Day 24 Report

This morning I had a particularly hard time getting up. Firstly, we've been walking SO MUCH that my legs hurt and the few hours of sleep I get is certainly not enough to remedy it. Secondly, we didn't have anything particularly exciting to do today. Or so the original plan read. And lastly, today was the start of the sales period all around Paris...but we weren't going to have time to shop.

Our first stop was Montmartre. We got off at the Abbesses station, which is one of the deepest Metro stations in Paris: we had to climb this crazily long spiral staircase to get to the exit. It was worth it because the exit (or rather, entrance) is one of the two remaining original Hector Guimard-designed Metro entrances in Paris.

Abbesses is supposed to be the nearest Metro station to the Montmartre funicular, but it still took us an annoyingly long time to locate it. At least the funicular fare is included in our Paris Visite Pass.

We took the funicular and got off at the top, where the view - the Sacré-Cœur Basilica behind us and Paris spread out in front of us - was exactly the same as last year's. Haha.

We visited the basilica, but as usual photo-taking was prohibited. So we left and walked down the lane beside it. The winding cobbled streets were full of giftshops, and we spent a leisurely amount of time browsing them. Some had really nice postcards.

We wound up at the Place du Tertre in the heart of Montmartre. In case I didn't mention this last year, it's a small square where lots of artists work and set up shop.

As far as we could see, the place was a deadend, and the other alternative route we found was a long staircase leading down to who-knows-where. So we gave up and took the funicular down again. Just past the little funicular station was a big carrousel - the place will be familiar to you if you've ever watched Amélie.

We were done with Montmartre unexpectedly early, so we headed back to the Abbesses station. And that's when I got my SNEAKY IDEA. I knew that Denise wanted to visit some mustard shop near the Eglise de Madeleine, which is quite near where the only central Pull & Bear outlet is located (Che Che helped me find that out online), which is also quite near the Opéra Garnier, which is also quite near Galleries Lafayette (Denise wanted to visit the fancy supermarket there). Everything looked like it would work out perfectly.

So we took the Metro to the Madeleine station, where the Eglise de Madeleine is located in the middle of Place de la Madeleine. We found the mustard shop somewhere around Place de la Madeleine. It was a fancy-looking shop selling only mustard in nice glass jars, although their mustard isn't particularly pricey. They even have mustard dispensers (like beer dispensers in bars) dispensing alcohol-flavoured mustard!

After leaving the mustard shop, we walked to the nearby Ladurée. Ladurée is a fancy Parisian pastry shop that has outlets in Paris and some European cities, but the outlet we went to was the original. They're famous for their macarons, which they invented. (Well technically they invented the double-decker macaron with filling inside, because a "macaron" is really only the biscuit shell)

We wanted to buy two macarons each. They had handy charts at the counter with an illustrated list of their macarons and flavours. Unfortunately, I was queuing up behind Denise and after serving her the people at the counter somehow forgot about me! Denise had long paid for her macarons and I was still there, standing right smack in front of the counter whilst they continued serving everyone BUT me. Then FINALLY one of the them noticed me and I managed to order one rose and one blackcurrant/violet macaron. He packed them for me and I was about to head for the cashier when he shook his head and said, "It's for you."

So that's how I ended up with FREE MACARONS FROM LADURÉE. Hoot.

Then we bought sandwiches and walked down Boulevard Haussmann in search of Rue de Caumartin (where the Pull & Bear outlet was supposed to be). Rue de Caumartin turned out to be endlessly long; wecrossed a few streets and were still on Rue de Caumartin with no Pull & Bear in sight. Finally we arrived at a main road with C&A on on side and H&M across from it. It was insanely crowded; like I said, the whole of Paris had gone on sale today. I popped into C&A to grab the cardigan I had been eyeing on Saturday - it turned out to be half-price today! - and joined the long queue to pay for it. But when I left the cashier, Denise was nowhere in sight.

It took me 20 min to locate her in the two-storey shop. She was going to try stuff on, so I decided not to waste anymore time and crossed the next street to try my Pull & Bear luck. I ended up at a little shopping centre with a really large Pull & Bear outlet on the third floor. I had less than half an hour before I had to meet Denise again, so I grabbed as many things as possible (most sale items were going at €9.95) then put some back, before rushing off to the cashier with four items. The cashier queue was suuuuuper long and suuuuuper slow. I hadn't expected to be shopping today so I didn't really bring a lot of cash out, and my purchases seriously depleted my wallet for the day.

In the end, both Denise and I were late. We didn't have time to go to H&M (*sniff*) so we headed for Galleries Lafayette. By "headed for" I mean "lost our way to", thanks to my shoddy map-reading. :P I eventually read the map properly and we found the department store though.

