A slightly gothic Paris birthday :)
So, A and I are back from Paris and I'm another year older. We had a good 'weekend', arriving on Sunday evening as all the Valentine's weekend crowd were presumably heading home, and allowing ourselves two days to go see things. I had forgotten that much of Paris closes on a Monday, so we had to re-jig our plans somewhat, but it worked out pretty well in the end.
Day 1 included a look around the Musée de l'Orangerie and the Palais Garnier, an Indian meal for dinner and a late night trip up the Eiffel Tower to see the city lit up at night.
On Day 2 we visited the Catacombes (the one thing we were determined we would see this time!) and went back to the Musée d'Orsay, a place we've enjoyed previously.
The Musée de l'Orangerie is worth a look for any fan of the Impressionists (although perhaps not quite as good as the Musée Marmottan, which I've visited before). Its main selling point is a display of a series of Monet's largest waterlilypaintings, displayed panoramically around two largish rooms under direct diffused light. They are lovely, as long as you can ignore the inevitable crowds of people looking at them.
The Palais Garnier is the home of the Paris Opera and was opened in 1875. Our visit was just on a whim of A's, as he wanted to see how it compared to his theatre, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The interior staircase area is stunning, and the auditorium is pretty impressive, too. As an added bonus, it turned out that the Theatre Library/Museum, which I had noted as a 'maybe' while going through our guidebook, is part of the same buliding and there are displays of various costumes, paintings and scale models of sets.The Palais Garnier would be my top recommendation for those who have already 'done' all the main Paris tourist attactions.
Le Palais de Raja-Maharaja, meanwhile, is a little slice of home away from home, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say it was the best Indian I've ever eaten, it was very welcome to me in a city where you can't simply walk into a restaurant and expect there to be even a single, solitary vegetarian option available.
The Eiffel Tower needs no write-up, so I'll just say that, one of these days, we need to visit a monument-with-a-view when it isn't winter. Brrrrr!
The Catacombes were largely as expected, barring the hour or so of queueing to get in. That's because they limit entry to 200 people at a time, and I'm glad they do, as it meant we weren't constantly surrounded by people and the atmosphere was more appropriately respectful of the dead. It also meant that I didn't annoy too many people by squinting to read the inscriptions in the near-darkness and transcribing the ones I liked best into a notebook (I'll not put them here, as they're mostly doggerel and wouldn't be at all impressive once translated into non-rhyming English).
The Musée d'Orsay focuses on French art from 1848 to 1915, in the glorious setting of an old railway station. Again, good for fans of the Impressionists, although not quite so good after two days of lots of walking and not quite enough sleep, so I'm glad we finished with something we'd seen before.
I also managed to read one of my Chritmas present books on the Eurostar and various metro journeys, so I hope to review that sometime soon.
Day 1 included a look around the Musée de l'Orangerie and the Palais Garnier, an Indian meal for dinner and a late night trip up the Eiffel Tower to see the city lit up at night.
On Day 2 we visited the Catacombes (the one thing we were determined we would see this time!) and went back to the Musée d'Orsay, a place we've enjoyed previously.
The Musée de l'Orangerie is worth a look for any fan of the Impressionists (although perhaps not quite as good as the Musée Marmottan, which I've visited before). Its main selling point is a display of a series of Monet's largest waterlilypaintings, displayed panoramically around two largish rooms under direct diffused light. They are lovely, as long as you can ignore the inevitable crowds of people looking at them.
The Palais Garnier is the home of the Paris Opera and was opened in 1875. Our visit was just on a whim of A's, as he wanted to see how it compared to his theatre, but it turned out to be one of the highlights of the trip. The interior staircase area is stunning, and the auditorium is pretty impressive, too. As an added bonus, it turned out that the Theatre Library/Museum, which I had noted as a 'maybe' while going through our guidebook, is part of the same buliding and there are displays of various costumes, paintings and scale models of sets.The Palais Garnier would be my top recommendation for those who have already 'done' all the main Paris tourist attactions.
Le Palais de Raja-Maharaja, meanwhile, is a little slice of home away from home, and while I wouldn't go so far as to say it was the best Indian I've ever eaten, it was very welcome to me in a city where you can't simply walk into a restaurant and expect there to be even a single, solitary vegetarian option available.
The Eiffel Tower needs no write-up, so I'll just say that, one of these days, we need to visit a monument-with-a-view when it isn't winter. Brrrrr!
The Catacombes were largely as expected, barring the hour or so of queueing to get in. That's because they limit entry to 200 people at a time, and I'm glad they do, as it meant we weren't constantly surrounded by people and the atmosphere was more appropriately respectful of the dead. It also meant that I didn't annoy too many people by squinting to read the inscriptions in the near-darkness and transcribing the ones I liked best into a notebook (I'll not put them here, as they're mostly doggerel and wouldn't be at all impressive once translated into non-rhyming English).
The Musée d'Orsay focuses on French art from 1848 to 1915, in the glorious setting of an old railway station. Again, good for fans of the Impressionists, although not quite so good after two days of lots of walking and not quite enough sleep, so I'm glad we finished with something we'd seen before.
I also managed to read one of my Chritmas present books on the Eurostar and various metro journeys, so I hope to review that sometime soon.