would be my jumping-off point for the next few days, Joinville-le-Pont.
The next day it was time to stock up, so we went to Franprix, the nearby supermarket. Packaged foods in Europe just come in bigger sizes. We picked up different kinds of cheese among other staples. I would later discover that I actually like blue cheese! Does that put me in the minority?
The first tourist spot we went to was the Panthéon. It is a historical church, and the underground crypt has resting places of many prominent French people.
The church has French nationalist artwork juxtaposed with contemporary installations with an anti-war theme. Foucault's pendulum would also normally be there but it was sadly under maintenance. (Don't ask me what maintenance a pendulum needs. I don't know.)
Outside, I had my first view of the Eiffel tower! I would be seeing it a lot over the next few days.
A friend, Sravanthi (ex-TIFR now in Berlin) happened to be in the city, so we decided to have dinner together. We popped into some fandom merchandise stores before having dinner at a Mexican restaurant.
Dimanche! Full of possibilities. Sricharan was coming over from Vienna, and we decided to meet at Arc de Triomphe.
We then took a walk along the Champs-Élysées.
A couple of turns later, we were at the Seine. Pictures of the Eiffel Tower cannot prepare you for its size. It's very big! And really just a lot of steel. You might know how much pushback it got at the time of its construction. It's true that it doesn't immediately mesh with the rest of the architecture. But the symmetry and the curve are nice to look at. There are also scientists' names inscribed along the sides.
We had lunch at a Hawaiian poké bowl place. Self-service menus are the best.
Since both of us love languages and linguistics, the Mundolingua museum was a no-brainer. It's small in size but filled with activities, multimedia, props and books. Everything is in the 6 official UN languages. I learnt a lot about field linguistics, language learning, calligraphy and what not. We spent hours there - including getting full marks in a language matching quiz!
It was cold and drizzly when we got out, so we took shelter in Saint-Sulpice church, which was actually very beautiful and in fact, mass was happening there.
Then for dinner, we went to Le Restaurant Vingt. I had never heard of raclette, so that's what I ordered. Basically, it is a segment of a cheese wheel mounted to a heating apparatus that they bring to your table. As the cheese melts, you collect it and pour it over whatever main dish you ordered (salad, in my case). Quite like a game, as you adjust the angle of the coil if it is heating too fast or too slowly. Very filling too!
On Monday morning we decided to look at the Louvre from outside. My official opinion is that the pyramid is actually jarring, even if it is by now iconic. Sorry!
I had forgotten that the FIA is headquartered in Paris. The Google Maps page is full of bad reviews from the contentious 2021 Abu Dhabi GP (nothing to do with this actual place, which I'm sure is nice).
We then walked through the Tuileries gardens, to the Musée de l'Orangerie. It houses Claude Monet's famous Water Lilies, eight large paintings arranged across two rooms in an infinity shape, as a meditation spot to bring about peace after World War I.
There is also other modern art, mostly curated by Guillaume Apollinaire and Paul Guillaume.
We then decided to make our way to Montmartre. We went through Concorde metro station, which was curiously covered in lettered tiles but I couldn't make out what they spelt. Turns out, it's the text of the 1789 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. This station also inspired poet (and fascist) Ezra Pound's "In a Station of the Metro":
The apparition of these faces in the crowd:
Petals on a wet, black bough.
Soon we were at Montmartre. It's a short walk up, but there is also a small winch that honestly seemed more fun so that's what we took.
Atop the hill is the Sacré-Coeur Basilica, to praise the Sacred Heart of Jesus. It was built in 1870 following France's defeat to Prussia and failure to protect the Pope, as part of a national atonement. Helpfully, there were signs explaining the significance of everything, and who appears in each painting and sculpture. The ceiling has a massive mosaic of Christ in Majesty.
And the view from the hill is gorgeous.
There are also lots of restaurants, cafes, bars, galleries and souvenir shops on the hill. A small town square features many artists and caricaturists. When some musicians were playing the accordion to entertain diners, that was possibly the most French moment of my life.
Browsing through events in Paris that day, we saw that a jazz recital was happening at a restaurant, so we headed there. But first, we wanted to see the hourly light-up show of the Eiffel tower. We had to sprint a little to get to an open space on the hour, but it was totally worth it.
The jazz recital was Adriana Marrero on vocals with a band including Mathieu Meyer on piano who was great.
