Paris Re-visited

4-7 August 2007

As a short break this summer, we decided to re-visit Paris on the first weekend of August. We chose the first weekend because the museums are free on the first Sunday of the month. We had used similar strategy two years ago and it was great so we would like to repeat the experience.
We bought Thalys tickets, departed from Rotterdam on Saturday afternoon and returned from Paris on early Tuesday morning. We booked a room at Ibis La Fayette, located about 10 minutes walking from Gare du Nord train station.

We left Eindhoven pretty early on Saturday and reached Rotterdam around lunchtime. It was because we had planned to have dim sum at Tai Wu. The dim sum was great, a very nice prolog of the holiday.

The trip with Thalys was smooth apart from few confused persons who could not find their seats. They found the correct number...but unfortunately in the wrong carriage. After about 3 hours we arrived at Gare du Nord. The big station was busy as well as the outside area. We walked a bit until junction between Rue La Fayette and Blvd. de Magenta and already saw the Ibis hotel where we would stay. We checked-in our room and put the luggage in a neat small room.

It was around 5.30 when we walked back to Gare du Nord from the hotel. We bought carnet, ten tickets for Paris transportation lines, and took the Metro to Etoile at the end of Avenue des Champs-Elysees.
It was a crowded Saturday evening in the famous Champs-Elysees when we got there. The weather was mild and the sun shone warmly. We walked some parts of the avenue to visit Sephora, a very big beauty shop. The shop was busy, probably most of the visitors are tourists, and it was quite amazing to see so many perfumes and cosmetics there.

From Sephora we walked back to the end of the avenue to visit Arc de Triomphe. The impressive monument is located at the center of wide roundabout, called Place Charles de Gaulle, at the end of Champs-Elysees. The roundabout itself was very wide and it had twelve avenues lead to there.
We used the underground passage to reach the Arc. It was even grander from closer view. The walls had ornaments and inscription of the names of French military generals and battles from Napoleon era.
We bought access ticket to enter the Arc and climbed the spiral stairs to the top. The view from the top was really wonderful. At the west side we could see La Defense monument. There was the famous Eiffel tower at the south and the long Champs-Elysees at the east. Between them we could see Montparnasse tower and the golden dome of Invalides. To the north side we had a nice view of Montmartre hill with the Sacre Cour basilica at the highest point.


View from the top of the Arc de Triomphe

Satisfied with the view, and also because we spotted possible dinner place besides going to crowded Champs-Elysees, we went down and out from the Arc. We walked to Avenue de Wagram where we spotted McDonald's and Quick (French fast food) signs. Near the Quick we found a restaurant called Monte Carlo. It was a kind of self-service restaurant serving some salads and warm meals. We chose minced beef with french fries and boiled vegetables. Simple and fast.

After the quick dinner we walked back to the roundabout, circled it, and walked along Avenue Kleber to Trocadero. From the esplanade of Palais de Chaillot we had a nice view of the great Eiffel tower. We sat down at the stair facing the Eiffel and just relaxed, waiting for the light show from the tower. It started around 10 o'clock and quite a nice view at the beginning. Not for long though since it was just monotone. It might be nicer to have music accompanying the light, like the Symphony of Light in Hong Kong.

Eiffel tower from the Trocadero

When the light show was over we left the Trocadero, took the Metro back to Gare du Nord and walked to the hotel.

The flickering Eiffel tower

The Sunday morning was sunny and warm. We went out from the hotel around 9 and had a breakfast at a restaurant at the front of the train station. We had French baguettes, which in the end we realized it was a bit too heavy for breakfast.
As our museum visit day, we started with Musee du Quai Branly. The museum was located at Quai Branly, near the Eiffel tower. The museum building was big, in red colour, surrounded with nice park. It was already a queue to enter the museum when we reached there. The museum displayed ancient culture collections from Africa, America, Asia, and Oceania. We just browsed through the collections, no specific interest since it was too crowded and the majority of the descriptions are only in French. From the main building we visited the souvenir shop and bought few small stuffs there.

Musee du Quai Branly

From the Quai Branly we took the train, and then transferred to a bus because the rail track was closed, to the Latin Quarter. We walked from Boulevard Saint-Michel, passing St. Severin church, to a Vietnamese restaurant on Rue Dante. My wife visited this restaurant last year and it had become her favourite. There we also met our old Indonesian friend who studied in Fontainebleau, a suburb of Paris. We chose different three-courses meal so we could try several dishes. The food was nice and quite filling, a perfect lunch.

After lunch we walked along the left bank of Seine river and crossed it near the Louvre. We walked through the park of the Louvre, passed the famous glass pyramid, and through the beautiful Jardin des Tuileries until we reached Musee de l'Orangerie, which was located near the Place de la Concorde. The weather was really warm with full sunshine and blue sky.

Louvre

There was another queue to enter the museum but in short time we could enter it. Once inside, we directly went to the oval rooms to see the Nympheas (Water Lilies) of Claude Monet. The setting was brilliant, where two oval rooms, with slightly different size, adjacent to each other displayed different Water Lilies paintings on curved wall. There were 4 paintings in each room displaying different colourful impressionist images of water surface with water lilies, willows, iris, and sky reflection. The rooms had direct filtered light from above, which gave nice nuance on the paintings.
Besides the Nympheas, the museum also held many paintings from impressionist era from Renoir, Sisley, and Cezanne, among others.


