Paris trip report, Day 4: Notre Dame, St Chapelle, Conciergerie, Opera Garnier, Galeries Lafayette, Jaquemart Andre museum

May 19, 2014, Monday:

Day 4: Notre Dame, St Chapelle, Conciergerie, Opera Garnier, Galeries Lafayette,  Jaquemart Andre museum

https://picasaweb.google.com/108910506663540711253/6272982759068429265#6273983044151513010

video covers our visit to Notre Dame, St Chapelle, Conciergerie

https://picasaweb.google.com/108910506663540711253/6272982759068429265#6273817909395301506

video covers our visit to Opera Garnier, Galeries Lafayette,  Jaquemart Andre museum

Walked to the Pigalle bus stop some 400m from our apt… this side has only “innocent” shops, none of which were open at the early hour.

 Sat at the bus shelter, enjoying the fountain in the square for a couple of min, before our bus 67 arrived. It is the terminal. The driver got out and went off for a break. We got in along with a few locals, validated our tickets.

The bus started in a few min and we were on our way to Notre dame cathedral.

Bus ride is so pleasant in Paris and all places seem so well connected, I was commenting (as is the case in all such instances, naughty elves were listening and rubbing their hands in glee in what they had in store for us a little later!). Not knowing their evil plans, we admired the lovely views of the Parisian streets we were passing through and got down at Hotel de Ville stop… crossed the lovely bridge and walked towards Notre dame.

Passed through fountains and carousels. Taking loads of pics, even the Wallace drinking water fountain did not escape our camera. There are some 70 of these in Paris which have been here for more than a century; we always take a water bottle along to fill up during the day.

Notre Dame Cathedral:

 The Saint Denis with his head in his hands...

 Of course the awesome relief work on the cathedral façade got its due.

 Mass was going on in the church; we tiptoed in and looked around. Again an awesome spiritual experience, the sound of the choir adding to the beauty of the 900-year-old architecture.

This is the Baptistry

This is a reliquary

Light streamed in through the stained glass and lit up the altars in an irridiscent glow. We’ve been to many beautiful churches world over… this was top notch.

This is a model of the cathedral

There are exquisite carvings in wood

We walked out with regret we were not going to wait for them to open the entrance to climb the dome at 9 am… we wanted to cover a lot of ground and waiting seemed a little counter productive.

Marche de fleurs

Walked through the Marche de fleurs—the open air flower market. It was almost 9 but only one shop was setting up. It was beautiful with bright planters, lovely little ceramic garden ornaments and above all, the rainbow colored flowers—orchids, petunias, anthuriums... a veritable paradise.

We took pics and moved on toward Sainte Chapelle.

Sainte Chapelle

Here too the façade has lovely relief work. I think we used our museum pass but may be we bought some other ticket too…  something to support their renovation efforts… 

The interior was bright with its blue star studded ceiling. We went up the spiral staircase to admire the famed stained glass. There were benches we could sit on and enjoy the radiance and monitors explaining each panel and their restoration. We soaked it in for some time before coming out.

Next was the Conciergerie –we had a little confusion but making a query to uniformed guards who were always around in public squares solved the problem as usual. Our broken French was never an impediment… quite frequently they knew some English and volunteered info with a smile. Truly warmed our hearts!!

Conciergerie

We entered the square and there was a rest room in the complex. Gladly used it, we had not spotted one at the churches. Then we were directed to the conciergerie building where again our museum pass gained us instant admission. Passed through the large Gothic hall and the gift shop, then went through the prisons and the guard rooms. 

The cell where Marie Antoinette was confined has been re created and it’s poignant to look at the little garden the poor little rich lady strolled through before her execution.

These are the initials of Marie Antoinette

Souvenir shop here...

The famous tapestry of Lady and Unicorn...

We took some pics in front of the lofty courtroom steps before retracing our way



Had a little brunch on the roadside in a bus stop bench—even this was scenic. The building had a lovely niche with a clock –the décor all blue studded with gold stars with a golden clock in center.

Now we were to go to Opera Garnier. As I had said our trusty RATP bus map had served us well so far and we consulted it to see our options.

It looked as if we had to just get to Chatelet Les Halles and then catch 81 to reach Opera. We boarded 38 which came by with this plan in mind…it did not stop at Les Halles… after Hotel de ville it went on to another stop… we got down, but did not find any connection to Opera. We got on the bus in the reverse direction and got out after a stop… no it still was not Les Halles, no connection to Opera.

