More Fun in Paris

We continue to push ourselves pretty hard to get in as much as possible in Paris.

One thing that has become very clear on this trip is that I have a pretty strong fear of heights. The first trouble we had was at St. Paul's in London. For those that haven't been, they have a gigantic dome. Tourists are allowed to go up into the dome. We climbed like a billion stairs and got to maybe half way up. there's just a narrow walkway around the dome that overlooks the cathedral. I didn't like it at all, so we did a very quick tour of the circle and made our way back down. We were up there for no more than a minute. This wasn't a brand new phenomenon, but I have started to notice it more lately.

"That story was about London. I thought they were in Paris now," you all say. Well, here in Paris they have another tall building tourists are allowed to climb. This morning we went to the Eiffel Tower to go up to the top. We didn't plan ahead much, so we took the option to buy tickets there to walk up stairs to the second "floor", at which point we would be allowed to purchase elevator tickets the rest of the way up. So up the stairs we went. We didn't get far before I started to notice that the tower didn't have freaking walls and you could see through everything to the emptiness and the really far away and hard-looking ground. For the first bit, there were lots of places to stop and read fun facts about the tour and Mr. Eiffel, so I was able to distract myself from time to time. After the first floor, which is really really high up for something called the first floor, there is less to keep to keep the mind occupied. I started breathing really really hard, and I think I might have a couple bruised ribs from how hard my heart was beating. I grabbed on as hard as I could with both hands to the railing and the fence along the way up. We finally made it the second floor, which I guess is probably a little less than half way up the tower. I told Stephanie I was bailing on the elevator ride to the top, and I guess from the terror in my eyes she didn't protest at all. Thanks, Stephanie. She went up, and I made my way inside to the little cafe section, which kind of does have walls, so isn't nearly as scary. She went on to the top on her own, and came and picked me up on her way down. I was very relieved to get back down to the ground level.

Me, not going up the elevator and very angry at Mr. Eiffel

Stephanie was brave and went up there

Me, safe on the ground, still very mad at Mr. Eiffel

We spent the rest of the day touring more of Paris. We went to the Orangerie museum which has a couple of rooms devoted to Monet's water lilies, and is an excellent use of 45 minutes, especially when you need to calm yourself down from an Eiffel-induced panic attack. Next, we visited the St. Chapelle church, which has amazing stained glass.

Stained Glass

Stained Glass

Stained Glass

From there, we did some strolling. We went to the beautiful and peaceful Ile St. Louis, which is a tiny island in the middle of the river, next to the big island in the middle of the river with Notre Dame and St. Chapelle. There are lots of great little shops, and it's a nice place to walk after having endured Mr. Eiffel's touristic terrorism earlier in the day.

Ile St. Louis

Then we did more walking in the Marais, a nice area of the cite that has all sorts of shopping, busy streets and quiet squares, and Victor Hugo's house. We happened upon a great little restaurant that served really good buckwheat crepes. I had one with cheese and andouille sausage and it really hit the spot.

In the late afternoon/evening we went to the Pompidou Centre of modern art. It's a crazy building, as has crazy art, but we really liked it. Specifically, there was an exhibition by an artist named Jesus Rafael Soto that I thought was just great. He does things with perspective and lines that make parts of the work look like they are floating and moving. It was great.

Wacky look at a wacky building, brought to by iPhone 5's panoramic function

The lobby space at the Pompidou Centre

Now we're off in search of dinner and wine on our last night in Paris. I'm thinking we might avoid Mr. Eiffel and his stupid tower.

Bon Soir