Monet's Water Lilies

From the l'Orangerie we walked pass the Place de la Concorde and the beginning of Champs-Elysees to visit the Petit Palais (small palace). Instead of the name, it was another museum building with a spacious hall displaying paintings and sculptures. The backside of the building had a half-circle shape, where we rested for a while in the museum's cafe.

Petit Palais

From the Petit Palais we took the Metro to visit the Jardin du Luxembourg, another nice garden in Paris. The garden was pretty full of Parisian who enjoyed the nice sunny weather and the nice view of the garden. We also sat for a while on the chairs that were provided for public. Besides the nice garden and Luxembourg Palace, we also could enjoy some statues and the famous Medicis fountain in the garden.

Jardin du Luxembourg

It was almost dinnertime when we were in the garden. Recently we read a review of an Indonesian restaurant in Paris. It was located on Rue de Vaugirard, in the front of the Luxembourg Palace. We were very close so we decided to have dinner there. We arrived at the restaurant few minutes before 7 and waited until it was open at 7 o'clock.
We were welcomed by the owner herself and had some nice chats while ordering our food. The menus were original Indonesian dishes. I ordered lamb sate (sate kambing). Originally I opted for gule kambing but it was not available.
The sate was nice, with sauce made only from sweet soy sauce, chilies, and red onions.

After the dinner our friend went back to Fontainebleau, but both of us stayed a bit longer at the restaurant. Enjoying the almost sunset time, we walked around in the area. We passed by the Pantheon and some small streets near the Sorbonne University. We stopped shortly at the Place de la Sorbonne, a small square next to the university building.
Because it was already quite late, we walked to the Metro station and back to the hotel.

Pantheon

Monday morning was started differently. It was cloudy and raining. Originally we planned to visit Montmartre but then we changed our mind. In the end we chose safer and drier activity: went to shopping center.
We took the Metro to Boulevard Haussmann where the big department stores were located. First we visited the Printemps, browsed around the cosmetics and clothes sections. Then we moved to Galeries Lafayette, mainly to check its foods section. The building of the store was impressive with a steel-glass dome and stylish balconies.

The dome of Galeries Lafayette

We supposed to meet our friend again for lunch at a Szechuan restaurant named Panda as he had suggested. Coincidentally we found that the same restaurant existed in the Galeries Lafayette, but unfortunately we suddenly had no mobile network so we could not contact him.
So we went to the restaurant at the address that he gave, at Blvd. de Strasbourg. We found a Szechuan restaurant but the name was not Panda! Nevertheless we entered and waited for him. It was quite a desperate situation because we still could not contact him. When finally we were able to do that, he said that the restaurant was not the one that he had expected. But since we had waited quite long there, we urged him to go back joining us.
The food turned out to be OK, typical spicy Szechuan dishes, except that they were not spicy enough for me.

From the restaurant we walked along Blvd. de Strasbourg and Blvd. de Sebastopol to Pompidou Centre. The building had a unique modern design, mainly built by steel and glass materials with a noticeable staircase tube. There was a wide square in front of the building, where at one side we could enjoy some street performers. A little bit further we saw the Stravinsky Fountain with some modern-art statues inspired by Stravinsky's compositions.
We entered the public area of the building, visited the souvenir corner and bookshop.

Street performer near the Pompidou Centre

After that we walked along the Rue Rambuteau crossing the Blvd. de Sebastopol to Les Halles area. We visited St. Eustache church at the end of the street, with a unique head-shaped statue on the park in front of the church, and then walked along Jardin des Halles. Les Halles was originally a marketplace area, which had been transformed into a modern shopping center.

From Les Halles we walked heading south along the Blvd. de Sebastopol, passed Chatelet area and reached the Seine bank. We crossed the river to the Ile de la Cite island and passed the Palais de Justice and Sainte-Chapelle, a chapel from Louis IX era with very beautiful stained glass.

We crossed the Seine at the other side of the island and walked along Blvd. Saint-Germain until the area near the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Pres. We visited Brasserie Lipp to have a coffee break. The brasserie was one of the famous cafes in the Saint-Germain area, where many politicians were regular customers.
It was quite empty when we were there. The interior of the brasserie was quite nice, the walls were a combination of wide mirrors and ceramics with floral pattern.

After the coffee break we walked around the Saint-Germain area. We went through small streets with old buildings and nice restaurants on both sides, for example along Rue de Buci.
After a while we ended up walking in the direction to Saint-Sulpice church. We entered the big church and found the meridian line and the obelisk, which had become famous due to Dan Brown's Da Vinci Code.


Streets in the Saint-Germain area

From the Saint-Sulpice we took part with our friend who needed to go back home. The weather turned out to be very nice that evening, so we decided to go to Montmartre.

From the Metro station we climbed the hill to the Sacre Cour. The view from above was wonderful, we could see the whole landscape of Paris. From the beautiful church we walked around the area that was quite crowded with tourists and street artists.

Sacre Cour Basilica

From the hilly Montmartre area we walked down to Blvd. de Clichy. We walked along the boulevard, passed the famous Moulin Rouge and further until we reached Place de Clichy.
We stopped at Brasserie Wepler for dinner. It was an old restaurant in the area with nice atmosphere and attractive foods. We ordered oysters for starters and I had duck confit for main course. The duck was very nice, crispy and a bit salty skin and tender meat.
After the very nice dinner we went back to the hotel.

The following morning we took the early train back to Rotterdam, with nice memories stuck in our mind. One day we'll be back to Paris!