Tuesday in Paris

I had been looking forward to this day since I touched down from San Francisco. Next to the Pearl Jam show that was the night before, I couldn't wait to get to the Musee D'Orsay. As far as painting goes Impressionism is one of my favorites. My favorites painters are Renoir, Monet and Marc. This musuem houses all the great paintings of Impressionism. It was a derlict train station until it was converted to a museum. I walked up to the third floor that starts with an entire room of Cezanne followed by a room of Van Gogh. I have to admit I was not a big fan of Van Gogh before this trip but he is definitely growing on me. Then came two big rooms of Monet. Including the Rouen Cathedral and the House of Parliment. It was a beautiful collection. Then came the Renoir room. I spent more than three hours walking around the musuem taking in all the paintings, sculptures, and models.



There is a giant model of the Opera house that is cut in half to show the inside. While I had barely scratched the Louvre, I made a major inroad on this museum. I wanderd back out into the sunlight and headed for the Marmotton Monet musuem. It was in an out of the way place in 16th arrondissement. It is well worth the trip. It is a few block walk from the nearest metro stop, but most of it is through a nice little park. I had seen most of the art before. I had seen a travelling show of most of the works. It was still very beautiful. The next stop was the Arc de Triomphe. It was not far from the Monet musuem. It is an inpressive monument. It is in the middle of traffic circle that is at least five lanes wide. The have underpasses to get to the Arc. The musuem pass gets you in for free. Which means you don't have to pay to walk the spiral staircase to the top. The view from the top is great.






I walked down the Champs Elysees and ate at Vesuvios Cafe. The pizza was pretty good.

I had decided earlier that I was going to watch the Champions League while I had the chance. I went to an Irish bar on the border of Les Halles and Les Marais. I watched the Liverpool vs PSV Eindhoven game with a few Guiness. I hadn't eaten and was really hungry when I got out of the metro by the Hotel. I had to pass like twenty sushi restaurants to get to the hotel. The temptation was to great. I had to stop and get sushi at eleven at night.

Pearl Jam in Paris

I left hotel on Monday morning to do a little sight seeing. First I needed to attend to some business. I needed to get a Carte Orange for the Metro and a museum pass. I took the wrong collection of streets and ended up in front of the Charles Garnier Opera House. It is just gorgeous. It was only a few blocks from there to Tourist office. The four day pass for 44 euros is just an awesome deal. It gets you into so many museums and you don't have to wait in line. I then went and bought a carte orange which lets you ride the metro system for a week for 16 euros. You are supposed to carry a picture with you. I got the picture taken at the booth in the metro. I still have the pictures. They were a little frightening. I looked like the bald guy in Amelie. I started out for the Musee D'Orsay. I was half way across the bridge when I remembered the Orsay is closed on Monday and all the other museums are closed on Tuesdays. I decided I would do the Louvre. Well I decided I give the Louvre a couple of hours. That might scratch the surface.


It was still early and they were just opening. The glass pyramid is an interesting place. It was so bright, eventhough it was underground. I decided to focus on the paintings. Looking over the history of painting, It is interesting to see the evolution of the subjects. I wandered through the Italian paintings from the 12th century to the 18th century. I was not that impressed with the older paintings of all the biblical stuff. What I really enjoyed was the landscapes that started to creep slowly into the religious paintings. Portrait paintings were also eye catching. A few pictures that caught my attention were landscapes and one about the four seasons were each season was represented by things from that season. I walked through the Mona Lisa room to get to the Large format French paintings. You don't really get to see the Mona Lisa. It is behind about a 5 inch thick piece of Plexi-glass with a thousand people in front of it. You kind of get a glimpse of it. Kind of like the smile on her face. It was in the next room were I saw the two of the best pictures. Paul De La Roche's La Jeune Martyre is just haunting. You can almost see the water ripple in front of you. Delacriox's Liberty Leading the People is also magnificent. I wandered through a few more rooms including the Venus De Milo before finding the impressionist room. I was struck by the beauty of Jungkind's work. I still have many trips to the Louvre left.






I got on the metro for the first time to go to the Bastille. They have long since torn down the original prison made famous by the revolution. There is just a monument in the middle of the traffic circle and the modern Opera Bastille.


Lunch and the Marais were calling. I walked through Place dos Vosages. It is a park surrounded by beautiful 17th century buildings. I decided to knock two more Museums out of the way. The Picaso and Pompidu are both in the Marais. I was not impressed with the Picasso museum though the building is pretty. I walked by a beautiful mural on the side of a building on the way to the modern art museum.





