Thursday was an incredibly varied day. We started at the Catacombs – that was interesting. It’s very humbling to see all of the bones. I don’t think I’d ever need to go down again, but it was worth seeing once.
Our next stop was the Place du Trocadero. You can get a really good view of the Eiffel Tower from there, but we went to go to the Musee Cité de l’architecture et du patrimoine. BF had seen a 60 Minutes segment about the Notre Dame restoration around Easter, and it turns out that the statues of the apostles that had been around the spire had been taken off of the roof a few days before the fire. They’ve been fully restored, and are now at this museum until they can be put back up around the new spire.
The regular part of the museum is examples of architectural features from around France. They look like they’ve been ripped off the buildings, but they’re actually casts, so you get this incredible variety of things to look at, from a wide range of history, all in the same place. If you like this kind of thing, it’s a museum worth exploring.
And then, because we were nearby, in what was probably a fit of temporary insanity, I suggested we go to the Arc de Triomphe.
I should probably mention, we got the Paris Museum pass for this trip. It doesn’t cover every museum in Paris, but it covers most of the heavy hitters, and if you’re planning on doing a lot of museums, it may be worth the price. Of the places we went to, only the Catacombs was not covered by the pass. Everything else was included. That included climbing the Arc de Triomphe. Keep in mind, we did a two story spiral staircase down and out of the Catacombs earlier that morning. This was twice that – fortunately, they have several little resting stops along the staircase, and strategically placed benches at the top. (And there is an elevator for those that can’t handle the stairs.)
So why should you climb the Arc? The view is amazing. You get a 360 of the whole city, and if you’re doing it when you’ve already been there a few days, like we were at that point, you can find all the places you’ve already been. Several places online said it’s more worthwhile than climbing the Eiffel Tower. You can see the Tower, and there’s rarely a line. Plus, you get to be in the middle of the craziest traffic circle in Paris. (There’s a tunnel so you don’t have to cross it yourself.)
We weren’t quite ready to head back to the hotel yet, so we went back to Shakespeare and Company, to pick up a book BF had waffled about on Tuesday, and take advantage of their cafe. It was sunnier, so my pictures from this day were better than Tuesday’s pictures.
Our final entertainment of the day was the opera. I ended up finding a production of Vivaldi’s “Orlando Furioso” at the Theatre Champs des Elysees. I enjoy opera, but not all operas are created equal, and BF had never been. I wanted one where I knew we’d like the music as well as the singing, and I love Vivaldi.
This was staged more like a radio play, with the orchestra on stage, and the singers coming to the front as they had a part to sing. There was an amazing flute and countertenor duet (seriously – the flutist came up with the singers), that was worth the price of admission for me. Oh, and they used period instruments, so the guitar was a lovely, long necked model, and the one song with horns had hunting style horns. It was a thorough success – P very much enjoyed his first opera.
We got out just in time to see the Eiffel Tower lights twinkling on the hour. And something else clearly got out at the same time as us, because when we got down to the Metro, the platform was completely full. Everyone on the other side was pointing and taking pictures. We let three trains go by before it became clear that things were not going to quickly improve, and we just went for it. So that was an interesting experience, until the first main connecter station.