Experiencing “The City of Light” 
A new year had come and it was time to explore a new country, in this case France and its capital city, Paris. With my weekend bag packed, I travelled to the airport, boarded my plane and just under two hours, I stepped out onto the French capital, ready for what it had to offer.
We were picked up from the airport by some friends, and as it was late, I was given the night tour of the city where I got to see Eiffel Tower at night, all lit up, for the fist time, and I have to say, seeing it in person is completely different from seeing it in photos and videos, specially when the tower starts sparkling, it sure is quite a sight to behold. The night tour continued along the streets of Paris with more sights shown and explained to me. On a bit of a morbid note, as we were diving, we went down into a tunnel and the driver started counting the pillars. When he got to number 13, he explained “and that’s where Diana died”. I hadn’t realised that we were driving along the Pont de l’Alma tunnel, very morbid indeed.
That night, we had dinner at a local restaurant where I got to try a steak tartare for the first time. It’s basically raw pieces of steak, cut very fine and mixed together with capers, onions, fresh herbs and a raw egg. You then mix it all together and eat it together with a piece of toast. I finished the dish with nothing to complain about it, however I don’t know if it’s something I would go our of my way to order again!
The next morning started with a walking tour of the cobbled lanes of Montmartre, sitting down at an outdoor cafe whilst having breakfast and people watching. We continued by walking up the steps to the famous Sacré-Cœur Basilica, which provided great panoramic views of the city. Whilst up there, I was approached by a male who started talking about being friends and when I wasn’t paying attention, he latched a small string bracelet around my wrist. Luckily, I was with locals and when they saw this, they started yelling at him in French at which point he just walked away. Apparently, the scam is that they place the bracelet around you and then ask you for money, if you don’t give them anything, all of a sudden there are several males surrounding you in a threatening manner. Good thing I avoided that!
We continued walking through Montmartre, walking past the cafe “Tabac de 2 Moulins” which was made famous in the movie “Amélie” and then continued on towards the Moulin Rouge which we only experienced from the outside.
We made it to a subway station and opted to travel through the city that way. The carriages were relatively clean and the doors had a handle you had to use to open the doors at the station. Not quite the same subway system that I’m used to from New York City. We continued our way past the odd looking building, the Centre Pompidou, basically the building looks as if you built it inside out with all the pipes and ducts on the outside. There’s a few museums inside however we didn’t have time to explore it on this visit.
Eventually we found our way to the amazing Notre Dame cathedral. We stood outside admiring the building at first and after a while made out way inside to get the full experience. As the night fell, we found ourselves in the Latin Quarter, where we found a local bar for a few drinks before returning to our accomodation where we all prepared a meal together.
The next morning we woke and observed the weather to be gloomy, it was raining and there visibility wasn’t the best. We had initially planned to ascend the Eiffel Tower but due to the weather we would have to cancel and instead decided to visit the Louvre. On the to the entrance, we passed the glass pyramid and once we made our way inside we marvelled at the size of the place, it’s immense and there is no way to properly see it all in one day. So, we checked a map and ticked off the big items that we wanted to see. One of these was the Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci, which was sealed behind a protective glass and behind hundreds of people all trying to get a look at it. To be honest though, it was a lot smaller than I had thought and if it wasn’t for the horde of people, we may have missed it.
Some of the paintings here were were large enough to cover up a whole wall and then there were small sculptures and massive ones such as the Lamassus of Khorsabad Palace, basically a pair of winged human-headed animals. We could have stayed here for hours and hours, however as we noticed that the weather had started to clear, our original plan kicked in.
We made our way across to the Eiffel Tower which we ascended and were indeed rewarded with some great views of the Paris skyline, not quite the best as the weather was still a bit cloudy, however we can’t complain, there were nil lines to enter and we made our way to the second level very quickly.
We ended our afternoon by visiting the Musée d’Orsay, which is housed inside an old railway station. I’m not really into art and although I’m aware that there are different artistic movements of visual art, I can’t really tell you what’s what. So when I read that this museum is dedicated to the Impressionism and Post-Impressionism arts, I’m not sure what to expect, however did enjoy walking past and exploring the museum.
My weekend in Paris was coming to an end and, I had seen some great sights, climbed a high tower and seen some amazing pieces of art, and yes, the best parts was probably just sitting in a cafe, having a coffee and just watching people go about their business. Paris really captivated me and I feel that I will return shortly to explore more of what the “City of Light” has to offer.
