November 4, 2006: Hitting some big sights

Staying up so late made it a short night. We jumped out of bed at 8, stopped at the same little pastry shop for breakfast (had the same little quiche and also a chocolate and pear tart—I could totally get used to this!) and tried a different place for café au lait. Then we headed to the Louvre by bus. I knew I could very easily get overwhelmed by it all, and I also knew we didn’t have a lot of time to see all of it, so I had told Anne I just wanted to hit the famous pieces and that would be good enough for me. Once we got inside, we bought Museum Passes and headed on in. We wandered a bit and saw some great sculptures in one big room, and kind of walked around there a bit, then we found each other again and went to go hit the “biggies.” First we came to “Winged Victory of Samothrace”, c. 190 B.C. According to Rick Steves: “This woman with wings, poised on the prow of a ship, once stood on a hilltop to commemorate a naval victory. Her clothes are windblown and sea sprayed…Originally, her right arm was stretched high, celebrating the victory like a Super Bowl champion, waving a “we’re number one” finger. “ She was beautiful! And according to the description at the museum, the best view of her was from her left, which shows more…motion(?) in the statue. Then we wandered through the corridors and saw the Venus de Milo, and followed the crowd to La Jaconde, the Mona Lisa. We saw some other gorgeous paintings (and ceilings! I’m going to have to have a painted ceiling in my house someday!), and then we left. In the park outside the Louvre, we took a break and each ate a banana, and then we headed to the Metro to get to the train to take us to Versailles.

Ah, Versailles. So beautiful in such an awful, gaudy way. All the excess makes you realize, “Well, no wonder there was a revolution!” It was extremely crowded and so hot inside…we were surprised at the crowds, even though it was a Saturday, because it’s November, NOT the height of tourist season! I cannot imagine how crowded and awful it must get during the summer. Ew. We wandered outside after seeing all the inside that we could stand, but it was too late to rent a little golf cart to go out into the gardens. We still saw the reflecting pool, which is an interesting optical illusion: it looks like it’s straight and all the same width down the length of it, as you look at it from the chateau…in reality, it is widest at the farthest point from the house, to provide that illusion. Cool!

We went back and wandered a bit in the town of Versailles and finally ate at a place that had galletes, and when I asked for a “carafe d’eau” the waiter teased me because I hadn’t specified a size. He wasn’t being mean at all, more a little flirtatious. On our way back to the train station we wandered though a little flea market.

Then we boarded the train and headed back to Paris.

Once home we stopped at the little grocery store near the apartment for a few things and called it a night. I nearly fell asleep at around 8 or 9, so we finally went to bed at about 10-ish. (Must've been all the fresh air at Versailles;)