One Day in Paris

A couple days ago a friend of mine leaned in and whispered, “You know what the best thing about Paris is?” I leaned right back expecting to hear about a hidden gem that I’d have to go right back and see…

“The best thing about visiting Paris is taking a shower at the end of the day to wash it all off!” I laughed and laughed with her because there is some real truth to that.

Don’t get me wrong, Paris is special and fun, and the history, and art, and gardens, and architecture just amaze me. But it’s also a very big city, swamped with tourists which kind of takes away a bit of the charm, for me anyway.

I had first visited Paris with my parents and oldest brother 20 years ago and it has changed so much in the way you visit the sites and how they manage the hoards of tourists there since then. Many, if not all, tickets are scheduled for certain days and times, well in advance. We saw many people turned away because they had purchased tickets online from scammer sites, or even from reputable sites like Viator and Trip Advisor. I was so relieved I had purchased all our tickets through the Paris Museums sites and that we had no troubles getting into the places we wanted to go. Even still, there were long lines everywhere.

Ultimately, we decided ahead of time what we really wanted to see and what would be realistic to expect with one day in Paris (there is so much you would need several days to see it all) and we were all so happy with how it turned out.

Emme wanted to see Les Catacombes. Brian and Nola wanted to see the Eiffel Tower. I wanted to see Sainte Chapelle and Les Conciergeries, and Matt was along for the ride. Before I share the pictures and details about the sites, I think the things I would go back to Paris for now are to see the Musée D’Orsay again (my favorite museum), and to visit Monet’s gardens (which I think are actually outside the city). The sites are all incredible but there is a very big city built up around it all so it’s not as lovely or romantic as you may expect. It was really special for Matt and I both to be able to speak and converse in French again for this trip. I loved that.

Here’s how the day played out!

We stayed in a cute apartment in Chessy, right next to Disneyland Paris (which was perfect for our second day plans). It was a short two-minute walk to the train station in the morning at 8am to reach Les Catacombes entrance by 9:15am. Les Catacombes is such a popular site that you are only allowed to purchase tickets one week before you wish to visit. We were lucky to get in! You only purchase tickets for adults ahead of time and then are allowed to purchase children tickets on site once your adult tickets are scanned in.

Les Catacombes in Paris is such a unique thing to visit. In the late 1700s the largest Paris cemetery at the time needed to be closed over concerns for public safety — too many bodies buried in too little space. the city decided to move all the bones and remains to the abandoned underground quarries from the 15th century that were beneath the city. Little by little these former limestone quarries began to house the bones from all the cemeteries of central Paris, and there are over 6 million persons’ remains there today. In the early 19th century the Catacombs were opened to the public which created a wave of curiosity that attracted growing numbers of visitors.

When you visit you descend 112 steps into what was called the “negative of Paris” with signs marking where the corresponding streets are above ground. There are also signs of the Arcueil Aqueduct that was built here between 1613 and 1623 by order of Marie de Medici to bring water to Paris from springs outside the city. Once you reach the entrance to the ossuary, you are greeted by words carved in stone overhead, “Arrete! C’est Ici L’empire De La Mort.” (Stop! This is the Empire of the Dead.) The bones were stacked and arranged, sometimes artistically, with the skulls and femurs most of which were from men. Beliefs at the time were that you have to have remains present in order to be resurrected one day. As they had so many bones to move, they figured keeping just the femur and the skull was sufficient. Behind the walls of stacked bones are some of the other bones just piled up together. Throughout the Catacombs you’ll see signage similar to a museum exhibit. Some note the areas of bones from specific church yards and the year they were moved. Some note that the bones were from certain battles or the periods of the French Revolution. Some of the signage are words from poets and writers about life and death.

“They were what we are, Dust, a toy of the wind! Fragile as men, weak as nothing!”

People used to have public music concerts in this chamber.

Don’t touch the bones!

Nola was scared but only by the dark pathways that were blocked off. There were just so many bones that the magnitude of seeing it is profound. Paris has been a busy city for a very long time and many lives were lived and lost here. I am glad we saw it, and it was kind of the perfect thing to do on Halloween weekend.

