Continuing on with the major landmarks, we'll climb the Notre-Dame Tower in this chapter, we'll go on a Seine river boat ride, but first let's visit the most famous museum in the world...

La Musée de Louvre

La Musée du Louvre (160 Rue de Rivoli, M1 Louvre-Rivoli) can be annoying or interesting, depending on your personal interests. If you don’t really care for museums, and are only going just to see the Mona Lisa in person, you’ll likely end up feeling pretty underwhelmed. Just imagine a room with at least fifty people jostling each other for a photo of the famous painting. Not to mention that your photo will look like garbage, since the painting is smaller than you’d ever expect, and locked behind a thick layer of glass. I will give it this: there is a haunting quality there, and it permeates its way through the glass. She’s definitely giving you “a look.” With all the surrounding noise and jostling, it won’t be easy to appreciate this haunting aspect, but if you’re able to block out the distractions for even a good five seconds, the Mona Lisa is worth your time.

Yes...the Mona Lisa is worth your time, but it alone is not quite worth the price of admission. Luckily there’s a lot more to see, and it isn’t all crowds and cameras. Well technically there’s so much to see that you’ll never see it all, so let me just focus on a few of my favourite aspects.

I arrived when the museum opened, on a free day no less, so people were already pouring in. The free day used to be the first Sunday of the month all year long, but as of this publication it’s only from October to March. For me it was the first Sunday of May, nine a.m., and an influx of visitors was heading straight for the Mona Lisa. I let them scurry away, and opted for the nearby hall of French sculptures. I arrived and it was totally devoid of visitors; I mean literally not one other person. It was a shame but also a gift, because the silence, the many windows letting in the morning rays of sun...pure bliss. You won’t find Rodin’s famous works, as he has a separate museum, but the sculptures here were impressive nonetheless, and it was the perfect heavenly way to begin my journey through the Louvre.

I’m not really good with museum maps, so aside from knowing the general hall I needed to get to, I was terrible at finding specific artwork. My deficiency served me well, as it resulted in gasps of delight when I encountered the Venus de Milo, and later on the famous Winged Victory statue.

There are also impressive sections on Ancient Greece and Rome; you’ve got your emperors like Augustus and Tiberius, you’ve got your Greek goddesses like Aphrodite and Athena, and they’ve all been carved in impressive dimensions, to evoke a real sense of awe.

As for my favourite area of all? Which any museum patron will enjoy?

The Hall of Italian Sculptures.

I have never seen so much gorgeousness and detail in one space; statue by statue you’ll be amazed, and you’ll even see some things that you recognize from books ( like “Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss”). I spent the second-most amount of time in the Hall of Italian Sculptures, and the most amount of time in...the Ancient Egypt section. This is a Romi-specific obsession, but if you’re anything like me, you’ll experience a sense of glee when you realize there are eighteen rooms at the Louvre dedicated solely to Ancient Egypt. From a tall likeness of the goddess Isis, to the Sitting Scribe sculpture you’ve seen in so many books, to the sun-worshipping pharaoh Akhenaten, to pages from the Book of the Dead, to sarcophagi as far as the eye can see...eighteen rooms, y’all!

On the level of pure visual admiration, the ceiling work in the Galerie D’Apollon is quite impressive, as well as the Hall of Italian paintings which seems to go on for miles. It’s here that you’ll find the room with the Mona Lisa, but let the other visitors deal with that while you browse the Italian paintings, many of them religious and gruesome, decapitations and all (don’t judge me for finding this fascinating; it’s art).

Overall I spent five hours walking around in the museum, and half an hour sitting because my legs started to give out. This leg “weirdness” followed me around for my first few days in Paris, until it finally culminated in waking up one morning and not being able to walk. I was literally too sore to walk like a normal human. That didn’t stop me from going out to get a croissant, but I was walking as stiff as Frankenstein and getting a lot of weird looks. It occurred to me then that I was a lazy bastard, simply because of the life I’d been living prior to moving to Paris. The commuting, the sitting at an office desk all day...including sleep, I was basically sitting/lying down for twenty-one hours a day before Paris. On the flip side, in Paris I was walking everywhere, and now I suddenly needed a crane to lift me out of bed. I’d never planned to become that way, but people’s mobility or lack thereof is often a result of career choices, and/or where they can afford to live. Luckily the stiffness went away, and before too long I was strolling around Paris for two or three hours a day, sometimes more. This daily exercise justified not only my gluttony, but also this crazy idea of quitting my job and moving to Paris to write my next book.