We saw the metro station but I was adamant we can solve this with surface travel. We walked back on the road, by now a little tired and annoyed. It was a residential locality… not a tourist in sight…in fact not many people on the road. There was a nice Monoprix, we went in, bought some juice, fruits, yogurts etc, mainly to eat on spot and some to carry back home. Nice pears and peaches and a cup of coconut flavored yogurt put us in a better mood … we took the metro and reached Opera Garnier without any more mishaps. An hour had been wasted though dillydallying on the road!

Opera Garnier:

The opera has an imposing appearance with all the lovely sculptures in its façade. Museum pass does not count here. The ticket machines did not accept US credit card, the counter girl also wanted only cash. We bought tickets and entered the lovely auditorium.

We had read up on the architectural details, so the self tour was great. No restriction on photos and the grand staircase and the main hall rivaled palaces… in fact, the main hall with the panels of mirrors was better than the Versailles mirror hall. The ceiling paintings were awesome and everything glittered… the architect had used “effect gilding”, applying gold only to spots that catch the light, thus cutting the cost considerably. But the overall effect is not compromised. Didn’t feel gaudy also, all tastefully done. There were just a handful of people and we relished our visit. Saw the costume galleries, took the lift to the various floors and at last reached the auditorium.

Costumes used in the ballets are on display

We could stand in the private booths, all lined in plush red velvet, and gape at the awesome chandeliers.

To support the huge chandeliers, there are counterweights on the other side of the ceiling. It seems one of them fell through the roof killing a spectator -- an incident covered in the Phantom of the opera novel!

We felt the Chagall ceiling did not blend with the classic tone all over!

Anyways, on the whole we had enjoyed our visit to the opera …

Galeries Lafayette

We walked to Galeries Lafayette nearby. Little confusion on which one to enter, I knew it was NOT the home section.

We got into the main building, took the several escalators to the top floor, admired the glass dome before going further up to the roof.

There is a green carpet and plenty of lounge chairs on the terrace and a very inviting view of the city stretches out in front… in a corner everyone is trying to take trick pics of holding the Eiffel tower in hand… we made our attempts too and failed miserably! It was fun never the less, we then sat there and had our lunch… every one around was eating and the guard just looked on. After a relaxing time on the terrace, we climbed down, found the exit and got out.

Now the naughty elves who had troubled us in the morning took their leave to look for other victims and we resumed our winning ways with the Paris bus system!

Jaquemart Andre museum:

We took Bus no 22 and reached our next target, Jaquemart Andre museum. Nice classy home, I think we paid for the tickets there as it’s not covered in the pass.

 

Lovely winter garden

These are " Intarsia",,, wood on wood mosaic...

 Evening we wanted to go over to Arc de Triomphe, climb it and then may be take the cruise we had missed.

Originally we had planned to leave for Rome on the evening of 20^th, Tuesday by the train. We’ll have the better part of the day in Paris and the night spent sleeping will also simultaneously move us onward to our next destination. There was the additional advantage of traveling from city center to city center, no hassle of checking in, baggage worries. Aahh…our plans were thwarted by Trenitalia… first they cancelled the direct night train and then even when we were ready to brave a transfer at Milan, their train site will not let us do the booking when we tried at the mandatory advance period.

So we had to alter our plan and fly with Easyjet. Looking at timings, it made more sense to take the morning flight, otherwise, the commute etc may become crowded and arriving at Roma in the dark not too feasible. We settled on the 9.30am flight from Orly. That meant a checkin at 7.30; we booked a taxi with G7 for 6.30am

With those plans, it seemed a little prudent to wind up the day early, so that our bags were packed to easyjet specs.  When we were dithering on whether to go on to Arc De Triomphe, a bus headed to our apt came by… we hopped in…

For the 1^st time we were home by 7pm, the apt office was still open. But we had settled our bills on the day we arrived as the office is open only from 10—7 and we did not plan to be constrained to delay our day or rush back. We had to do the small apt formalities of taking out the trash to the chute downstairs etc…we packed, got all the stuff ready for the next day handy and were fast asleep by 9pm!

May 20, Tuesday:

The G7 taxi arrived on time at 6.30, we speeded through the empty streets to the airport. The meter showed 38euros, we had already paid 58 to the company during online reservation! After checking one bag, sat at the airport and had our packed breakfast and watched quite a few struggling with the stringent regulations of Easyjet when they tried to get in with a big carryon bag. The flight out of course did not show any glimpse of the beloved landmarks of Paris as the airport itself is oriented so south!

We were content that we had enjoyed an intense flavor of an enchanting city in the limited time we had!

http://adventuretrav.blogspot.com/2016/05/paris-trip-report-2015-day-1-cluny.html
covers our day in Paris in June 2015: Cluny museum, Luxembourg gardens, Montparnasse tower