Once we came up from the underground, we hopped on the metro and headed to see the Eiffel Tower. The whole area is so crowded with tourists. I was glad that we didn’t buy tickets to actually go up the tower. It just felt too claustrophobic and the whole area was filled with street vendors and performers trying to get you to buy something. We walked so that we could see it better from a distance and talked about the history of it as the entrance to the World’s Fair.

She wanted to be “holding it up!” If you look closely at this picture, all the people are posing and taking pictures. Everywhere! It was kind of funny to see, even though we were doing it too.

We stopped by a corner cafe for a quick lunch. The food was great but I could tell it really caters to all the tourists because our food and cheque came fast, and they served Pepsi with ice (that never happens in Europe)! But quick was what we needed to make it to our next stop in time.

Ok, look at the cafe chairs. I hugely regret not taking pictures of all the different cafe chairs because they were all so unique and so cute with different colors and patterns. Top of my list for when I visit again.

Sainte Chapelle is incredible and I highly recommend a visit if you are going to Paris. It’s a popular site so make sure you buy your tickets from the Paris Museums site and expect lots of people and lines.

The Chapelle is a royal chapel in the Gothic style, within the medieval Palais de la Cité, the residence of the Kings of France until the 14th century, on the Île de la Cité in the River Seine. It’s not far from Notre Dame, for reference. It claims to have housed the relics of the crown of thorns placed on Jesus’s head before he was crucified and having this relic in medieval times meant great power.

The stained glass and bright colors of the chapel make it so unique and a must-see. The high, vaulted ceilings are painted a deep blue covered with golden stars and I remembered something similar I had seen before. I pulled my children in close to me in the middle of the crowd and told them to look up as I shared with them that when I was in Egypt visiting King Tut’s tomb in the valley of the kings, the ceilings there had also been painted blue with many, many gold stars. There is so much symbolism in this and it made them see their surroundings there with new eyes. We also talked about the repeated images of angels swinging an incense ball and how that represented them carrying prayers up to God in heaven. The stained glass was filled with all the stories from the Old and New Testaments so we spend time trying to pick out different stories that we know. There is ongoing excavation and restoration at the site so I expect if I return to visit in another 20 years things will be different again. I am glad we stopped here.

Part of our Sainte Chapelle ticket ended up being such a fun surprise for me. Les Conciergeries is right next to Sainte Chapelle and was part of the Palace there in medieval times. It has the largest medieval hall in all of Europe and was also the place where Marie Antionette and thousands of others were held and sentenced during the French Revolution.

There was a sand art display in the Great Hall on the day we visited and we all just loved it. We visited where Marie Antionette was held and learned more about the history of the French Revolution while there. If you’re going to visit Sainte Chapelle, I would definitely see Les Conciegeries right next door too.

Hall of Names. The walls are lined with the names of 4000 individuals who were held here and either sentenced or acquitted.

This is where Marie Antionette’s cell was. It is now a small chapel. The walls are painted black with silver tears. The alter is where her bed was.

This was the women’s courtyard and it is the least changed area since the French Revolution. The female prisoners spent most of the day here to stave off boredom and anxiety. All around it are the cell windows.In one corner, a second small courtyard surrounded by railings was part of the men’s prison.

By this time we were tired. We had already walked 7 miles, even with taking the metro to zip around where we needed to be. Our last tickets we had for the day were for a boat tour on the Seine. If we didn’t have tickets, we probably would have skipped this, but it was nice to sit down, be on the water and to see all the sites from the Seine we hadn’t visited during the day.

Notre Dame looking very clean in the middle of her restorations.

My videos of the kids are my favorite of this day.

One end of the Louvre.

We took the train home, got some incredible pizzas for take out and peeked through the windows of the Disney Imagineering building near our apartment. In the end we covered 10 miles on foot, thoroughly enjoyed a hot shower, and slept really well that night.

Until next time Paris!

Every time I look down on this timeless town
Whether blue or gray be her skies.
Whether loud be her cheers or soft be her tears,
More and more do I realize:

I love Paris in the springtime.
I love Paris in the fall.
I love Paris in the winter when it drizzles,
I love Paris in the summer when it sizzles.

I love Paris every moment,
Every moment of the year.
I love Paris, why, oh why do I love Paris?
Because my love is near.

—Cole Porter, sung by Doris Day