Conclusion: wear comfy shoes when you go to the Louvre, and take as many breaks as needed.

Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris

Depending on the time of day and season, the Notre-Dame Cathedral (6 Parvis Notre-Dame - Place Jean-Paul II, M4 Cité) can seem busier than the Eiffel Tower. You’ll get a sense of this as you approach Ile de la Cité, and the oncoming swell of people. It’s enough to make any sane person walk right past and go to the Right Bank instead, to escape to the wonderful neighbourhood of the Marais.

But that would be a missed opportunity.

 It’s not the queue’s fault for being so in your face, there simply isn’t a whole lot of room to form a long queue in one small square. I’ve never had to wait in line to get inside the cathedral, since the first time we went was at night in May, and another time we went in October. In July and August I’ve seen massive line-ups in the middle of the day. Proceed accordingly.

There are four main ways to experience the cathedral. The first is simply to admire it from the outside. The carvings around the main doors are the most impressive I’ve ever seen; perfect for extended admiration of French gothic architecture. This exercise in admiration gets difficult in high season, with a crowd of people annoyingly in the way (I mean I guess you and I are one of those annoying people too, but let’s not split hairs).

The cathedral’s interior is more vast than any other cathedral in Paris from a vertical perspective. Then there’s the stained-glass artwork, particularly the famous rose window. If you’re more into the architecture and less into the religion, the entire cathedral walk-through shouldn’t take you more than fifteen minutes. If it’ll only take fifteen minutes, it’s really up to you on whether you should go if you see a massive queue. Try going early in the morning or as late as possible. 

The other two cathedral aspects come with an admission price; the archaeological crypt, and a climb of the Notre-Dame tower.

The crypt is only worth your time if you’re interested in studying ruins that will basically look like...ruins; ruins that are not exactly vast. As for the tower...this one I highly recommend. The line-up is a big consideration, because even in October at ten a.m. we waited in line for forty minutes. So now I’m going to tell you why the line-up is totally worth it...

The towers were completed in the mid-thirteenth century, and I don’t know if people in the mid-thirteenth century enjoyed getting dizzy as a form of recreation, but the staircase is as narrow and winding as staircases come. There are three viewing platforms that offer not only a break from the “dizzies,” but progressively better views. As you near the top, you’ll be face-to-face with the famous gargoyles you’ve seen in so many postcards. I love the one with its chin resting under its fist; so deep in thought. The other great thing is the full-range view of Paris. It’s a 360 perspective, with views of the Latin Quarter that are close enough to point out the famous Panthéon, and stellar views of the river and the Eiffel Tower. As for the huge advantage to a viewing perch that’s right in the middle of the city and not too high in elevation? You see everything; not just in general shapes, but in detail. Dare I say that the views you get here are superior to the views at the top of the Eiffel Tower. Gasp! It’s quite a dare indeed but it needs to be said, since so many people associate Notre-Dame with how it looks, without really considering what it offers in the form of amazing views.

Go for the tower, stay for the architecture...

Seine River Boat Ride

In six months of living in Paris, I never did the riverboat thing. The following summer, back in Paris and with my friends from Canada visiting me for a week, we collectively said: “That boat ride might be cool if we go at sunset.”

That’s exactly what we did, and let me please state in a very directive voice: “Only go on the boat ride if you’ve already seen the landmarks close up. THIS IS A SUPPLEMENTARY EXERCISE.”

With your schedule in Paris likely crammed, I can see the temptation of hopping on a Paris boat ride, instead of actually visiting the landmarks. Quick, efficient, and you’ll see many famous postcard views in two hours flat. It’s a logical assumption, but totally wrong. The thing is...it is physically impossible to appreciate the Eiffel Tower or Notre-Dame from the riverboat excursion. Why?

BECAUSE PEOPLE ON BOATS IN PARIS ARE CRAZY CAMERA WHORES.

