Paris: Ce qui vaut la peine d'être fait vaut la peine d'être bien fait.

My mom and two of her friends, Lois and Jeanette, came to visit in Zurich for a few days before the four of us headed off to spend the rest of the week in Paris. Although I hadn't been to Paris for five years or so, this being my fifth time qualified me as the de facto tour guide. Lois and Jeanette had never been, and the last time my mom went was over fifteen years ago, and she was pretty busy with the three of us, leaving the navigating mostly to my dad.

We took the early TGV (train a grand vitesse, or, roughly translated, very fast train) from Zurich to Paris' Gare Lyon. I didn't bring my camera for most of the first or second day, when we went to Notre Dame, the Pont Neuf, and Les Halles, Sacre Coeur, the Louvre, and the Musee d'Orsay. That night, we went to the metro stop aross from the Eiffel Tower to see it alit for night. Every hour on the hour from 9:00 until 2:00 am for ten minutes it sparkles, which we caught the tail end of.

The next morning, we set out to see the catacombs, the one sight I had on my personal agenda that I really wanted to see, having not covered it in any previous trips to Paris. When we got to the entrance, it was closed, with a sign saying it was being renovated to provide better visitor access and wouldn't be reopened until June! I stood there for a second, literally pouting and stamping my feet. Then, a guy came up and explained in French that he worked there and that he was sorry. He said we could tour the sewers at another place in the city and gave me a brochure. Not what I was looking for, but it made me feel better to have someone sympathize!

We decided to go and see the famous Montparnasse Cemetery nearby since we were there already. It's not as famous as the Pere La Chaise Cemetary where Jim Morrison is buried, but I've already seen that one, and there are always so many hippies wandering around that it detracts from the experience. By contrast, Montparnasse was a vision of tranquility, and it was a nice break from the chaos of the city.

Next, it was on to the Place des Invalides, which is kind of an odd complex of buildings. Literally translated, it means the "place of the invalids", and indeed, there is still a sort of convalescent home there, possibly once reserved for veterans? Also in the complex is a museum of French military history. (Try typing the following into Google: "French military victories" and then hit the 'I'm feeling lucky' button.) On the top floor of the building is a museum with scale models of French cities and fortresses. At the far end of the courtyard is a church. What most tourists come to see, though, is Napolean's tomb, in a building at the back of the complex topped with a golden cupola. The whole complex is surrounded by beautiful gardens.

Inside the courtyard, there were a bunch of soldiers do some sort of military exercise. I also saw some American women doing a military exercise with a canon too!

This shot is from the sunken area where Napolean's porphyri (an expensive, rare sort of dark red colored granite) sarcophagus lies upwards towards the decorated interior of the cupola.

The next stop was the Rodin museum, which I rank as my #2 favorite museum in Paris, right behind the Musee d'Orsay. The museum itself is what was once the sculptor's studio, which I think should get bonus points, the grounds are beautiful, and the exhibits are very well laid out, scattered throughout the house and garden. We rented audioguides for our visit, which were well done. I think one of the most appealing sculptures in the museum is "The Kiss", although apparently Rodin never thought this piece represented his best work because he thought it was too traditional or formulaic in its layout.

This is the garden behind the museum, where we strolled for a bit to catch a few intermittent rays of sun, and then had our coffee break afterward.

After that, it was onward to the Centre George Pompidou, another of my favorite places in Paris. This building is famous from an architectural perspective for being the first to bring the pipe work and other inner structure of the building to the exterior, leaving the interior a large, uninterrupted open space. (Side note: The Clark Center at Stanford is just one of the latest examples of another building to make use of the design priciples pioneered by the Centre Pompidou.) The most striking feature of the building is the escalators, which like everything else, have been moved to the exterior of the building, and transport people up to the six floors of the building through large tubes.

On the second floor is a great shop for modern design doodads and on the fifth and sixth floors is one of the best museums in the world for modern and contemporary art.
Back on the metro to head back to our hotel for happy hour, then dinner..

We checked the weather report on Friday and it was good news...il va faire du soleil!...finally the day for Versailles. On the walk to the chateau from the train station we bought provisions at the open air market pour faire du picnic.

Then, on to the chateau. Signs claimed that they have just claimed to have completed a renovation to make Versailles more user-friendly, however, it took us forever to find the ticket office and buy a ticket and then the Hall of Mirrors was half closed, so I wasn't too impressed. Seemed kind of like typical French bureaucracy.
A statue of Louis the XIV, the Sun King, who built Versailles.

The royal chapel at Versailles.

The Hall of Mirrors, which would have been even more impressive in the 17th century when mirrors were hard to come by and expensive.

The queen's bedroom--at one time belonging to Marie Antoinette.

The garden:

Next stop was the Grand Trianon, the hunting lodge that was originally the only building on the property before Louis the XVI decided to build Versailles. In my opinion, it's actually a lot more tasteful than Versailles.

Since we had such a nice day, we finished our scrumptious picnic lunch and headed back to Paris to go up the Eiffel Tower while it was still clear and sunny. After we fought the lines, we finally managed it.

From the second level:

From the top:

From the bottom, where the gardens were all in bloom and beautiful:

The next day, we dedicated to shopping. In that spirit, and at the request of my francophile and all-around fashionable friend Kate, I'll give a run down of the Paris fashion report. First, lots of orange. (Doesn't look good on me, but maybe it looks good on you?) Also, the gypsy look is way back in (or maybe it never went out, but I just never really was into it). Not too practical for most people, but there were some plain kind of ruched three-quarter length skirts that were showing up everywhere in white and black and sage green. Also, ballet shoes all over the place of all kinds. Not just flats either. Some had ballet toes and then a heel. Also, a lot of women wearing gauzy scarves, even younger women and teenagers, not like you'd see in the US. I also noticed a lot of Guru t-shirts.

Then, time for me to take my first solo night train, which I did with no problems.