I had all day to recharge on Tuesday, since it was a day of a rail strike. The workers were striking in response to a government move to raise the retirement age. So, a good day to stay in, eat microwaved pizza and watch Netflix.
The next day I went to the north-east corner of the city, to the science museum Cité des Sciences et de l'Industrie (CSI). It is sprawling. The student price is 3 euros.
I first went to an exhibit about cancer: the causes, treatments and other issues.
Right next to it is something much more cheery - the brain and cognition. That one has lots of illusions and games, to illustrate points about perception, computation, learning and other things the brain does.
The robots section has some working robots you can talk to, and one that interprets your facial expressions.
The mathematics section is a fun one, with demos about geometry, curves, probability, fractals and so on. I correctly predicted where the ball would fall in a Galton board, and the program crashed. Oops.
There is a history of the universe section, where you can touch and feel rocks, and an activity where you carbon-date a rock. It leads into an astronomy section, where among other things you can triangulate the distance of a "star" across the room using telescope angles.
The planetarium show was in French, but enjoyable nonetheless because of the visuals.
One of the big draws is the Argonaute, a real submarine of the French navy, now repurposed for public viewing (but no photography inside!). There are also undersea exploration-related demos nearby. I was really bad at the submarine simulator.
Not only did I not get to do the other things I had planned that day (like the nearby music museum), I didn't even see everything at CSI! I had to skip the aquarium, for one. Many things for the "next trip" basket.
On the Seine riverbank near Notre Dame is a famous English-language bookstore, Shakespeare and Company. Apart from a nice wide range, it also has a sitting area upstairs where you can browse through hundreds of second-hand books.
I have written on this blog about how I like snail mail. So when I found out that Paris has a postage museum, I absolutely had to visit. It's located near the infamous Tour Montparnasse, which does look pretty bad towering over the rest of Paris, but by itself looks like any building in Lower Parel.
The postage museum is free for students. The text accompanying the exhibits is entirely in French, but there is an English audioguide which I availed of. I first went to the kids' exhibition with postage-related toys and costumes, and also letters to and fro Santa Claus. In the mid-20th century, the postage department created a special secretariat to respond to the thousands of letters (and now emails) to Santa Claus (Père Noël in French).
The main museum has lots of artefacts relating to the history of postage and communication.
I had a nice time. Even the gift shop had various interesting items; I bought a toy solar-powered wooden postage delivery car for my brother.
After lunch at a nearby Subway I walked towards the UNESCO headquarters nearby. The building is not open to the public except for monthly guided tours - I will factor that in when planning my next visit!
The Rodin museum is a short walk from there. I did not know much about his work apart from the Thinker, so I went in quite fresh. The museum consists of two buildings - one smaller one with the ticket counter and temporary exhibit, and the larger house with permanent exhibits - and also a garden with his larger-sized works.
The temporary exhibition was about his fascination with Egyptian art and how his own work was inspired by it. It seemed like a genuinely respectful interest and not weirdly colonial, which was nice.
In the house, there were works arranged in roughly chronological order but also some similar works or themes grouped together. My favourite works of his were those where the subjects seemed to be caught mid-action.
There were also smaller versions of the Thinker, Eve, the Burghers of Calais, and other ones I would see outside.
And having seen his life story and work, it was time to step outside and look at his magnum opuses (opi?).
The Gates of Hell consists of scores of tiny figures, depicting a scene from Dante's Inferno. It is flanked by Adam and Eve.
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I would definitely recommend this museum. It is of a manageable size and has a nice calming feel, apart from Rodin's excellent works of course. You can also get a combined ticket for this museum and Musée d'Orsay.
The sun was still up at closing time so I took a bus to Champ de Mars, the park near the Eiffel Tower, to catch the light-up show again. I wanted maximum Paris per Paris, what can I say.
The next day it was finally Louvre time. I had pre-booked an entry ticket, but decided to get an audioguide at the site. It was a good decision and well worth the 5 euros. The guide is in fact a Nintendo 3DS, which has trails and route maps apart from information about specific pieces. You can even select from a list of prominent pieces and it will give you directions to go there from where you are, along with a time estimate.
