Weekend in Paris 7/12/2012 (the afternoon)

Before eating...

The Louvre

Entering the museum is totally confusing. There are several rooms where you can pay, besides the actual museum itself. There are several different queues which is unclear because you don't know which one you should be queuing in.

In the end, we just decided to queue in the line that had the least people. We had already read on the internet that citizens of the European Union under 25 paid nothing to enter the museum, and the normal adult ticket was 11/12 €. The thing is that my boyfriend is Brazilian, so he would have to pay.

After spending some time in the queue, we read on the wall that this queue was to buy tickets for the museum and for the Rafael room

When we reached the ticket window, a lady told us that if we were under twenty-five, we had to go straight on, but neither of us understood very well which was a pain.

So we decided to go to the centre since it looked like the information point where a girl explained everything to us in clear English.

We said that my boyfriend was Portuguese rather than Brazilian, but he had left the documentation in the hotel, to see if we could both get in for free and amazingly it worked. The girl believed him and gave him a ticket the same as we had. I just had to show my ID or any other type of identification document at the museum entrance, and I was let in without problem.

Now the problem was that we did not know where the museum entrance was, because there were many doors to different rooms, none which looked at all like a "Museum". In the end, we headed for the 'Denon' room which was where the "Mona Lisa" was, which was what I wanted to see most.

The Denon room is like a maze. You have to be very careful in each of the areas to make sure you don't miss anything out. From the entrance, there are signs that lead you to the Mona Lisa, but to find everything else, it is best to get a map from the info point at the entrance.

On the ground floor, there are sculptures, oriental antiquities, Egyptian antiquities, Greek antiquities, Etruscan and Roman and finally arts of Africa, Asia, Oceania and America, which is in fact currently closed for renovation.

Some of the main sculptures in this area include the "Code of Hammurabi", the "Statue of Ramses II", a sculpture of Aphrodite called "Venus de Milo", a "Love and Psyche" sculpture by A. Canova, a statue called "The dying slave" by Michelangelo and the "Chupícuaro" sculpture that comes from Mexico.

After seeing the ground floor, you can either go up or down a floor (1 or -1). We decided to go to the lower floor first then see the two higher floors.

On the lower floor there are sculptures, Islamic art, Egyptian Antiquities, East and Mediterranean works from the Roman Empire, Coptic Egypt, the history of the Louvre and also a temporary exhibition hall.

Highlights include the sculpture of "The horses of Marly" sculpture by G. Coustou, the " Baptistery of San Luis" photos of the Medieval Louvre, the "Christ and Abbot Mena", the "Santa Maria Magdalena" by G. Erhart and the "Portrait of a young woman".

Then we went to the first floor and all we see up the stairs, are directions to the Mona Lisa. In addition, this floor in my opinion has the most beautiful works.

We can see paintings of Napoleon III, the 'Seated Scribe', the 'Winged Victory of Samothrace', paintings of 'Naopleon I coronation' by J. L David and the 'Wedding at Cana' by Veronese. And of course, the 'Mona Lisa' by Da Vinci.

Other artworks on this floor include Egyptian antiquities, Greek antiquities, and many other paintings and visual arts. There is also another room for temporary exhibitions.

Finally, on the second floor, there are French paintings, visual arts and French, Germanic, Flemish, Dutch, Belgian, Russian, Swiss and Scandinavian drawings. In addition to this, there are more rooms for temporary exhibitions.

On this floor there are paintings such as "The Lacemaker" by J. Vermeer, the "Self" by A. Dürer, the alleged portrait of "Gabrielle d'Estrées and her sister", the "Virgen of Chancellor", by Rolin, J. Van Eyck, "The Cheat" by G de La Tour and "The Turkish Bath" by J. A. D. Ingres.

There is also more works on the floor -2, but we spent a lot of time seeing everything so we didn't go to that part, but if you are interested, I can tell you what you can find there.

• Spanish, Italian, English and French paintings from the nineteenth century.
• The Apollo Gallery jewelled crown.
• Italian, Spanish and Northern European Sculptures.
• German, Flemish and Dutch paintings.
• Objects of medieval art, Renaissance and from the XVII and XIX.
• Exhibitions of Pharaonic Egypt, ancient Iran, Saudi and Levant.

If you want to study all the works you can easily spend a whole day there. We didn't have lots of time so we just saw what we were most interested in, and then quickly walked around the rest so we didn't waste too much time there.

After leaving the museum, we took a few pictures at the Arc du Carrousel, which is just opposite.

The passerelle Léopold-Sédar-Senghor

Then we headed to Solferino Bridge, better known as the bridge of lovers.

