Paris, FranceParis, France

Published on January 18, 2016 ⋅ 3min read

January 14-18th, 2016

I walked a lot. And I mean a lot. You probably can’t begin to comprehend how much I walked. Imagine walking to Mars… Okay, that’s a slight exaggeration. I did use the metro for some of it. To the moon then.

Forgive me as I fall victim to hyperbole. As you can probably tell, I’m bored. I’m currently on a train to Berlin and have got to pass the time somehow. Oh wait, we’re not up to that part yet. Backtrack.

To be honest, there was nothing particularly exciting for you to hear about Paris. I did the usual touristy things - visited the Eiffel Tower, the catacombs, Notre Dame (twice!), Sacre Coeur de Montmartre, or however it’s spelled… French is not my forté. See what I did there? I used an English word derived from French. Oh, aren’t I clever?

I, however, did not visit the Louvre. What!? Why, you ask? Well, I went to the Musée Orsay, which is supposedly better than the Louvre, and I discovered to my dismay (or relief?) that I do not understand art at all. And I tried; I spent a decent 20 minutes in there looking at paintings and things, reading pretentious exhibition descriptions which were trying far too hard to sound like they meant something. No, art is not for me. So, I forwent looking at the… what’s that famous painting again? The name eludes me - I’m serious. I’ve had a mind blank… Mona Lisa! That’s it.

The closest to the Louvre I got was on the first day in Paris, when I sat down on a building outside the entrance and had a half hour nap in the midday sun. Hey, I was tired! It was 6pm Bangkok time and I’d barely slept at all on the 20 hour journey to Paris, then I’d spent the entire morning walking around Paris streets getting quite lost. The streets all look the same to me! I had no map (because who carries physical maps these days?) and I’d lost my smartphone in Cambodia, so there went my offline maps GPS navigation. I had to navigate the good ol’ fashioned way; using landmarks. Fortunately, Paris has plenty of those! And when one is trying to go to the landmarks, it’s easy. Unfortunately, hotels don’t tend to build spires 100m in the sky to help you find your way back… so my plan was usually walk to the monuments in the morning, and catch the metro back in the evening. And what a solid plan it was!

There was one amusing encounter I had while in Paris. On the last day I caught the metro to the end of one of the lines to investigate a huge park on the outskirts of Paris which used to be the old royal hunting grounds, back when France actually had a monarchy. Anyway, while I was walking around, an Asian man stopped me and asked for directions to the Louvre! Here we are, literally on the edge of Paris. I pointed him towards the Eiffel Tower and told him that was the direction he needed to go, and the Louvre was way past it. He seemed pretty keen to walk there, but there was no chance he’d be able to walk there before it closed (it was already the afternoon!), so I recommended he caught the metro, as there is a stop right next to it.

Okay, so it wasn’t that funny when I retold it, but believe me, I was quite amused at the time.

Versailles Palace. Now that was amazing. Incredibly lavish to the point of excess, but an impressive display of wealth nonetheless. If you ever find yourself in Paris, make sure you visit it. The Hall of Battles was my favourite room. A huge hall, the walls lined with enormous paintings depicting French victories dating from ~400-1800AD. I spent a long time listening to all the descriptions that the audioguide offered. Well worth it!

The biggest thing I really noticed about Paris was how handicapped I was not being able to speak French. It took me 3 days just to remember how to say “please!” I pretty much spent the entire time saying “Bonjour” and “Merci.” If anything, it made me want to go to Germany more, where at least I had some chance of being able to understand/converse in the language. I think I need to learn some more French before I go back.