Paris - August 16-20
After having to wait an afternoon at the train station in Basel I eventually made it to Paris at about 8pm on Sunday night. By the time I'd found the hostel it was late so I decided to just eat at the hostel bar and plan my time in Paris. The next day I was up early to be picked up from the hostel for the free walking tour of Paris. There were only a few from my hostel and most of them were Spanish but when we got to the centre of town there was a much larger group who were doing it including a few from the other St Christopher's Inn hostel.
We had a German guide Inga who had lived in the city for 8 years. She was great, full of energy and interesting stories. I learned about the drunk faces on the pont neuf, the feet of a horse statue meaning assassinated etc, the story of the Kings of France such as Charles IV and Louis XIV. We also saw a lot of things including Notre dame, Saint Chapelle, louvre palais, obelisk, and much more. During the tour I also got talking to a couple of the guys from the other hostel, Sam from New Mexico and A (didn't think I'd be able to say his full name) from Indonesia. After the tour we decided to keep going and wandered first past the arc de triomphe and then to the Eiffel Tower. The Eiffel Tower was extremely impressive, so much cooler than I had imagined. We decided to walk up the stairs and headed up to the second level which is about half way up. From there we had an awesome view of the city and of the tower. The lift to the top was shut which was annoying but we were still taller than all the other buildings. Later then headed back to their hostel where we met another couple of guys from Sams room including Dylan who was also from the States. Sam then showed us up to Sacre Coeur, a church on top of the hill of Montmarte where lots of people sit and have a few drinks and enjoy the great view of the city.
The next day I met up with Dylan and Sam in the morning and we headed to the Palace of Versailles. After a hilarious and long trip we finally made it to the palace and headed straight to the gardens. The gardens and the palace were massive and we spent a good few hours looking around the gardens. Dylan and Sam were great value and we had a lot of laughs including the MVP, Swag Master G and some itchy sheep. That night we decided to go out for a proper French meal of duck confit and snails before having a few bottles of wine on top of the hill.
For my next day I wanted to explore some of the museums and so headed out to explore by myself. I started by purchasing a louvre ticket for the afternoon before heading to the orangerie. This museum really blew me away, Monets water lilies were incredible and the impressionist works by Picasso and other artists of his time were also amazing. The next stop was the sewer museum which was actually in the sewers of Paris. These were extremely interesting as you discovered the history of water supply and waste water and how the sewers were built as well as how they are maintained, although the smell was a bit funky at points. After wandering the streets for a bit longer I made it back to the louvre where I spent the next 3 hours wandering its endless exhibits. I spent the first hour finding all the main exhibits I wanted to see like the Mona Lisa, Venice de Milo, winged Athena, the slave by Michelangelo (probably my favourite piece) as well as the huge French paintings. After that I just wandered the exhibitions for a few hours and seeing a lot of different things. You would need a lot longer to fully explore what the louvre had to offer but by that point I was ready to leave and had seen everything I wanted to. To finish the night I headed back to Dylan's hostel and we went down to the Eiffel Tower where we enjoyed a cruise along the river and then watched the sparkling Eiffel Tower at midnight. It was a great way to end the day.
On my final day in Paris I got up early and headed to the Paris catacombs where thousands of Parisians are buried. It is the largest necropolis in the world and was an absolutely crazy experience. The passageways are just lined with neatly stacked bones and skulls for kilometres and there are even altars amongst the bones. The rest of the day was spent wandering the streets of Montparnasse and to the main island. I went past all the things that I had missed during my time so far including the Luxembourg gardens, Pantheon and Saint Sulpice church (largest church of Paris and from the da Vinci code). I then headed into the Saint Chappele Church which has no walls only columns and stained glass windows where the windows tell the full story of Christ. The colours in this church were incredible and it was definitely worth the queue. My next stop was the Notre dame cathedral but the line was so long that I continued on intending to come back a bit later. However I stumbled upon the Shoah memorial museum about the holocaust during the Second World War and ended up getting lost in its exhibits for a few hours. It told the history of how the Nazis had persecuted the Jews and also how the Jews of France had been treated. It also looked at how the French government as well as the allies had helped the nazis or not done enough to stop them. It ended with actual footage from the soviet armies that had come across these camps and how the film had been covered up for many years.
With that it was time to leave Paris and catch my night train to Toulouse. I had had an amazing time here and met some awesome people. Paris had been a lot better than I had imagined and I had spent longer than expected but I feel like I managed to see everything that I wanted to and more. Couldn't ask for much ask but I'm looking forward to getting to Spain and catching up with Tess!