The lobby is under the pyramid, and from there you enter the three wings. Broadly, the Denon wing has ancient Greek sculptures, pre-Renaissance and Renaissance period art. The Richelieu wing has slightly more recent sculptures, decorative items, pieces from Asia and Northern European art. The Sully wing (which I didn't touch) has prints and drawings among other things.
I first went to Denon to see the Greek sculptures and then proceeded to the paintings.
The paintings are in the famous Red Rooms and Grande Gallerie. The walls are just covered and they vie for your attention.
The Mona Lisa is the centrepiece of her own room with a separate queue!
Facing her is Veronese's Wedding Feast at Cana, a fictionalized rendering of the miracle of Jesus turning water to wine.
Delacroix's Liberty Leading the People and Géricault's Raft of the Medusa are politically charged paintings, controversial in their time.
There are several restaurants and cafes inside. I had a (quite overpriced) sandwich and espresso and then proceeded to Richelieu. The sculpture gallery has lots of people quietly sitting and sketching.
Overall, in about 5 hours, I saw some 15-20% of the Louvre, with "saw" ranging from "glanced at" to "spent 5 minutes looking at from various angles while listening to its history". I would say to look up what galleries are there and in which wing, and maybe mark a few big things you want to see, but don't over-plan. The enjoyment is in seeing what draws you and being surprised by what you discover. You might find that Leonardo and Rembrandt are a cut above the rest, or you might find a relatively obscure work to be your new favourite.
I then took a bus to meet Yajur, a CMI junior, at the Palais Galliera where a Frida Kahlo exhibition was on. Unfortunately, tickets were all sold out, so we just walked around. We saw the Palais de Tokyo, a contemporary art gallery, from outside, and then made our way to the Trocadéro gardens facing - yes, you guessed it - the Eiffel tower. Nearby was a street pianist, with a decidedly un-romantic playlist that included Creep by Radiohead.
It took us forever to decide a place to eat, but we finally went with a Vietnamese place that had a full-page Menu Végétarien. And for dessert we had baklava from a Greek restaurant on the next street. Paris is the capital of the world!
On Saturday I met Neha in southern Paris where we were supposed to see the Catacombs. Unfortunately that too was completely sold out. What rotten luck to have this happen twice in 15 hours, in the off-season! We had some hot chocolate nearby and decided to go to Château de Sceaux, an aristocratic house. It was a bit of a walk from the nearest station (rare, in the Paris web of public transport). It is a quaint house overlooking a nice garden.
We then met up with Yajur and went to Musée d'Orsay. This museum used to be a railway station, as one can see.
The big draw here is the Impressionist artwork of Claude Monet, Édouard Manet and others.
On the same floor is some work by Vincent van Gogh and other post-Impressionists.
It was closing time, so we didn't get to see anything else there. One four-cheese pizza later it was time to walk to Châtelet-Le Halles one last time. It was adieu to the Seine, the Louvre Pyramid, and of course my good friend Tour Eiffel. As if to close out my trip with something memorable, there was live folk music at the railway station - percussion with vegetables!
I did fall in love with Paris' trains in the course of the week. The Metro is one of the oldest in the world, and the stations and entrances are distinctly beautiful (although the font with station names outside is strangely reminiscent of a horror movie). The connectivity is excellent and the signage is very helpful, as is the RATP website. The RER (pronounced er-oh-er) lines are newer. It was fun repeating after the announcer as French pronunciation is internally consistent but amusing to non-native speakers. vuh-SEN-nuh. (Vincennes.)
While reliving this trip for this article I found many YouTube videos preserving the sounds of the train system, for other romantics. I miss it already!
My only problem was the strangely unreliable ticket vending system. Luckily I managed to get a Navigo card, since it was available for youths in the weekend and I just recharged it for the weekdays too. It still didn't let me through on one or two occasions. The "Paris visite" 1-day or 3-day passes are even less reliable, as my friend Sricharan discovered. Because of the sheer number of passengers, it's not feasible to hold up everyone having a ticket issue, and so if you are having a problem the authorities will likely just let you through without asking too many questions. Still, I was expecting a city like this to run smoother. I saw plenty of people simply jumping over the gates!
Charles de Gaulle airport is beautiful and luxurious, and makes you almost forget you're leaving the most beautiful city in the world [citation needed].
I do have unfinished business - apart from the places I mentioned, there is the Palace of Versailles, even Roland Garros... I will be back! À plus tard, Paris...
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