It is actually a replica of a famous bridge in Rome, but for a few years, thanks to a film, it has become very famous in Paris. I was so excited, we had already bought our lock in a shop in Amiens, and wrote our initials on it with permanent marker so that the rain wouldn't erase it.

We found a small gap right in the middle of the bridge, locked it on, then we took some photos and threw the keys into the Seine River.

While we were doing this, we passed a group of Spanish girls aged 15/16, and one shouted: "Oh how nice they're putting a lock on the bridge. "

A beggar approached us and asked if for some money so he could buy a coffee, or so he said. I, with all my good faith and with what little money I had, I gave him a euro but he then asked for more and said that is very little for a coffee. Of course in Spain, beggars are grateful with whatever you give them. They do not ask for more after you have already given them something. Anyway, I told him that I couldn't give him anything else because I had no more change, but then I wasn't sure whether he actually wanted it for a coffee or not, but whatever.

It was raining a lot and awfully windy. The bridge moved a lot while whilst we were crossing it and it seemed a little dangerous.

Fortunately, the metro stop for the Musée d'Orsay was just next to it so we were able to run inside straight away and shelter from the rain. We didn't know which line the metro was, but we were sure we could get one that took us to the Notre-Dame somehow, which was our next destination.

Notre-Dame cathedral

Luckily, we were close to cathedral anyway, although we didn't know until we saw the map in the metro station, well the RER in fact.

We checked on maps of the station, and figured out that we had to take the RER C towards Versailles-Chantiers and get off at "Saint Michel-Notre-Dame", which according to my instructions is where were the Boulevard Saint Michel and the Boulevard Saint Germain are.

On leaving the metro, we saw the cathedral straight away. I remembered the cathedral from the last time I had been to Paris which was a few years ago with my parents, but I remember it being more impressive. I guess it is also famous because of its reputation from the Hunchback of Notre Dame. But honestly, I think that the Notre Dame Cathedral of Amiens is much more impressive and beautiful than Paris, besides being much taller and bigger. Of course, the last time I went to Paris I didn't know that one existed in Amiens, but I see it every day now on my way to class, and there is no comparison. I'm sure anyone who knows it thinks the same, it just isn't as well known.

Anyway, as I already knew that the inside wasn't that special, we just took some photos at the door and went.

There was also a sort of stage near the entrance for some performances that were going to be taking place in the coming days.

Shopping

Well, as I said before, I wanted to go shopping at Boulevard Saint Germain and Saint Michel because they had somewhat 'normal stores' on offer. Because obviously, everyone knows there are lots of expensive areas and designer shops in Paris, and how difficult it is to find somewhere with more normal priced shops.

We went looking round these shops in search for a Christmas gift for a family member, in addition to looking around the curious souvenir shops that are all over the city. The truth is that walking down both avenues was far too long considering how tired we were and the awful weather meant that our feet were soaking and so it was impossible to walk too. So we crossed the Boulevard Saint Michel and almost whole we set out to catch another train to go to a Christmas market that had found on the internet and had noted on my list.

Not knowing the area where the shops were, I didn't take note of where the closest the metro station was. But I knew the location of the nearest square where there was an underground Christmas market. This way, we could get any metro to our next location.

We had to get to the stop "Montparnasse-Bienvenue", so we took two metros and then we were there.

When leaving the subway station front we saw the Gallery Lafayette. A friend had told me that it had amazing Christmas decorations and since we had some time to spare, we decided to go take a look. And indeed, it was very nice. Everything on sale was expensive, but very nice.

In that area, we tried to find a place called Raoul-Dautry, I already knew that it was quite hard to find on Google Maps. So we decided to ask, but it seems that it wasn't very well known, as not many people knew about it.

We asked quite a few people but we didn't have much luck. Since we were fed up of not finding anything in this area and because it was really cold, we decided to go to the Eiffel Tower which was the last thing we wanted to do for the day so then we could head back to the hostel and stay warm for the night.

Eiffel Tower

We found a metro stop and took the number 6 towards Charles de Gaulle. In six stops we were at "Bir-Hakein", just at the back of the Eiffel Tower.

When we arrived it was already about 18:30 so it was completely dark. For those who do not know, the Eiffel Tower is located on a vast stretch of green, called Les Champs de Mars. So because it was all open and no shelter, the cold was unbearable.

The idea was to climb the tower at that time to see all the lights in the city, but both my boyfriend and I agreed to take some photos from below and go up the next day, when it wasn't so cold.

So we took several photos from the behind the tower from the Champs de Mars and decided to leave and return the next day early in the morning when it was not so cold.

Returning home

Because we didn't want to walk any longer, we got the metro back to the hostel from the same station as where we got off.