The Pompidu is certainly a Modern Art museum. It is a great place to take pictures of Paris because of it's height. Modern Art is mostly clever rather than art.




It was getting late in the afternoon and the raison d'etre for the whole trip was going to be later that night. I went home(the hotel) to get ready for Pearl Jam. It was an easy metro ride on the newest line to Bercy were the concert was. Le Palais de omnisports is a basketball type arena built mostly into the ground. The outside is covered in grass. It is a weird looking building. My Morning Jacket was the opening band. They were good. Pearl Jam was just awesome. I just can't find the words to describe the feeling of being surrounded by 20,000 people listening to a band in what is a second language for most. I downloaded the show as soon as I got back and they put up on the site. So many pretty girls. Looking back on that day, I did a shit load of walking. It was the first full day and I was exhausted when I got off the metro and back to the Hotel.

Paris!! The first day

I arrived at Gare du Nord around 2pm. I had to wait about a half hour in the Taxi line for a ten minute ride to the Hotel. It was a nice place with a huge window that opened. I wandered out with camera with no particular place to go.





I walked down to the Louvre and through the Jardin des Tuileries to the Place da la Concorde. I crossed the Seine and walked down the quai towards the Musee D'Orsay. I Past a floating bar that was having a wedding. It looked really cool. The beauty of looking down the Seine at the Ile de citi just can't be written in words. I crossed over to the Ile de la citi and wandered through the bird and flower market. They also had cats and dogs.



I was too late to take the stairs to the top of Notre Dame but I walked through the building. I had read a story about Notre Dame du Paris about the statues that run along the front of the building. They were beheaded by religious zealots who thought they were French Kings. They are actually saints. The original heads are in one of the museums.




One of the few that I didn't visit. The stained glass was really beautiful. I was thirsty so I crossed the bridge to the Ile de Saint Louis. I had a quick beer and wondered down the main street. I had a nice taste of Foie gras. My parents and many others told me about Our ancestors the Guals. It is a restaurant right out of Middle ages. It was too early to eat there so I wandered into the pub. A Canadian Pub.




It was really cool. I ended up staying long enough to eat at the restaurant which is right around the corner. I had a few more before heading back to the Hotel for the night.

Brussels Belgium

Brussels is weird. The most famous monument is the Piss Boy. You just can't miss him. They dress him up every day with a new costume. It is pretty small as far as tourist section goes. It has been just what I needed to regroup after the first week. It's kind of a tourist trap but with good food and beer. It is also like a giant outlet mall to some degree. Well if you can have an outlet mall with all the history.






It just doesn't have the vibe that Amsterdam soaks you in. I needed a little break from the constant movement and senses overload. I needed time to do some laundry and not spend money. The streets are mostly cobblestone. I don't know how you could drive a car in this town. The streets are narrow and confusing. There are circles. There exits off the highway. There are circles off of exits. They drive like there are a bunch of unwritten laws that no one actually follows. The food is pretty good considering the shear number of alike places in what is basically a bunch of alleys. I picked some restaurant at random around the square. It was called Cafe du Brussels. It was just off the Place Royal. They had a beer tasting menu that intrigued me. It was five trappist beers. Two Clinys, Mae's, Grimbergan, and kerik cherry beer. I had to warm up to a couple of them. They needed to warm up a little so the aftertaste calmed down. I had the Belgiuan dish Mussels vin blanc. Mussels in a white wine sauce with onions, parsley and celery. It was delicious. What really made everything great was dessert. Two types of chocolate mousse with a cherry beer. Death by Chocolate. That pretty much did it for me for the night. I got a beer out of the vending machine. What a concept beer in the vending machine. Saturday I got up for breakfast and The tulip Inn has quite a good hot breakfast. I wondered around Uptown taking pictures.






There are lots of pretty buildings. I kept taking a picture of some church in the distance because it made a great picture. I still have no idea what it is.





The hotel had a gym so after walking around all morning and doing my laundry at a local Laundromat I hit the gym. I needed to waste some time so it would get dark and I could go eat and take pictures of the Place Royal at night. I ate at this place again near the square. I sat outside with two women from Thailand and next to a bunch of jewelers from America. They had been coming to restaurant for ten years. They used to barter with the owner for extra food and drink. I was ready to hit Paris so I went home to pack. I was able to catch the weekend football highlights including VFB Stuttgart's victory of Alemania Achen.