Paris - day I

Paris. I hate it - but oh, how I love it! 

The idea to spend a few days in Paris popped into my head one afternoon, while I was revsing impressionism for art history. And then it  just stayed there.  I dreamt about van Gogh and Monet and I even looked at the old photos of my last trip.
That`s how I ended up alone, in the middle of February, in a city I thought I would never want to see again, with the plan to take a lot of photos (better ones than all those years ago) and visit the Musée d`Orsay and the Orangérie.

It was also the perfect opportunity to test my new camera. Almost all the photos I`m showing you here are not edited. I didn`t use a tripod or a flash. Everything I had with me was my Sony a7 and the 35mm objective.

Day 1

I took the TGV from  Stuttgart to Paris early in the morning and I was so excited and looking forward to it because I had seen this blue and silver train a few times at the station and I couldn`t wait to see if it would really go faster than 300 km/h.
It did.
So I arrived at the Gare de l`Est at 11.00 a.m. I left my luggage at the hotel and couldn`t wait to see just everything.
Of course I had a detailed plan.  You could call it a timetable but that sounds so stressfull.

Père Lachaise

When I stepped out of the Métro I was momentarily confused where I had to go. The signage in Paris is really something that needs getting used to, especially in the Métro stations. I don`t know how many times I lost my way while I was looking for the right exit at Châtelet. And you can walk for hours down there without seeing the same place twice, believe me. But back to Père Lachaise.
Of course my timing was brilliant. Not many tourists yet and the sun shining in the blue sky. The only sunny day of the weekend.

I love cemeterys. It`s so quiet, even in the middle of a city like Paris. And Père Lachaise is really worth a visit. Not at all like the cemeterys I have seen in Germany. It`s more like a giant park and you can walk many kilometres there, if you want.

Even with a map it is almost impossible to find the graves of some of the famous people buried there. After some time I just gave up and followed a small path up the hill. From there I had a beautiful view over the whole cemetery.

By chance I stumbled upon the grave of Chopin.

 

One of the few statues on the Père Lachaise.

There are so many tombs in a relatively small space. Sometimes there is just a simple stone you could easily overlook and then there are mini chapels or even giant monuments.

Opéra Garnier

After walking around for almost three hours I had to hurry to arrive at the Opéra Garnier in time for the guided tour.

I hadn`t seen the Opéra Garnier or Pére Lachaise when I was in Paris eight years ago with a school exchange programme. But I love the Phantom of the Opera and when I learned that there were more conecctions to the real place than just the building, I had to go there and see it in reality.

The first difficulty was to find the entrance, where the tour would start. I had chosen the wrong exit at the Métro station (again) and had to walk around the whole bulding. And then I walked around once more, because there is so much to see and it is so beautiful.

Now back to the phantom. There is indeed a lake under the opera. Well, lake is maybe a bit exaggerated. It is more  like a water basin. When they started to build the opera back in 1861, groundwater came in and they had to build a double foundation. We didn`t go down there, which is good, because I´m not particularly interested in looking at dark underground cisterns. I prefer to see the beautiful lake from the 2004 film on screen or in my mind.

The first highlight was the Grand Staircase. It`s so much more impressive than the rebuilt scenery in the musical.

  

 

 They used so many different kinds of marble and everywhere are details,

like the little lizard climbing up the balustrade.










Whoever walked up that staircase wanted to be seen.
The steps are curved like waves and everything matches just perfectly.

 

 There is even a library which is part of the national library, but our guide told us, that if you want to borrow a book there, you have to wait a few days until they find it.

  

They`ve got lovely miniatures of past stage settings on display there.

This is the chamber of the sun. The mirrors and the lights are arranged in a way that lets the reflections  become redder the more distant they are. It looks a little bit like the setting sun

Sadly I was not allowed to take photos in the auditorium, because there were rehearsals fo a ballett going on. But I could have a look at the giant 7-tons-chandelier and the ceiling painted by Chagall. Well, I wouldn`t have minded skipping the part with the Chagall painting. In my opinion it doesn`t fit.

