Getting up at five in the morning was never more exciting as it was on this particular Saturday. A quick cup of instant coffee and an equally quick shower later we hit our frequently treaded path to the Stuttgart Hauptbahnof. Much to the satisfaction of my very punctual friend, we were running just in time to grab a scrumptious butter pretzel each before boarding our super cool, super fast TGV to Paris. As we made ourselves comfortable in our cozy corner on board, we couldn't help but feel smug about the fact that we would hit Paris in just about three hours. At this point we did not have the slightest inkling of what fate had in store for us. Just when you can't seem to be more contented with all the planning and preparation that you have put in to ensure that a trip is executed smoothly, a certain someone who goes by the name of Ms. Tough Luck decides to make her presence felt. In our case as the the hours ticked by and three hours turned into four and then into five, we knew that Madam Tough Luck had struck. Much to our consternation the train hauled into Paris at almost 12 in the afternoon.
Locating the tourist information center was an arduous task as it is tucked in a tiny little corner of the sprawling Paris Est station . After an irksome 45 minutes, we managed to reach the counter in one piece with all our luggage intact. The information booth was manned by a single attendant who, despite being overworked, was one of the most helpful attendants that I have come across during my travels in Europe. Patiently, he answered all my frenzied questions about public transport passes, where to collect our pre booked Louvre tickets from, orientation of the city on our tourist map..and so on and so forth. I must confess that my eagerness to know it all in the shortest possible time and to be able to guide my co- travellers efficiently in a new city can be quite annoying to everyone but myself (This moment of realization came to me somewhere in between this seven day vacation of ours).
The Paris underground metro system turned out to be a maze of tunnels, passages and moving walkways. It resembled a kingdom to me because it seemed to have a life of it's own. Right there in the very bowels of Paris, there thrives a living breathing civilization. In the narrow passages, one can spot budding musicians playing all sorts of exotic instruments like the xylophone, the tambourine and the banjo. Fruit vendors, souvenier vendors and second-hand booksellers share space on the sidewalks. Walls are adorned with colourful graffitti and posters announcing upcoming musicals/art shows. The ancient and rickety trains are the city's lifeline catering to all sorts of commuters. The diversity and density of the crowd travelling on these trains brought back memories of metro trains in a city thousands of miles away. If you are an Indian, you would instantly understand that I am referring to the the local trains in Mumbai which can qualify as the impoverished step sisters of the Paris metro trains.
We travelled amongst the august company of musicians and their instruments, painters with their easels and paint boxes, students from around the world, people dressed in neat business suits as well as people clad in bohemian couture and dreadlocks and of course the omni present fellow tourists. Just like our Mumbaikers, the Parisians believe in wriggling their way into overcrowded trains and with a shove here and a push there they manage to find enough space to park themselves. To ensure that I did not get lost in the crowd (It is not an advantage to be a tiny person when in crowded places) , I forever had a firm grip on my companion and at one point I almost thought that I had ripped off his shirt which was the only thing that I had managed to grab onto then.
Our hotel room turned out to be tiny albeit comfortable. After having washed off the strain of the journey, we ventured out. Pont Neuf, our first stop, is the oldest standing bridge across the river Seine in Paris. There, amidst the several locks on the railing signifying everlasting love for innumerable couples, the magnificient Louvre on one side and the beautiful Palais de Justice on the other, I caught my first glimpse of the Eiffel Tower which rendered me speechless. Far away, looming majestically over the city of Paris was this gigantic metallic structure which had once upon a time suffered heavy criticism from the Parisian populace as it was considered to be a blot on the landscape. The overcast sky was kind enough to give us just sufficient time to click a few pictures and bask in the beauty of the moment before it burst into a light shower. We took shelter under the tin roof of a sidewalk cafe and continued to admire the Pont Neuf from a distance. The drizzle ceased as quickly as it had started and a golden sun pryed open it's way from under a sheet of dark clouds.
