Anyone remember the old cartoon Anastasia movie? I made Tex watch it with me a few weeks ago, because he had never seen it. The result: I’ve now had the song “Paris (Par-ee) holds the key to your heart” stuck in my head for basically a solid month, in anticipation of our trip to the City of Lights.
Let’s start with the gritty truth. Paris is crowded as all get-out. And it has been romanticized beyond any hope of actualization. And ultimately, it (along with any other place) does not hold the key to your heart, or at least not mine. I was reminded once more of our human expectations for the world to satisfy the longings within us, and how they will always remain unfulfilled. Only when we turn to the Maker of all and the Lover of all mankind, can we truly live abundantly and be made whole.
That being said, we did have a lovely time in Paris over New Years. I’d like to share with you some of the things we did…
Day 1: Versailles
>> After stopping for the night at a French gas station and bedding down in the back of our car (which was its own little adventure), we made our way to the Royal Palace of Versailles. What a grand place. It was filled to the brim with paintings and sculptures, rich floral draperies and rugs, fine furnishings and lavish chandeliers. Ever since I first read about Versailles as a child, I have wanted to see the Hall of Mirrors… Being there and imagining it full of great lords and ladies decked out in their finest– wow.
>> Perhaps the most surprising aspect of the day was the fact that Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were almost completely glossed over. Though we saw painting after painting of Louis XIV, also called the “Sun King,” and others much more obscure (to us, anyway) in the royal lineage, I truly don’t remember seeing a single one of Louis XVI and only a couple of his famous queen. The audio guides also said next to nothing about them. We were able to walk down about a mile from the palace to the Petit Trianon, where Marie Antoinette spent most of her married life. It too surprised me. This queen known for saying, “Let them eat cake,” lived a much less frivolous existence than I had ever imagined. The two-story house boasts a very minimal ground floor with empty stone walls and a tiny but tasteful upstairs suite as sleeping quarters. During her time as queen before the Revolution, she had a small, fairy-like hamlet built along with a small functioning farm. This was within walking distance of her home, and was delightful to see.
>> The two of us were famished by the end of the day’s constant walking. So we stopped at a small bakery on our way to the car. That bakery is where I found my new favorite pastry: pain au chocolat. This croissant-like bread filled with soft, but not completely melted, chocolate might be Tex’s new favorite too. So stinkin’ good!
Day 2: The Louvre and a full-course French meal
>> We learned the public transportation system fairly quickly, as our hotel was in the nearby town of Meudon. This has become one of our favorite things in all the big cities. Using buses and trains to get from one place to the next still feels like a grand adventure, and yet is also far less stressful than actually driving through the center of Paris with a confused GPS. We bought a 2-day city pass for both of us, which allowed us to hop on any subway at any time. That is definitely something we would do again.
>> We spent nearly 7 hours perusing room after room in the Louvre museum, and still didn’t see everything. I had no idea how huge that place is. It’s hard to even know what to write about it, because there was so much. Some of our favorite exhibits were the medieval and Renaissance Italian paintings, the ancient Egyptian artifacts (and real mummy!), and the ancient Persian art. It is just amazing how old some those things are and how well they have been preserved. Tex really loved seeing all the historical depictions of various battles and military heroes. My personal favorite was Carpaccio’s The Sermon of St. Stephen, which I would highly recommend looking up since I don’t have a good photo of it.
>> For our big French meal, I had done hours and hours of research, probably too much honestly. I had originally decided on a restaurant called Benoit, but some planning complications made us change our mind to Chez Paul. You can see their menu here. It’s a little hole-in-the-wall French bistro in the Bastille district, and was more reasonably priced than others with more limited menus. For an appetizer, we both ordered escargot… and loved it! The snails came without their shells, which made us joke that maybe we looked too American for the “shell-on” experience. Ha! For our main dishes, Tex ordered a veal kidney dish and I had rabbit legs stuffed with goat cheese. Mine was delicious, and Tex liked his, so I won’t go into any more depth on the kidneys… Blergh! For desserts, we got profiteroles with chocolate sauce and the apple tart, both of which were very tasty.
Please forgive me for the poor food photography going on… But I had to share!
Day 3: The Eiffel Tower and a stroll through the city
>> A chunk of the morning was spent waiting in line for the Eiffel Tower. I really think we could have saved a decent amount of time if we had bought tickets ahead of time. Now we know. But seeing the the tower’s structure and going up to the top was actually more impressive than either of us were expecting.
>> We used the rest of the day to see as much of Paris as we could. The Arc de Triomphe was accompanied by Nutella crepes, Notre-Dame Cathedral was followed by a peaceful walk in the gardens behind it, Sacre Coeur was an adventure by night that involved about 10 flights of stairs.
>> At midnight of New Year’s Eve, we wanted to see the Eiffel Tower lights twinkle. So, we prepared a small French picnic for our supper. We walked into a “Fromagerie,” or cheese shop, and walked out with some of the yummiest cheese I have ever tasted, a pretty strong Gruyere. I wish I really knew how to talk about cheese, because this was seriously wonderful. So we stuffed that into the backpack, along with some fresh baguette and lemon-flavored chocolate from a 400-year-old chocolate store. Somewhere along the way, we ran across a Christmas market, which was selling a yummy-looking potato and cheese dish. We decided to try it– “tartiflette” they call it. Finding a bench near the Eiffel Tower but away from the crowds of people, we sat down to our small feast. This was one of my favorite moments.
>> The final moments of our time in Paris were spent in a crowd of at least 100,000 people waiting for the midnight twinkling of the Eiffel Tower to usher in the New Year. A few seconds later, we were speed-walking to the nearest metro station in hopes of beating the masses. Which we did.
That is a rather long summary of our trip! Thank y’all for reading, and I hope that this new year will be one of blessings for you.
Hearth & Yonder 