We stopped at the cosmetics section to take a photo of the domed roof, then made our way through the crowds to the food hall. Unfortunately we didn't have time to buy anything, but we did browse around a bit and add stuff to our mental checklist.

We walked to the Opéra Garnier after that, and were amazed at the insane amount of traffic around the building. It seemed like we would never be able to get across to the Metro entrance. But finally we did, although of course we stopped for some pictures first. :P

We had to change trains twice before we arrived at the Musée d'Orsay stop. The station exit was right in front of the museum entrance.

We got our bags checked (Security Guy to Denise: "Wow you did lots of shopping! Is it cheaper here than in Japan?") and headed straight for the Impressionist collection on the top (fifth) floor. The building the museum is housed in used to be a railway station. Thankfully, they had escalators up.

Being the highlight of the museum, the fifth floor was naturally where most of the visitors were. It wasn't as bad as the Louvre though - at least you could take turns taking photos, rather than waiting behind one swarm of people and never getting to your turn. So I didn't have too much trouble getting photos of some of the most famous artworks in the world. (Once again, please mouseover.)

Then we made a brief stop on the third floor, where there was a small walkway with displays of shadow puppets.

The second floor was not particularly interesting (for me). There were some big statues and some paintings too, but the various rooms on that level mainly featured decorative works of art.

The ground floor was the museum's other highlight. I strolled through some of the rooms before the announcement regarding the museum's close came on at 5.30 p.m. (the museum was closing at 6 p.m.). But I had yet to find some of Edouard Manet's most famous works, so I had to hurry through the rest of the rooms on the floor. I found them in the final room. :P

Then it was off to the giftshop, where I looked sadly at all the merchandise (remember by depleted wallet?). I only managed to buy a museum guide, a small notepad and a souvenir coin before we left the building. So all in all, the Musée d'Orsay was a very manageable place - we covered four floors in two hours.

From the d'Orsay we walked to the Louvre. Wednesday (lucky us - or me, rather) is late night at the Louvre, so we (okay, I) could have another shot at finding my elusive paintings. I had flipped through my guide and found a few other paintings I wanted to see, including a portrait of Anne of Cleves (Henry VIII's fourth wife) that I've seen in books and had always assumed was somewhere in England.

By this time we were crazily tired from all that walking so we had to take lots of little breaks. Thankfully the Louvre has more than enough benches. We started off on the ground floor, where Denise suggested we visit the Egyptian collection. To get to it, we had to walk through the medieval foundations of the Louvre again. Having seen the British Museum's Egyptian collection (twice), the Louvre's was not as interesting as it should have been. There were the usual: big stone sculptures, stone tablets, sarcophagi, tools, primitive toys, those ubiquitous blue hippos, jewellery, mirrors, amulets and canopic jars.

We did come across one of the Louvre's star artefacts though (it's listed in the free map): the limestone statue of The Seated Scribe.

We saw a bit of the museum's Near Eastern section, which was more interesting (only because I'm biased!).

Finally, we ended up in the last part of the ground floor - European sculptures. I made a beeline for the Tomb of Philippe Pot. (I hadn't learnt about it in Art & History per se, but it was featured briefly in one of the documentaries we watched during tutorials. And it is also one of the star attractions featured in the free map.)

We rested for a little while after that, enjoying the relative emptiness of that part of the museum.

Then we climbed up to the top floor (we couldn't find the escalators) where I hurried around trying to find the paintings on my list. Denise gave up not long after and went back to the shopping arcade. So I was alone. And I really was alone, because the museum was so nice and uncrowded that I managed to hog the space in front of quite a few famous paintings. It was wonderful not to have to hurry to take a photo and move on immediately. So, now you know: VISIT THE LOUVRE ON WEDNESDAY EVENINGS.

Nonetheless, I had a time limit and the whole floor to cover, so I breezed through each room, scanning around for any paintings. In the end, I just managed to cover the whole top floor and find my four paintings: I was very surprised to find myself alone in the room with Louis XIV's portrait; it was difficult to find Anne of Cleves' portrait because it isn't particularly famous (apparently) and is thus tucked into one of the darker, smaller side rooms; and I found the painting of Chancellor Rolin just as I had to leave to meet Denise.

In the end, the only floor in the Louvre that I didn't have time to visit was the one containing objets d'art. I had been hoping to look for Eleanor of Aquitaine's vase, but oh well. At least I found the four paintings.

I met Denise at the Starbucks in the shopping arcade, then we headed to the Metro and back to the hotel.