The Terrible Catsafterme

How many days of your life can you say that you got to ride the Pinnochio ride at Disney (which features a reproduction of the Mona Lisa) and see the actual Mona Lisa in the same day? By all accounts of my life so far, only one…and it was on Monday, July 14, 2008. After departing Paris Disneyland at about 1pm, The Wileys, David, and I walked back to our room at the Newport Bay Club, and got ready to embark on the second portion of the day’s adventures in Paris.

After getting past the language barrier, we were able to purchase tickets at the Marne-la-Vallée – Chessy train station adjacent to the Disney complex to make our way into downtown Paris. None of us spoke French except for the occasional merci or Parlez-vous l’Anglais, so we occasionally felt like fish out of toilets. So anyway, we puchased our tickets and made it to the world-famous Louvre by 3pm.

David, Jimmy, Jimmy, and Kris ridin’ the rails to Gay Paree

For those of you who have lived in a closet all your lives, the Louvre is the world’s most famous and most visited art museum, not to mention a French historic monument. The museum began as a fortress built in the 12th century and over the next few centuries, it was expanded to its present form of over 60,000 square meters. After being used as a palace by Louis XIV for many years, it was decreed that it should be used as a public museum after the French Revolution. How appropriate that we visited it on the day that we did!

The first thing that struck me about the musum was that it was packed wall-to-wall with people. I had expected it to be crowded, but nothing like this. We were also perplexed that they didn’t ask for the tickets which we had pre-purchased for $20 over the internet. Everyone was being let in for free. Eventually Kris (as she usually does) asked a museum worker just what on earth was going on. That is when we found out that it was in fact July 14 – or better known to the French as Fête Nationale (National Celebration).

We are more familiar with the holiday as Bastille Day, roughly the equivalent of our Independence Day. It was on this day in 1789 that the French uprising took place when revolutionaries stormed the Bastille fortress prison, a symbolic event during the French Revolution. So in one regard, it was kind of cool to say that we visited Paris on Bastille Day, but on the other hand, it ended up being somewhat of an inconvenience to our ugly American selves.

Although the Louvre was crowded, it is so incredibly huge that we were easily able to see all of the major works of art that we wanted during our nearly two-hour visit. It is laughable to think that you can visit the Louvre appropriately in less than two hours – especially considering the fact that it houses nearly 35,000 works of art from the Ancient Egyptians to the 20th centure – but we did our best.

The second thing that struck me as odd was the fact that there was no prohibition of photographs, nor were there many barriers to actually touching the works of art – if one wanted to. The paintings were simply hanging on the walls unprotected right there in front of us, the sculptures displayed right in the middle of the floor. I shuddered to think of the damage that could have been inflicted by someone with the sneezes.

Big artwork in the Louvre, hopefully sneeze-free

Of course the two major, major works of art were in fact protected…and guarded from being touched: the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci and the Venus de Milo sculpture. Although I knew that there would be crowds trying to see the Mona Lisa, I was at least expecting that everyone would calmly wait in line for their turn. Instead this is what I found:

The crowds flock to the Mona Lisa as if she were Britney Spears

So in true French fashion, I decided to exercise both my rudeness and (ahem) toughness to merely work my way to the front of the crowd within minutes. There I was able to snap a photo of the Mona Lisa, with the Mona Lisa, and best yet a picture of my cousin Andrew’s work of art that he had created at the Fourth of July party next to the Mona Lisa. I later found another nice site to display his artwork on the wall of the Louvre so that Andrew could always say that, even if it was only for a minute, his artwork hung in the Louvre.

 My photo of the now-bullet-proof Mona Lisa

 Mona Lisa and Goatee Brad

 Andrew Amstutz’ artwork next to the Mona Lisa. Compare and you will see obvious similarities.

Andrew’s work hangs elsewhere in the Louvre

The Venus de Milo (attributed to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch) had less of the crowds around it, so it was much easier to get an up-close photo of and with it. The other item that I was interested in seeing in the Louvre was the Code of Hammurabi, which in my Biblical studies I had learned was the oldest example of an ancient law code – that of the Babylonians. It dated back to about 1760 BC and was discovered in Iran in 1901. It was pretty amazing to see this item as well.

 The Venus de Milo and me: two armless dudes talking shop

 The rarely seen Venus butt crack

The amazing Code of Hammurabi

We speed-walked though most of the museum, taking in all that we could in the short amount of time that we had, even seeing the one section that remained of the medieval portion of the Louvre. Then we went outside to briefly enjoy the massive crowds in the courtyard between the three wings of the building. It was then time to move on, catch another train, and head over to Notre Dame de Paris.