But I loved the chandelier. It reminded me of the phantom. In 1896 a part of the chandelier came down and killed someone in the audience, which inspired Leroux to write his novel.

The stage is so big and goes on many metres above and under the part that can be seen from the auditorium. In the past they even had horses under the stage to move the scenery.

 

There is mosaic on the floor almost everywhere.

 The phantom`s box...

 

There are so many rooms under the roof where the ballett students used to practise and so much space above the stage. Apparently there could be living several people up there whithout anyone knowing of their existence... Like an opera ghost, for example ...

The Grand Foyer reminded me of the hall of mirrors in Versailles. Oh God, I have to see Versailles again!

 After I had managed to find the Métro entrance (seriously, it`s difficult! I didn`t have those problems in London or elsewhere) I went to the Île de la Cité to get a first look of Notre Dame and the Conciergerie in the evening sun.  

First glimpse of the Tour Eiffel... I love the atmosphere in this picture.

The sight of this cathedral conjured up so many of the things I learned about gothic architecture, it felt as if I could almost touch history there.

At this time I was ready to lie down and just sleep. My legs and feet hurt. Sometimes I forget that I am not that well trained anymore. But I had been walking around for about seven hours that day and maybe everyone would have been tired after that.

Nonetheless I decided to spend the rest of the evening in the Louvre, which is open until 10.45 p.m. on Fridays. 

Here are some of the photos I took on my walk along the Seine. The light was just perfect.

 

 

The Louvre

One of the really good things in Paris is that when you`re under 26 you have free entry in the museums. That`s one of the reasons why I decided to go to the Louvre, although with mixed feelings.  At this time of the day there was not even a queue.

It wasn`t that important to me to go to the Louvre. But when I was there I could do nothing but marvel at the beauty of the art there. Just like last time, or even more so, because now I have seen and learned more about art. When I heard and read about impressionism in art history lectures I often heard about nice and beautiful art and how it all became "better" when the painters didn`t go to the Académie anymore and when there were not just allegories etc. but when art started to show the problems of society.
I can understand that, but I am still fascinated by some of those "nice" paintings and (I don`t like to admit that) often just impressed by their sheer size. And the artists where so skilled!

I´m not going to post photos of the Mona Lisa and the other well known paintings here, because I wanted to stand there and look at them instead of competing with the Japanese Tourists almost fighting for the best place to take a selfie.

It`s wonderful to walk through those corridors with almost no one there. (The only place where it was almost crowded was the Mona Lisa. Still it couldn`t be compared to the mass of people there during daytime.)

Such a special feeling and I felt so happy and so alive. It was as if every room had it`s own feeling in it. Sometimes I closed my eyes to just feel and when I opened them I was almost overwhelmed by the beauty of the paintings and skulptures before my eyes.
By chance I came to stand in front of one of William Turner`s paintings (the only one of his paintings in a french museum. Didn`t even know they had one) and again I fell in love with his use of colour and  light. It´s like a light flooded dream world is shining through the canvas. If you don`t know what I`m writing about, just google him.

One of my favourite artists is good old Leonardo da Vinci and there are so many paintings of him! And some of them are really big. I was so happy about seeing the Anna Metterza. Still, I like his drawings more than his paintings and I didn`t even know that they have one there at the Louvre. I couldn`t find it, so I will have to come back eventually...

Just to show you how big some of the paintings are. And this is not even one of the biggest...

It was not until I stood outside the Louvre againt that I finally realised how tired I was. And again I had to ask my way to the Métro. No one seemed to know. Finally I found some English tourists whith the same problem. We decided to walk to the Opéra. I don`t know how I managed that, but I did. And I was really happy about meeting someone from England. I love England. Did I mention that? And they where really nice.

That`s one of the things I like about travelling alone: You get to know other people more easily. And you can stay at the Louvre for three hours after walking around for eight hours without having to drag someone along who`s half asleep or having to argue about it.  

tbc...

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