I expected the usual camera-happy tourists like I do when I visit the famous landmarks, but this was on a whole other level. Everything seemed normal at first; no cause for concern at all. We arrived at the embarking point for Bateaux Mouches (Port de la Conférence, M9 Alma-Marceau), after a forty-minute walk from my place near Pont Neuf (I lived on the right bank in my second stay in Paris). With sunset still a good ninety minutes away, we purchased our tickets and found a row of seats on the upper deck. Everything was normal and sane. Even as the boat was beginning its journey, I didn’t really detect it. But then, at the very first sighting of the Eiffel Tower, it happened.

All I can guess is that half the people on the upper deck smoked a rare form of crack before getting on the boat, the kind that first activates at the sighting of a major landmark, and basically never stops. Don’t get me wrong, I always had my camera while in Paris, and I really enjoy taking pictures. But what the hell is up with two parents and a kid who EACH have their own six-hundred-dollar digital-SLR camera? Seriously, what IS that?!?! My friends and I watched in fascination as the kid, the mom, and the dad each took hundreds of photos. Literally hundreds. They never spoke to each other throughout the boat ride, never consulted each other on the redundancy of taking the exact same pictures, they just kept getting in different positions while blocking everyone’s views, and then the barrage of “click-click-click.” It was hilarious and I wish I’d brought wine.

The other form of crack-smokin’ crazies were the ones I’ll label as: “pose ‘til you die.” One man in particular was taking all his pictures with his giant iPad. He kept having trouble zooming the touch screen with his meaty fingers and it made me laugh. He doesn’t actually fall into the category I just mentioned, but I found him to be amusing. Then there was the stern husband and wife. I don’t think they had any fun the entire time, but damned if they didn’t take pictures of each other posing sternly in front of every freakin’ scenery or landmark. It’s how my family looks in all our photos from the good ol’ days; birthdays, Christmases, summer picnics...always stern. The consistency of the posing on the boat ride impressed me, as the wife always had her one thumb in her jeans pocket, I guess as a way of saying that her face might be stern, but she’s pretty casual and likes to have fun. Oh, and the reason I called them “pose ‘til you die” is that a different poser was so hell bent on not having anyone photo-bomb him, that he stood on the railing for one of the photos and slipped. And almost died (he recovered and continued posing on the solid boat deck).

Through all this sheer ridiculousness, I saw some beautiful things. Like for example, how nice the Eiffel Tower looks when it’s close to you and facing the river; I love the way it’s flanked by pretty boats and the carousel near the riverbank. I also watched the sun set between the towers of Notre-Dame, an hour and a half into the boat ride. It made all the craziness worth it.

I would never skip a visit to the Louvre or the Notre-Dame in favour of a boat ride that passes by, but for a different perspective especially at sunset, this was a lot of fun. There are multiple boat operators to choose from, but I prefer Bateaux Mouches since it’s the one with the biggest open-air upper deck. One of the other operators has a glassed-in upper deck, and to that I say: if there’s no available breeze to whip my hair into the face of that annoying kid with the six-hundred-dollar camera, then what’s the point?

Now then, let’s get the hell off this boat and have our first Paris stroll...

*********************************

I hope you enjoyed the first several chapters of "Vicarious Paris." If you'd like to read on, the full-length version includes 80,000 words of frolicking candid fun, as well as lots of useful recommendations. In fact there are over 130 places visited and described in great detail throughout this book, making it a great value for its price. So please check it out and one of the outlets below!

I've also got a teen fiction love story set in Paris up on Wattpad, and I'll be updating it almost daily during the month of February; here's the link! http://www.wattpad.com/story/32044269-24-hours-in-paris

(Links for Vicarious Paris)

Amazon US link (also available at all international Amazon stores):

http://www.amazon.com/Vicarious-Paris-account-insights-nightlife-ebook/dp/B00R3RZ6RA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1418932463&sr=8-1&keywords=vicarious+paris

Kobo store link: 

http://store.kobobooks.com/en-CA/ebook/vicarious-paris-one-woman-s-candid-tale-of-moving-to-paris-with-insights-on-food-nightlife-living-like-a-local-and-more

Google Play store link:

https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Romi_Moondi_Vicarious_Paris_One_woman_s_candid_tal?id=ei3aBQAAQBAJ&hl=en

Link to epub version for Nooks and iPads: 

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/502498