Paris

At the end of March, Natalie and I took a short weekend trip to Paris, the so-called "city of love." (We said that it should more aptly be called the "city of lines," because there are monstrous lines to get in everywhere!) Although the city is huge and it's impossible to see everything in only a weekend, and although the weather was not the greatest while we were there, we still had a great trip and got to see a lot of famous, interesting things. Here's a brief breakdown of the sights we visited:

L'Île de la Cité: Nôtre Dame et Sainte Chapelle

The first human settlements in this region were on and around a small strip of land in the middle of the Seine River which, cut off from the surrounding terrain, was known as "L'Île de la Cité," or the "Isle of the City." As this was the first area to be settled, it contains some of the oldest buildings in the entire city, the two most famous ones being Nôtre Dame and Sainte Chapelle.

One of the oldest cathedrals in Paris and, without a doubt, the most famous, Nôtre Dame is big and impressive. However, the inside is filled with tourists, TV screens, electrical lighting and other foreign/modern elements that obscure any sense of the building's oldness and authenticity. Nevertheless, contemplating the multitude of statues on the facade, or viewing the impressive flying buttresses from behind still make you stop in awe at the engineering and construction capabilities of the civilizations that built it so long ago.

A view of the back of Nôtre Dame over the "Lock Bridge," where lovers and friends put locks to signify their everlasting devotion to each other

Just down the street from Nôtre Dame is the slightly less hyped but no less significant Sainte Chapelle, a smaller, more intimate chapel designed to house the relics of King Louis IX, including what was believed at the time to be Christ's actual Crown of Thorns. The chapel preserves one of the most extensive collections of 13th century stained glass anywhere in the world!

La Tour Eiffel

The iconic symbol of Paris, the Eiffel Tower was actually built to be a temporary structure as part of the 1889 World Fair, and was loathed by most Parisians at the time. Of course, it eventually grew on them, and now it is visited by thousands of tourists every year and cherished as one of the most beloved and indispensable icons of the city.

Le Musée d'Orsay

The Musée d'Orsay is famous for its collection of Impressionist paintings by the likes of Manet, Monet, Degas, Cézanne and others. As a personal fan of this time period, which I also studied a handful of times in various classes at UNC, I really enjoyed the museum's collection. What's more, it is housed in an old, converted train station, and the building itself is nearly as interesting and intriguing as the works of art housed within.

One of my personal favorites, "Field of Poppies" by Claude Monet

Le Centre Pompidou

The Centre Pompidou houses Paris's main collection of modern art, in addition to various cultural facilities such as cinemas and a library. As with the Musée d'Orsay, the building is as interesting - if not more so - than the artwork, with a crazy modern design that places the piping and ventilation outside the building to maximize usable space inside. The artwork is also not of a "crowd-pleasing" nature, with many ultramodern works consisting of nothing more than lines, a canvas painted one solid color, or even empty white canvases!

Sacré Cœur et Montmarte

Another famous cathedral in Paris, although very different from the more classic ones above, is the "Sacré Cœur," or "Sacred Heart," built on top of a mountain in the erstwhile Bohemian neighborhood of Montmartre. The cathedral is not very old - at least not on a Paris timeline - but is lovely and is situated at the end of a nice, though very hilly, park. When we went inside, there happened to be some sort of concert going on where nuns in habits were singing beautiful a cappella songs, which was quite nice. As it is so high on top of the hill, the views of the rest of the city are also quite impressive.

Le Musée du Louvre

As always, save the best for last! The Louvre is one of the world's largest museums, and has an incomprehensibly vast collection, with pieces ranging from 19th-century Europe to Mesopotamia in 1000 BCE. It houses the hyper-famous "Mona Lisa" as well as Hammurabi's Code and other well-known works. You could easily spend an entire week inside and never see everything, but we felt fairly content with the two hours we spent hitting the highlights.

Our shameless selfie with the Mona Lisa

Lady Liberty Guiding the People

As with every other Parisian museum, the Louvre is also housed in an interesting building - this time the former main royal palace of the city (the bottom right picture above shows a part of Napoleon's apartments that have been preserved in a wing of the museum as a sort of testament to what the interior looked like when it was a palace and not a museum). The palace is truly gargantuan, and even when you are standing in the middle (such as where Natalie is standing in the picture below) and its unending wings are stretching out on either side of you, it is hard to take in in its entirety. It's not so hard to see how the impoverished people, seeing such distasteful displays of wealth and power, decided they were sick of their ruling monarchs!

That about wraps up my rapid-fire account of our whirlwind tour of Paris. As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, Paris is so huge and vast that it is impossible to cover any significant portion of the city in only three days, but we were certainly able to hit many of the highlights, and perhaps during my remaining time in Europe I'll be able to head back for another trip to seek out some of the lesser-known, off-the-beaten-track type places!