With the sun shining gaily upon us, we continued our walk along the high walls of the Louvre. I could not get myself to believe that I was standing in front of the world's most famous museum which houses 35,000 pieces of the most appreciated art work. Slowly we edged our way into the Louvre compound through one of the several entrances which in itself was beautiful as it was rimmed with massive marble and stone sculptures of warriors, horses, angels and the likes. As we entered, we found ourselves staring agape at the colossal arena enclosed by a fortress like structure which is actually the Louvre and smack in the center of this arena was the famous glass Pyramid which serves as a main entrance to the grand museum. For a couple of seconds both of us just stood there coming to terms with the splendour we were witnessing. After giving ourselves ample time, we shook ourselves out of our reverie and started the long stroll from the Louvre complex crossing the Jardin de Tuileries, past the Place de la Concorde with the Egyptian obelisk to the grand Boulevard Champs de Elysees.
In my opinion, Paris resembles a very creative child's playroom. Just as a toddler strews his play things all over his room, a stuffed bear here, a Lego structure there, it appears that the celebrated artists of Paris decided to dot the city randomly with their artefacts. Such is the beauty of Paris that when we were least expecting to encounter something magnificient, we would run into an ornate fountain or a tasteful sculpture or a charming boulevard. But as they say there is always a method to madness, I am sure there is some logic to this as well.
The Boulevard Champs de Elysees was lined with trees of the exact same height and flattened tops . This gave us an insight to how aesthetically inclined Parsians are.I must admit that one of the most difficult things that I have had to do in years was to turn a blind eye to the attractive designer stores that beckoned to me from all around Champs de Elysees. They seemed to be calling out to me-'Oh come have a look at our scarves,shoes, bags, coats'……..and on and on went the imaginary voices emanating from the stores. The Arc de Triomphe was our finish line and as we circled in on it we suddenly realised how exhausted we were from all the walking. Our worn out brains and famished guts refused to cooperate any longer and as expected the bickering commenced. How we argued on and on about as trivial a subject as where to eat and what to eat!!!!! Finally we arrived at a consensus on eating pizza as it is difficult to go wrong with something as basic as Pizza Margherita.
Just as we turned a corner, 500 meters from the station, we found ourselves standing on a raised platform right in front of the Eiffel. What a wonderful feeling that was!!! Scenes from movies like 'An Evening in Paris', 'Everyone says I love you' and several books including 'Is Paris Burning' swam in front of my eyes as I stood ogling at this metallic wonder. It would not be an exaggeration if I say that in that moment standing in front of the Eiffel Tower set against a pinkish grey sky, I realised why it is called the most romantic place on Earth. It would suffice to say that I was happy that my very first sighting of this marvelous structure was with a loved one. A cup of hot coffee added to the warmth that had begun to spread itself within me after the sighting. It did not matter any more that we had to stand in a long line for tickets to enter and go up or that it would take ages for us to cover both the floors or that we would be jostled and shoved around by the crowd. We were HAPPY and no amount of unpleasantness could have jolted us out of our warm and fuzzy cocoon.
People have often warned me about the occupational hazards of being in a relationship. They tell me that the journey is not as rosy as the idea of the journey and that the everyday monotony negates all the hype and hooplah created by dreamers about love, affection and 'happily ever after'. I, on the contrary feel that if the journey entails moments and pitstops which make one realize how lucky they are for having someone to share even the tiniest of pleasures with, then it is worth all the hours and days of routine involved.
Yakety Yak Yakety Yak we chit chatted all the way up the Eiffel. On the first floor we found souvenir shops, a coffee shop with a restaurant and more importantly a breathtaking view. The entire city of Paris in all it's shining glory spread itself in front of us. The bridges, the monuments and the boulevards were all lit up under the dusky grey sky. No wonder so many enamoured men chose to propose here as something certainly goes mushy and gooey inside a woman's brain up on the Eiffel, as a result of which, they are more susceptible to accepting and believing the raptures of their beaus. Needless to say, we saw many many enraptured couples exchanging vows of endless love..it was pretty hilarious if you ask me as it is a well known fact that western love stories just like western groceries have a very limited shelf life (I am sorry if I am generalizing..but we Indians tend to generalize and be judgemental once in a while).The second floor offered more or less the same view as is offered by a window seat in an aeroplane and so we decided to begin our descent without spending too much time there. By the time we landed on Mother Earth, it was already midnight and we witnessed the Eiffel all lit up and sparkly as well.
