Paris: Macaroons and 8 Hours in the Louvre

We headed to Paris sort of on a whim over the first weekend in February- and it was so incredibly worth it! Lauren and I left Rome on Thursday the 3rd on a 7 a.m. flight- meaning that we had to be up at 3:30 to get a 4:00 taxi to Ciampino airport. The major airport in Rome is called Fiumicino or Leonardo da Vinci, but the cheaper carriers (like Ryanair, which we were flying) generally fly out of Ciampino- it's almost like flying out of Midway instead of O'Hare. Almost. Anyway, we got on the plane (I passed out probably about 30 seconds thereafter) and eventually landed at Paris-Beauvais- one of the smaller Paris airports. This is what we saw:

Yep. A whole lot of nothing. Quite reassuring, eh??

But it ended up being fine- we got a bus into the city (as we had previously planned) and took the subway to the station nearest our hotel (after waiting for a billion hours to get Metro tickets, of course!). The only problem was that then we couldn't find the hotel. First we walked in the wrong direction (due to the faulty Parisian map placement...) and then we didn't walk far enough- but on the same map, it looked like the street we needed to turn on was only block or two away! So we called the hotel, but my rudimentary-at-best French and the receptionist's English didn't coordinate at all, so we were SOL. Thankfully we called Katherine and she could look online and tell us where to go- and we eventually got there, hungry and cranky but at least sans tears. Then we headed out for lunch, as it was close to 2:30 p.m., and we found an adorable and friendly restaurant on a corner near our hotel: Cafe D'Albert. We each had a Croque-Madame sandwich (which is only the tastiest, most delicious sandwich in the world- a ham sandwich, grilled, topped with melted gruyère cheese and an egg sunny-side up) and split an order of fries.

Yum. Talk about hitting the spot....

Then we headed out into Paris- first to see Le Corbusier's Villa la Roche, which Lauren had studied in an art history class last semester at UW. It was definitely not a huge tourist attraction, which made it really awesome- and it was a really cool building too!

Note the ramp in place of stairs. It was pretty treacherous in the booties we had to wear over our shoes!

After seeing Villa la Roche, we headed to the Seine and saw the Eiffel Tower, albeit from a distance. It was beautiful!!

We walked along the Seine to Musee D'Orsay, which was wonnnnnnderful. We even got in free since we're students in the EU- just had to show them the student visas in our passports! Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures there (and I kind of feel weird about taking pictures of art in museums in general anyway), but the building itself was beautiful, and it was so cool to see works by Van Gogh, Monet, and Degas (especially the Dancers!) up close and personal. We had a lovely chicken baguette at the museum cafe and headed back to the hotel. It was a long day- but definitely a good one!

The next morning we had breakfast at the hotel (a croissant, a baguette, butter, jam, and juice/coffee/water) and headed out to the Champs-Elysees and the Arc de Triomphe. It was pretty cool! And I definitely appreciated not having to dash through the billion lanes of traffic! The French Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is there too, as well as several plaques commemorating the wars in which France has fought.

Then we walked down the Champs-Elysees toward the Louvre, which was our ultimate goal. But first, we had to stop at an adorable little place called Ladurree for macaroons. This may or may not have been a defining culinary moment in my life.

How cute are all those tiny desserts? And the macaroons were just as wonderful as you can imagine. Since neither Lauren nor I had ever had macaroons before, we split a box of eight- all different flavors.

The packaging is so adorable too. Anyway, we tried (from the top of the picture) hazelnut, lemon, coffee, green apple, rose petal, vanilla, chocolate, and raspberry- and they were all sooo good! Rose petal, however, ended up being the all-around favorite. How can you not like something that tastes exactly like a rose smells? I have no idea how that gets to be a flavor, but it was fantastic. Yum.

Then we finally got to the Louvre. And commenced to spend at least eight hours there, possibly more. We started with sculpture (where we may have spent too much time) and worked our way around the museum- we probably saw about 80% of it, including, of course, the Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo, to name a couple. It was really nice that the museum wasn't overly crowded, and we even got in free there too with our EU student visas!

Note the men in kilts on the stairs. They become important later. ;)

We got some French Chinese food (and some McDonald's fries and a hot fudge sundae.....) on our way out of the Louvre and went home to crash at the hotel. It was definitely a long day- but a good one too!

