Paris Redux

For our second trip to Paris, we decided to make the Musee d'Orsay our main sight. Situated right on the river Seine in an old train station, it is a fantastic museum with extensive impressionist and art nouveau collections. We really enjoyed the setting and the artwork.

Pictured (click to enlarge): interior of Musee d'Orsay

After satisfying Rochelle's otter-like love of oysters for lunch (not to mention wine for Rich), we toured the Cimitiere du Pere Lachaise. Although the vandalism is a shame, it is a beautiful cemetery. Music lovers can visit the graves of Rossini and Chopin, among others. Those with more modern taste can brave the throngs looking for Jim Morrison's grave. It's now blocked off with a fence and guarded by an armed guard. I'm not sure he would appreciate the tacky flowers and cigarette butts, but who knows?

Pictured: graves of Jim Morrison, Gioachino Rossini, wine lover?

Saturday we headed off to the market. When we first got off the metro, we followed some equally clueless English people until we found some signs that pointed in the right direction. At first we were bummed that we made the trip -- the first market we came to was filled with cheap stuff (clothes & tourist junk) and scary guys hawking pirated DVDs. After a while we found the antiques section. We weren't really shopping for anything, but it was interesting to see everything from huge chandeliers to art filling stall after stall.

Pictured: Notre Dame gargoyles and rose window

We headed back to the Ile de St. Louis to tour Notre Dame. While the inside view of the windows is beautiful, it's the details on the outside that really make it interesting. There must be some sort of gargoyle record here! At dusk, we took a boat ride on the Seine which provided some great views of the Eiffel Tower (pictured below).

Looking for some refreshments, we stumbled on a Canadian pub called The Beaver on the Ile de Cite. We went upstairs and played darts for a while before a group of french students came up. We decided to let them play a round and then quickly decided that we'd move downstairs before we were killed (the darts were real, and the students were real bad)! Downstairs we talked to some friendly Canadians while the France-Scotland rugby match played. This explained the kilt-wearing men we saw all weekend (unfortunately, France won by a landslide).

Catching a restaurant on a weekend night in Paris can be an adventure, especially if you're looking for something other than the typical bistro. We got lucky both nights, finding a spanish/catalan restaurant Friday night and a french/ place on Saturday. But we had to do quite a bit of walking past overflowing places first!

Sunday we did more walking around the latin quarter. We stopped at the Pantheon, checking out Foucault's pendulum (pictured) and the nationalist surroundings. All in all, it was a great 2nd trip to Paris and we've barely scratched the surface of all of the things to do and see there.