Dragging our weary bones back to the hotel was a painful task. However, we succeeded in reaching our room and collapsing in heaps on our fluffy bed only to be awakened the next day at seven by a rather shrill alarm clock. Having learnt a lesson from the previous day, we had decided to indulge in a hearty breakfast before initiating Day 2 in Paris. Cambronne offered an array of Parisian cafes to choose from and we picked a cheerful street side one aptly called the Royal Cambronne cafe. Our breakfast comprised scrambled eggs with tomatoes, cheese and mushrooms, flaky buttery croissants, slices of rye bread, freshly sqeezed orange juice and frothy cappucinos. We spent a good one hour relishing our breakfast and polishing off even the crumbs.
Our chosen trail took us first to the most renowned painting of the Louvre - the Mona Lisa which is located in the Medieval Louvre department of the Sully Wing. As we approached the masterpiece, our flash card informed us that the painting was that of a certain Monna ('Mrs') Lisa Gherardini del Giocondo, wife of a wealthy merchant in Florence. As we read on, we were amazed to know that the painting earned it's worldwide fame only in the 20th century and that too on account of the adventures (theft, stoning, travels to US, Tokyo, Moscow etc.) it had chanced upon rather than the brilliance of the artwork. As expected, there was a crowd of tourists circling the exhibit. Here I used my tinyness to my advantage and wiggled through the pack of people to take a close up shot of Mrs del Giocondo.
I was to be very very careful, my companion warned, I had only a few minutes to take a perfectly symmetric picture before being elbowed out by the swarming groups of tourists. Armed with these pearls of wisdom I zig zagged my way right to the front. I do not know if I lived upto his expectations, but I managed to click three pictures of the celebrated lady before I had to relenquish my prime spot to a rather annoyed looking Chinese man with a large SLR camera.
Swerving around, we caught a rare moment with the next artefact on our trail :'The Wedding Feast of Cana'. I call it a rare moment as for a minute somehow, there was only us and the painting and no one else and then just as suddenly the swarm of tourists descended upon it and our moment passed. This painting which once upon a time adorned the walls of a monastery in Venice, depicts the biblical episode of Christ's first miracle at a poor man's wedding. However, the painter, Paolo Caliari also known as Veronese, has swapped the era with his own and hence the painting showcases a rather opulent wedding with guests dressed in brilliant outfits and the table laden with copious amounts of food instead of a poor household. Despite the affluence of the parties depicted, there seems to be a shortage of wine and here's where Christ steps in and miraculously turns water into wine. The minutest of details have been taken care of and one wonders how long the painter might have taken to paint such an enormous canvas with such attention to detail.
Another massive canvas awaited us in Room 74 of the French Painting section- The Coronation of the Emperor Napoleon I and the Crowning of the Empress Joséphine in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2, 1804 by Jacques Louise DAVID. This painting competed with the previous one tooth and nail when it came to attention paid to minute details. Each one of the 150 portraits of spectators in this painting was unique. Each expression, each gesture, each posture meant something. For example: the portrait of Pope Pius the seventh who is shown presiding over the coronation of Josephine reflects the lack of conviction that was felt by the subject. The portrait of Talleyrand also is shown casting an ironic eye on the ostentatious display.
The three previous paintings had set high expectations for the next piece that we were about to witness and quite frankly it lived up to it as the story behind the mutilated sculpture called the Victory of Samothrace was pretty fascinating. The statue is that of 'Victory' and she is shown alighting on the prow of a ship to which it brings divine favour. It is said that this sculpture stood on the island of Samothrace in Greece and could be seen from quite a distance by ships approaching the island. The massive sculpture looks eerie thanks to the defacement that it has suffered over centuries. As we analyzed our photographs later, we realized that the pictures of us taken in front of this gigantic sculpture were the ones where we looked like midgets.