Chillin’ at the Louvre

Although there are several Notre Dame cathedrals in the world, the one in Paris is certainly the most famous, due to its revolutionary French Gothic architecture. It was completed in 1345, taking nearly two centuries to build. It is also the site where the ficitonal hunchback lived in Victor Hugo’s The Hunchback of Notre Dame…and more importantly was featured in Disney’s version as well!

As we walked from the train station to the church, I stopped along the way to get a couple photos of the lovely and famous Seine River. This area of Paris was by the far the nicest that I saw throughout our brief visit. Notre Dame itself was huge, massive, stunning, and beautiful. A mass was beginning as we entered and we stayed to watch a bit of it from afar, never taking a seat. We were there for only about 30 minutes.

 I’m there on the steps leading down to the Seine

 Me and some more famous water, that portrayed in Laurel and Hardy’s The Flying Deuces

 Hunchback at Notre Dame

 Proving my location

One of the many memorial monuments inside Notre Dame, this one of Sainte Jeanne Darc (1412-1431)

A last shot of this beautiful structure

As it was about 6pm by this time, we were all getting hungry and all of us were anxious to sit down to some authentic French food. So as we walked back toward the train station, we chose a nice little cafe called De Notre Terrior, which offered Cuisine Traditionelle. I had the L’épouse – which is omelette jambon, fromage et pomme de terre (ham, cheese, and potatoes omelet) – with frites and a salad. They had a special on wine, which allowed me to get a small carafe of red wine (Côtes du Brouilly) for about four euros. This was about half the cost of one glass of soda (which was going for about twelve American dollars here). Overall the meal was good, nothing spectacular, but certainly a nice sampling of some authentic French cuisine. Our waiter was extremely friendly and disspelled some of our reservations about the ‘politeness’ of the French people. He was obviously working for those American tips.

Dining at a nice outdoor cafe in Paris

Finally, it was time to see the main event of the day – the Eiffel Tower. We were a little concerned with the time that it might not work out for us to actually go up in it. Of course, we were still barely taking into consideration the fact that it was Bastille Day, which would completely stymie our efforts to take a ride to the top.

First off, the two train stations closest to the Eiffel Tower were both closed down because of the enormous crowds heading to the historic location. (And I won’t even mention those frantic moments when Jimmy thought that he had lost his family’s train passes). We were forced to get off at the closest station two stops away. From there it took almost one hour to walk to the Eiffel Tower. Along the way, we saw from afar the Grand Palace, an exhibition hall built for the 1900 Exposition Universelle (the World’s Fair), and Les Invalides, a complex of museums, chapels, and monuments. Napoleon Bonaparte is actually entombed in Saint Jerome’s Chapel in Les Invalides, but we didn’t see it.

 The Grand Palace in Paris

Les Invalides

When we finally arrived, huffing and puffing, we were greeted with about 400,000 (and growing numbers of) people all turned out to celebrate the holiday. A concert was going on in the park in front of the Tower, and although I had no idea who was playing, I later found out that James Blunt was the headliner. Obviously with this crowd present, there was no hope in attempting to go up in the Tower, but I did stand right under it. We also struggled with taking pictures because the sun was directly behind the Eiffel Tower. I think between both Jimmys and David trying to get an acceptable picture of me, we spent about 30 minutes doing nothing but that. In addition to the photo at the top of the posting, this is what we ended up with:

 Behind me is the Eiffel Tower. The one in Paris. Yeah baby.

 My photo of the Eiffel Tower without all the lighting enhancements

The Bastille Day Crowds on the Eiffel Tower park, enjoying the show at the far end opposite the Tower

Although the sun hadn’t gone down, we were able to see the flashing lights come on in the Eiffel Tower which gave us a glimpse as to why Paris is known as the City of Lights. It was quite a sight to behold and I admit that it was rather exciting to be there on Bastille Day, despite the inconvenience. Overall, it was hard to say how well I actually liked Paris under the circumstances of the crowds, the lack of time, and the limited areas we saw during our one evening in Paris. It would certainly merit going back for further exploration at some point.

My last photo in downtown Paris. Isn’t that a hoot?

At about 9:30, we began our hour-long trek back to the train station. At one of our train layovers, I actually broke down and purchased some bottled water out of a machine. It was the only water of the trip that I would pay for – but I never did pay to let it pass through my system. We got back to our room at Disney around midnight, exhausted, and with blistered toes from a very full day of walking. Before I went to sleep, I finished my Poco Loco barbecue tortilla chips. Believe it or not, we would have to be up early once again for our last day at Disneyland.

To be continued…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 4th, 2008 at 6:55 am and is filed under 2000's - Late, Historical Locations, Vacations. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.