Paris and off on a new adventure

Hey everyone,

Yet again, I am apologizing for a seriously lax attitude towards updating my blog.  The last week has been great because I had both a wonderful trip to Paris to look back on and a delightful visit from Andrea Shalay and her mom who stayed with me for 5 days over the weekend.  On the other hand I have been fighting off a nasty cold since friday and I am feeling pretty run down.  

Paris was great!  We left early saturday morning and took a large tour bus to Versailles, which is a suburb of Paris and home to the magnificent Palais de Versailles.  A UNESCO world heritage sight, the palace has been home to some of Frances most well known feudals.  In 1669 Louis the 14th (the Sun King) commissioned renowned French architect Louis Le Vau to commence construction on the Palace.  Highlights of the castle include the Hallway of Mirrors and the grand royal apartments.  The gardens are also a favourite with tourists but they were actually commissioned by Louis the 15th and Marie Antoinette.  The day that we went to Versailles we were treated to a small by Canadian standards snow storm which left the gardens under abour 5cm of snow.  This was enough to keep us indoors however and so I will have to see the gardens another time.  The palace was the envy of pretty much all of Europe's royalty and frankly it isn't really until you go inside that you understand why.  The exterior of the castle is rather un-impressive, especially when compared to some of the cathedrals that I have visited thus far.  However when you go inside, breathtaking, becomes an impossible understatement.  The interior is truly magnificent.  There are enormous painted ceilings and incredibly luxurious hallways.  The royal cathedral, although closed to the public is incredible, there is truly a understanding of sacredness in old European church architecture that truly stands the test of time.  When you finally make it through the royal apartments and into the hallway of mirrors, you really understand why the European elite of the 17th century were so impressed by the Palace.  I mean, all comments on vanity aside, the Hallway is really beautiful.  Another highlight of the palace is the hallways decorated with all of the major battles in France's history.  To put it mildly, it is a really long hallway featuring depictions of battles as far back as Charles Martel in the 700's AD.  Also a highlight was the painting of Napolean 1 (Bonapart's handle after declaring himself emperor).  This is one tourist destination in the Paris area that I highly recommend.

After our exploration of Versailles we continued on to Paris.  With a quick stop at a viewpoint of the Eiffel Tower and a drive around the roundabout at L'arc de Triomphe, we arrived at our hostel.  After that, we went to Saint Michel (the famous latin quarter).  Home to the Sorbonne, one of the worlds oldest universities and ground zero for the 1968 popular uprising, the quarter has a lot of history and has undergone a lot of changes over the years.  The latin quarter is home to many restaurants popular with tourists, one of which, we got hustled into with the promise of 'free drinks.'  Rookie mistake, I know, but you live you learn...right?  Well, the frogs legs weren't great and the drinks were pretty terrible, but the company was great and we went on to have drinks at a local café before returning to our hostel.

The next day was spent at the Louvre which was overwhelming...in a good way.  I think in the 5 hours or so that we had in the museum we probably saw about 15% of what was being shown.  Highlights, were the Italian paintings, the Egyptian section and the greek sculptures.  After that, we went to Lunch at an Italian restaurant and Notre Dame, which we only saw from the outside.

My overall reflection of Paris, was that the city is absolutely incredible and far far too big to see in the short 2 days that I had there.  I definitely didn't want to leave and look forward to my next trip there, which might be the first weekend of March.  Until then, I am heading to Budapest tomorrow morning and Prague middle of next week.  I will be traveling with Antoine, my housemate and another Québecois friend, Jule and hope to be wowed by the old architecture and have a chance to experience the culture of Eastern Europe during the trip.

That's all for now.