The next three paintings namely, 'The Oath of the Horatii' by DAVID-a painting describing an episode from Roman history where three Horatii, Rome's chosen champion warriors, take an oath of loyalty before their father while the women of the house observe despondently, 'The Odalisque' by DAVID's disciple Ingres-a female nude painting featuring a woman in a harlem in the Far east who has an almost indecipherable deformed body as she has three extra vertebrae and her left leg and right breast are attached to the body in a strange manner as well as ' The Raft of the Medusa' by Rouen-a painting depicting the tragedy of the frigate Medusa which sank in 1816 because of the incompetence of it's captain who was appointed in his capacity for political reasons and also features in clear detail gory images of cannibalism, slaughter along with various other psychological states of mind amongst the survivors who are shown afloat on the wooden remanants of the ship, were all thought provoking and gave us a lot to chew on and discuss for many days to come.
A very French painting caught our eye next as we encountered the 'Liberty leading the people' by Eugène DELACROIX next. It was a bold depiction of a scene post the three day riots known as the "Les Trois Glorieuses" which led to the downfall of Charles X and the crowning of Loius Philip even though the people of Paris tried to establish the Republic. A dirty, half naked female figure represents the Republic and the painter has ascertained by painting representatives from all classes the fact that political awareness in all stratas of society was at an all time high during this period.
The Slave who is imprisoned in the marble by Michelangelo and the beautiful albeit armless Venus de Milo seeking to depict timeless, divine beauty were the final cherries on the marvelous sundae which was our thematic trail through the 10 master pieces of the Louvre. Having completed our main agenda in little over two hours, we wandered through the other galleries catching some Egyptian pieces including a terrifying original female mummy and an enormous Sphinx. The original papyrus displays and the ethnic jewellery worn by the ancient Egyptians also caught our attention. At last after feeding on loads of unadulterated art for four complete hours, we decided that we had had our full and that now it was time to feed on some real food. The Louvre food court offered us the much required fiber in the form of a fruit cup and the equally much required calories in the form of a double chocolate brownie.
Our cultural sojourn was not over just as yet. We were now headed to the famous Notre Dame cathedral. Unfortunately as we reached the ancient monument, we were informed that there was some kind of a protest being held in front of the cathedral because of which it was closed for the day. As we were already overdosed on cathedrals, this was not a big setback and we decided to visit the Saint Chapelle which is famous for it's stained glass interiors. Inside the chapel we were subjected to pin drop silence thankfully broken by a naughty little girl with a head full of curls, youngest amongst three siblings, noisily playing the clown in front of her mortified parents much to the amusement of the other onlookers.
Next on our 'to-do' list was a trip to the Latin Quarters, a locality surrounding the University of Sorbonne. Interestingly, this area was christened Latin Quarters because of the Latin speaking scholars who frequented it in ancient times. A little bit of poster-shopping for our future abode spiced up the visit. I could almost imagine how our first home would look bedecked with these tid bits from all over Europe.
I warmed up to the streets of Latin Quarters instantly. We picked out the seediest of all watering holes called 'The Latin Corner' to enjoy a cocktail each. For the first time in my life, I was served a Mojito with a sparkly fire cracker dipped in it. As I sat enjoying the familiar tang of my drink, I couldn't help but appreciate the not so classy yet noteworthy decor of the cafe. The theme was undoubtedly raunchy night club but the clientele was by and large sophisticated and chic. Two Mojitos down, we were ready to yet again gorge. This time around the chosen diner did not live up to our expectations even though we were served big portions of food. The crowded place killed the mood and we quickly finished our meal and headed out. Our last night in Paris was thus spent loitering around the streets of Latin Quarters. But we knew, we would be back again, some day soon.
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