Paris part 2 (tourist stuff)

Accomadation dramas aside we have seen a lot of amazing stuff here. A quick round up includes:

* the Louvre – quite astounding building (the Grand Hall certainly lives up to its name) and the architecture is just one part of the experience of course with so much important art housed here it is a must see. Just be prepared for all the other tourists to annoy the hell out of you (or maybe thats just me). In addition to the art J reports that the Napoleonic apartments were really interesting and completely over the top; giant chandeliers, gold on the walls etc etc (i missed that bit as i was wandering around looking at thousands of French paintings in another wing). We returned on another day to check out some more and saw the Mona Lisa which frankly was not very exciting, so much of the surrounding art was more appealing and didnt have a thousand tourists taking photos with their mobile phones. 

* Notre Dame – for some reason i expected this to be much bigger, dont get me wrong it is pretty huge and impressive just that i had visions of something far larger (same goes for the Eiffel Tower but i’ll come back to that). At Notre Dame we also went into the underground archeological site which was impressive in size and presentation chronicalling centuries of history on that site.

* The Arc de Triumph is suitably impressive but the traffic takes away from the spectacle somewhat as do poxy Italian tourists trying to get their wives to pose in areas beyond the barrier to take photos with thier phone (a prevelant trend that i just fail to understand) but still taking ages to get just the right pose and getting in the way of everyone elses view. Champs Elysee just looks like a big shopping mall with very high prices and yet more tourists (yeah i know we are also tourists but at least we dont stand around taking photos of store windows or in the fake snow and xmas trees that were erected on the side of the street).

* my personal highlight so far has been the visit to the Centre Pompidou with its fantastic post modern building  and incredible collection of contemporary art (i was so excited apparently i kept grinning and making exclamations of amazement according to J). There was a special exhibition on film in art in addition to the likes of Warhol, Du Champ, Raushenberg, Longo etc etc etc etc you get the idea. Am going to go back another day to see bits we didnt get to so far.

* the Eifell Tower looks kind of impressive from a distance on the skyline but up close is rather underwhelming and smaller than i thought it would be.

* went to the Sewers of Paris ‘museum’ which is situated in part of the actual working sewer system (and smells it too, you can see the waste water running past…) this was really interesting and had a quite informative display of the history of the sewerage systems development from the Roman era, definately worth putting up with the odour. Although am glad that didn’t experience the ’1 metre diameter methane bubbles’ of the open sewers of the 1800s…

* Saint Chapelle – stunning stained glass windows in this historic gothic church from the 13th century.

next part – observations re tourists, parisian waiters and sweets, marketing and other miscelania