There was the RER C and metro number six, but it turned out that none of them went in the direction that we wanted to go, so we had to look for one that would link with the underground number two or seven, which were the only lines that stopped right outside the hostel.

We saw that the RER C would link with line 2 in a few stops time, so we decided to take that.

What was wrong with the RER C was that it went the same direction in three different ways, but we did not understand the system very well. In the end, we got on one that we thought was heading our direction, but as we sat down and it started moving we realised it went the other way. It was following one of the two shorter routes that we saw on the map but I have no idea why.

So at the next stop we got off and went back so that we could travel in the opposite direction to where we had got on. We did not know how to do to get to the stop that we wanted, so we looked to take a different line.

We saw that there was another stop on the metro that connected with number twelve, which then linked with line two. It was a bit of a complicated way of doing it, but we did not know what else we could do, and just wanted to get to the hostel as soon as possible.

So we did all that and went to take the number twelve metro, which was really full of people, I guess because it was late and a lot of them were on their way home from work, or just because it was rush hour in Paris. What surprised me most about the carriage was the amount of noise people were making.

And on top of that, because it was so busy and nobody was moving out of the way, my boyfriend had get on through one door and I had to get on using another door. And due to being alone and the fact that I don't like crowds very much, I felt pretty ill to tell the truth. But we were just a few stops away from being able to get on line 2 and head home.

When we finally arrived, it turns out that the stop for number two wasn't located in the same station. It says the line is there, but you actually you have to exit the metro station and go and look for another station nearby, but it still didn't say the name of the one we needed to go to.

We asked someone in the station and he gave us a piece of paper indicating where the stop was. He had a lot of those pieces of paper printed, so it seems that this was a common problem.

When we finally found the stop, the metro that came was full of people so we didn't take it in fear of a repeat episode of the last incident.

The next one came a minute later, but it was just as busy, so we decided to get on it anyway, because it looked like all the metros would be the same because it was rush hour, and we had no choice if we wanted to get back to the hostel.

So we rode a few stops and finally arrived at the stop we wanted. We decided to go directly to the supermarket to buy dinner. It was still early for dinner, but I knew that we wouldn't want to leave our room later on, so we went and bought a pizza. I had been craving a pizza for ages because I didn't have an oven in my flat in Amiens.

There was a communal kitchen in the hostel, so we left the pizza in the fridge and went to unpack our bags in our room. We were in room number 7, so we had to climb right up to the fourth floor, because there was no lift, of course.

When we arrived, the door was open and there was a key in the lock, so I thought someone must have came to fix it and it was empty. But when we got inside we found a French boy. We both had number 7 on our key so he was staying in the same flat, but he was talking on his phone and he just left without saying anything more.

I thought he had gone to speak in more privacy, but anyway, we just went inside...

We sorted our stuff out and left our bags in a corner. It looked as if all the beds were unoccupied so we left our stuff on a bed on the bottom and in the middle, so it was more comfortable.

My boyfriend wanted to meet with a friend who was living in Paris for a drink. The truth is that I really couldn't be bothered because I was shattered and just wanted to eat dinner and go to sleep, but in the end he came to the hostel to meet us so at least we didn't have to go outside again.

When we first arrived in the hostel I put my slippers on straight away because the boots I had been wearing were soaking wet.

At about 20:30, we went down to the communal kitchen to make our pizza and then went to the bar to meet his friend. On our way, we were asked to leave our key with the guy at the bar, in case our supposed 'room-mate' needed them. My boyfriend was not convinced and he kept saying that he thought he had stole the key. It was all a bit strange, but we didn't know anything for sure. So we didn't leave the key.

My boyfriend's friend arrived and we sat at the bar chatting and enjoying a drink. Just then the guy in the bar asked for our key because our room-mate had arrived, who turned out not to be the same guy that was in the room earlier.

I stayed for a while with my boyfriend and his friend, but I was very tired and decided to go to the room and leave them alone for a while so that they could speak some more.

In the room, I wondered if I should take a shower because I really felt like a nice warm one, but it was in the same room and there was no privacy whatsoever because it wasn't separated at all. So I was embarrassed that the other guy would come in and see me stood there, especially because my boyfriend wasn't there.

I put my pyjamas on and got into bed. The beds were actually super warm and comfy, which was wonderful after the day that we had had.

Soon after came my boyfriend and we went to sleep so that we could get up early the next day and make the most of it.

We left a small light on so that the other guy could see when he arrived.

He wasn't very quiet when we came in because we both woke up when he arrived at 3:30, but hey, we could not complain, that's what you expect when staying in a hostel.

At least we were warm all night and after how cold we had been during the day, we could not ask for anything more.

---

Photo gallery