The next morning, we had breakfast at the hotel again and headed out to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur- Sacred Heart. We were already in the Montmartre neighborhood, so it wasn't too far to the basilica, apart from the 67,000 steps we had to climb to get there. The basilica itself was absolutely gorgeous, and we also got a great view of Paris.

 BUT. Remember those men in kilts from the Louvre? This is where they become important again. Because at Sacre Coeur, we stumbled upon some sort of bagpiper convention. Yes, indeedy. Several large bagpiping groups. All together to parade about Paris. How lovely! :)

It was quite the sight!

After we had had our fill of bagpiper observation, we headed back down the steps and ate croque-madames (mesdames?? Not totally sure of the plural...in English OR French...) at Cafe D'Albert again. Totally worth it. And then we headed out to meet our friends at Laduree...for more macaroons. We definitely stocked up.

This time I went with 12 tried-and-true favorites- two hazelnut, two lemon, two vanilla, two raspberry, and four rose petal. They lasted until we got home the next day. Good thing there's a Laduree at Harrod's in London...I can guarantee that Mom and I will be making at least one stop!!

Post-macaroons, we headed over to the Eiffel Tower. It was pretty cool- basically just what you'd expect it to be. Our friends decided to go up to the top in one of the elevators, but Lauren and I stayed on the ground and took a bunch of pictures, all the while trying to avoid the men trying to coerce tourists into buying their wares. We spoke a lot of Italian. It certainly seems easier to avoid being harassed if you're not obviously American and not speaking English....

Since the others weren't going to be done for a while, Lauren and I headed over to Notre Dame Cathedral- which was probably one of my favorite parts of the trip. It was just so incredibly beautiful!

It was awesome.

On our way back to the Metro, Lauren and I happened upon a used book store...where I just happened to find the first Harry Potter book (in French of course) for under four Euro. It was fate. (And Mom, I promise it's paperback and tiny. :) Don't worry.)

We took a little siesta and snacktime at the hotel and then met up with our friends to go for dinner.
Seven of us went to a cute restaurant with very friendly staff called Chez Papa. It had a great atmosphere, and the food was wonderful too- apart from the fact that my steak (in the top picture) may have been still mooing. And still bleeding. But such is French meat, eh? Lauren tried the duck (in the bottom picture) and really enjoyed that.

For dessert, Lauren and I split a crème brûlée. And it was wonderful. Even better than the Walnut Room's. A perfect end to a perfect weekend in Paris!

The next morning, Lauren and I left the hotel at 5 a.m. to get to the airport to catch our 9:00 flight. Everything was fine until one of the Metro lines (one of only two we could possibly take to a certain stop!) ended up being closed! Thankfully we made the other train we could take and made the bus from the city out to Beauvais airport, and we got to the gate with plenty of time to spare. The flight home was nice and we caught two buses from Ciampino airport back to Trastevere. After our 15-minute walk home (in unseasonably warm Roman weather!), we were pretty ready to drop, but we hauled our butts to get gelato (so unfortunate that we had to stop for gelato....) and then to the grocery store and home so we would have food to eat. And I commenced to take a four hour nap.

All in all, I absolutely loved our trip to Paris. I didn't really expect to like it as much as I did (not totally sure why...), but I'm so glad we went. I'd love to go back someday, but first I'd like to learn to speak French a little better. Or, really, a lot better. It was hard to be unable to communicate in the language of the city- even harder than it would be in Italy, I think. At least in my experience, it seems that a lot of French people much prefer to speak French (naturally; I mean, we generally prefer to speak English in America.....), and it made me feel kind of inadequate since I'm not really able to speak French. A lot of the time I just wanted to exclaim that I DO have language skills- just not French ones. Alas, I don't know how to say that in French. ;)

The hotel we stayed at was decent- Hotel Damremont in Montmartre (that's the 18th Arrondissement)- clean, but nothing special. We had okay weather, but, again, nothing special- it was definitely colder than it had been in Rome, so that was kind of a rude wake-up call! I think what really made the trip for me was all of the sights we were able to see- I especially liked Musee D'Orsay and Notre Dame- and the fact that we can actually travel by ourselves. It makes me feel like we might actually be semi-self-sufficient. And slightly adultlike?? Yikes! :)

Next up: a (probably) huge blog about our trip to Morocco last weekend. It was AWESOME. And the pictures are pretty cool as well!