Christmas in Paris

I met Hilary in Paris for Christmas to begin our 17 day trip across Europe. We tried to find our hotel from the map and directions, but we ended up having to get a taxi to take us one street over. The street signs in Paris (Europe) are in small letters on the sides of the buildings at the intersections of streets. Most of the time the signs are there, but there are times........agggrrrhhh! After we got settled in, we headed to the Notre Dame Cathedral along the Seine River for the Christmas Mass. Notre Dame is considered one of the finest examples of French Gothic architecture in the world!!

Construction began in 1163, and was completed in the 14th century.

The service was really neat. They (we hummed) sang songs (in French) and lit incense during the last part of the service (so that the prayers of the people in the church will rise to heaven and be heard).

On the second day in Paris we were still trying to get used to the cold weather. We aren't used to freezing temperatures (Texas!!!!), so we did a lot of fast walking and frequent coffee shop visits along the way to our next sight to see. We decided to get a bus tour pass to get aquainted with the city. You can see the green bus in the picture below. We sat on the top at first, and soon decided the bottom would be a better choice, after the chill set in from the piercing wind.

The first stop that the bus took us was to The Louvre Museum. It is huge and very impressive. It is one of the biggest museums in the world and has over 35,000 objects to see. The tour guide said it would take over 9 months to see all of the objects and paintings. When we arrived we saw a massive line and decided it was too cold to wait in line, (we are not huge art lovers so far in life) and that we would take some photos.

The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace which began as a fortress. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1672, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly decreed that the Louvre should be used as a museum, to display the nation's masterpieces.

Hilary with the video camera.

The museum opened in 1793 with an exhibition of 537 paintings. The most famous painting in the Louvre Museum is The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci.

After a few pictures, we walked briskly back to the bus stop where the sun was shining and tried to thaw out our fingers. Us Texans do not adjust well to the European winters!! The bus took us along the Seine River to our next stop, the Arc de Triomphe. Pictured below is the very bland and unimpressive hospital (surprisingly named the American Hospital of Paris) that we saw from the bus on the way to the Arc. We were very surprised when the tour guide told us it was a hospital, it is beautiful!

 

The street (Champs-Élysées.) leading up to the Arc de Triomphe is like 2 miles long and filled with cars stuck at the 15,000 traffic lights along the street. We did get a nice preview of the sweets, crepe and waffle stands that I had to buy (demanding sweet tooth) an expensive 4 euro crepe with Nutella (very popular in Europe) and 4 euro waffle with chocolate.

The human and auto traffic along Champs-Élysées.

  

I came back and got my waffle, and sharing seemed ridiculous at the time.

We finally arrived at the Arc de Triomphe.

It's huge, and from the top there are some of the best views of Paris. It costs 9 euros to climb the 284 steps to the top of it, but it was worth it to see all of Paris from the top. From the top there is a panoramic view of Paris, of the twelve major avenues leading to the Place de l'Étoile and of the exceptionally busy roundabout in which the Arc stands, one of the largest intersections in the World.

Napolean, the Emperor of France, ordered for the arch to be built in 1806, he died in 1821, before the arch was completed.

The arch honors those who fought for France, particularly during the Napoleonic Wars.  If you click on the picture, you can get a good idea of the size of the arch, those are people on the top of it!

The next stop was to see the Global Icon of France and the single most visited (paid) monument in the world.

The Eiffel Tower was the worlds largest building from 1889 to 1930, when it was eclipsed by the Chrysler Building in New York City. Hitler ordered to have the tower demolished when the Nazis conquered France (I suppose to show his power), but was pursuaded not to becasue of its good positioning for a radio tower. Im glad they didn't destroy it, because its a beautiful sight.

After we saw the tower, we went to the highest point in Paris to see the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. We climbed so many steps this day.  There were many unjustified executuions in and around the hill that the Basilica is now sitting on. A leader for the catholic church had a vision that this hill should be the place where a basilica should be built to represent the sacred heart of Jesus Christ. This would be a reminder that rulers should focus on God rather than thier own desires. Construction began in 1875, and the Basilica was completed in 1914. We walked away with a great view of the city, and a Jamacian bracelet for Hil.

Paris was a favorite stop of ours during the trip. It was cold, but maybe only for a Texan, and not as cold as the rest of the places we would visit. The people seemed nice to me, unlike the stereotype that most French people seem rude. It is an expensive city, but not nearly as bad as the next stop on the trip.