The train ride itself was pretty boring, and the views weren't great. You're either in a tunnel or looking at farmland for most of the time. A funny thing I noticed during the ride: the announcements are made in English first and then in French, but they reverse the order as you get closer to Paris. It didn't matter either way since the announcer's french accent was so thick that I couldn't tell the difference between his French and English. Gare du Nord isn't in the nicest area, so we hightailed it out of there as soon as we arrived.
This was the first time for the both of us taking the Metro, and it's pretty much just like the Tube so we didn't have any trouble getting to the Hotel Castille on rue de Cambon. It's where Coco Chanel used to have all of her shops back in her day, and fittingly enough, there's a huge Chanel shop right next door so I had to drool over their purses every time we left the hotel. The hotel itself is absolutely beautiful in a very French way, and even though our room wasn't huge, things seem snug and just right, as opposed to feeling squished in.
My first impression of Paris is that it's a beautiful city rich with history. The thing is... I've lived in London for the last half year, and I've become used to the sight of historical monuments on the way to the grocery store. Paris probably would've made a bigger impact on me if I had arrived straight from Los Angeles, as opposed to a city like London.
I had made big plans for the day, but they soon hit a snag as soon as we caught a glimpse of the Louvre on our way to the Pont Neuf, and we couldn't resist the temptation to go stop by and "just check out the outdoor plaza." I was pretty hungry by then, so we each bought a sandwich from Paul's in the Jardin de Tuileries, and they were pretty good and not overpriced (unlike most of the restaurants in tourist heavy areas). I also bought a hot chocolate to warm up, and let me tell you - their hot chocolate is the biz-omb! It's literally like a hot melted chocolate bar that can't really be classified as a liquid. It's more like this molten chocolately awesomeness in a cup - you don't drink, you slurp.
The exterior of the Louvre is pretty amazing. Note that being in a world class museum hasn't stopped me from acting the fool.
The weather was much colder than I expected, and my feet were too frozen to walk any further so we decided to head inside the Louvre and take advantage of the fact that the museum is open until 9:30 on Fridays. I got so distracted looking around me that I almost fell when I got off an escalator - I had completely forgotten that I was on the damn thing until my ride came to a rather abrupt end!
The interior is just as amazing as the outside:
Of course we saw some of the most famous pieces:
But there were other not-as-famous pieces that I loved:
And I gotta love the bling, especially old school bling:
J was ecstatic when we came across the Roman gladiator exhibition:
And we finished off our visit with a stop by Napoleon's apartments. Some phrases come to mind - gilded, ostentatious, and that's a really big chandelier:
J's "dogs were barking" after 5 1/2 hours of roaming the Louvre, so we headed back to the hotel for a good night's sleep and to enjoy the madeleine cookies provided by our very thoughtful turn-down service.
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