The Tower and the Beach

The Eiffel Tower - La Tour Eiffel - is known everywhere as the symbol of France and is an engineering marvel. It towers over the Seine at 1063 feet tall and is still used today for broadcasting radio signals. Just like most other attractions in Paris, a large park lies in front of the Eiffel Tower.

The tower's iron lattice structure is simply amazing. Only when you get close to the tower do you realize that there is a lot more nothing than there is metal, but still the tower is as sturdy as a stone. In fact, engineers took note of the design and modeled future broadcasting towers after it because its lattice structure lowered wind resistance.

Underneath the tower, there are four entrances - one at each leg. Fernando and I waited in line about 45 minutes to take one of the entrances with the stairs, since the lines for the entrances with the elevators were at least twice as long.

There is a good amount of humor in the tower, such as fake elevator drivers (dummies attached to the front of the car), as well as this toy construction worker (or should we say daredevil?).

As the Eiffel Tower is really the only "skyscraper" in the city, the view of all sides of the city was unobstructed, even from halfway up. The only way for tourists to go to the top is through the elevator, but we figured that it would be nice enough halfway up with the shorter wait in line.

Across the river from the tower are the Trocadéro and Palais de Chaillot.

Here we can see a good portion of the more modern portion of the city, and a hot air balloon far in the background!

And more of the city... these pictures are great but it shouldn't be surprising that they're not nearly as good as the actual view. I can't even recognize any of the buildings here!

And now: the compulsory "Yay, I'm at the Eiffel Tower!" picture...

As we walked back across the park, an Iranian pro-Mousavi protest was just about to begin. Hopefully it remained peaceful, but Fernando and I made sure to get out of there just in case.

Back in the downtown area, it turns out that the Paris Plage (Paris Beach) was opening that day. Looks like we definitely chose a good weekend to visit! In this annual event, a road along the Seine is completely closed off to cars and turned into a beach. The first thing we saw, on the way to the beach was a street performer with the largest crowd I have ever seen for anything like this. Even the bridge and the ledge above were filled!

Now you may be wondering how they turn the road into a beach. Since it was the first day, they were still getting set up. In fact, I'm pretty sure the road was still open to cars earlier that afternoon. For the first day, they already had the palm trees and some attractions and cafés set up.

However, beaches are of course much nicer with sand, and they do indeed eventually cover the decks with sand. Now swimming in the Seine is illegal, perhaps because it is an artery for boats, but as I have mentioned earlier, Parisians just love to sit and relax. Already on the first night of the beach being open, the decks were crowded with groups of friends having picnics.

As we were returning home, the streets were finally beginning to light up, as the sun set really late that night (past 10PM). Paris is not the "City of Lights" for no reason!

On Sunday, Man-Yan, Amy, Fernando, and I went to the outskirts of town to try to get some free stuff from the Tour de France caravan, since the final stage was going into Paris that day. It turns out that at the particular section we were at, the caravan wasn't giving anything away. Well, at that point Fernando and I had to head home, since the last train from Paris to Turin leaves quite early at 3:25PM on Sundays, but Amy actually went over to the Champs-Elysées to catch the race (and try to get free stuff) and got to see Lance Armstrong up close! Fernando, Kristen, and I did see him before in Monaco, but he was fully-clad in his time trial helmet and skinsuit.

Well, this concludes all of my updates on my travels outside of Turin this summer. Unless we change our mind, Fernando and I plan to stay in town this weekend while Kristen is in Barcelona, and then the weekend after that I am going back to the States! This also makes me remember that while I have been showing a lot of stuff from all over Italy and France, I have not shown all too much from Turin! But don't worry, we have been going around town here, and the remainder of my posts during my stay here will be on things to see and do in Turin and Italian culture. Stay tuned!

Strolling Around Paris

Ah, Paris. The city of lights, the city of love, the city of stopping to smell the roses, and by all means a great city to walk around instead of taking the metro.

Just from walking around the streets downtown, you can absorb the air of Parisian life. The architecture is one-of-a-kind - the buildings are enormous, but not tall, and can always be identified as uniquely Parisian. There is a ton of open space, whether it is on the many parks around the city, or even on the streets, which are uniformly wide and are not plagued by claustrophobia-inducing skyscrapers. The streets are lively but never crowded.

Even the Jardin des Tuilleries, a public garden that connects the Louvre to the Place de la Concorde, which leads straight down the Champs-Elysées to the Arc de Triomphe, is clearly popular but not crowded. For Parisians, who must deal with constant tourist invasion, it still seems like finding a relaxing place to have a picnic is ultimately not a great challenge.

As Parisians really enjoy relaxing, a popular thing to do on the weekends, in addition to having picnics, is to just chill out in a park.

Now these parks can be found basically everywhere downtown. It seems like in front of every attraction is a park. The Jardin des Tuilleries, in particular, is probably the largest, and you can see that they have really turned it into a local hotspot.

The best thing about walking instead of taking the metro is that we can notice much more. In addition to seeing the lovely architecture, we see some curiosities such as this road-side gas pump. I don't think I actually saw any other gas stations during our stay, but this was cute!

Across the Seine river from the Louvre are Les Invalides, which was originally used by none other than Napoleon to house and treat soldiers. Today, it is home to several museums, as well as Napoleon's tomb, which is in the large dome. Here we can see the south entrance, which already looks like a large building in itself but is only a small part of Les Invalides. It's a little harder to see the rest of the building, which extends behind this entrance.

Sadly, because we were pressed for time during our stay in Paris, and because the museum was only open for less than two more hours anyway, we didn't go in. It was at this point, though, that we needed to use the bathroom, which leads me to another point.

Parisians have a little bit of a reputation of being rude to tourists, but who can blame them, especially when many tourists are rude themselves? However, they can in fact be very polite and helpful if you show a little bit of respect. Trying to speak as much French as you can always helps, as does adding simple polite phrases like s'il vous plait to whatever you're saying. It's really not that hard to get help as long as you know not to be another one of those annoying, thankless tourists.

Anyway, in this case, I asked the lady at the museum's information desk if there was a bathroom nearby (in polite French, of course). She asked if we had tickets, which we did not. But by simply acting cute and polite in saying no, I think she felt sorry enough to let us use their restrooms anyway. Somehow, I don't think "another one of those annoying, thankless tourists" would have gotten the same treatment.

Well, as I said, we didn't go inside, but we got to see the building's beautiful exterior, as well as the gardens that lie both in front and behind the building!

The Seine River and the views from it are gorgeous. A relatively clean river I think is always helpful for a city, and Paris is no exception. Thanks to some great planning back when the modern Paris was designed, trees line both the streets and the riverside. Down below, there are walkways and boats, some of which are actually cafés.

On the riverside opposite the Louvre is the Musée d'Orsay, which looks like it used to be a train station. This museum houses a large collection of French art. Wish we had time to take a look inside...

Farther east is an island in the middle of the Seine that is home to the famous Notre Dame cathedral. As I was taking pictures of the river and some bridges leading to the island, it turns out that boats were passing by at the same time. Seems like everybody wants to be in my photos. What luck!

In addition to Notre Dame, the island is also home to some huge administrative buildings, since after all, Paris is the capital of France. On the island is also a church called Sainte Chapelle that is tucked into some huge office but is supposedly much more gorgeous inside than Notre Dame. We didn't arrive on the island until around 9PM, which we didn't even realize because it was sunny as day outside. But arriving that late meant that we couldn't expect any of the attractions to be open, and indeed we didn't get to go inside either of the churches. Still, I was able to get the obligatory picture of Notre Dame's façade.

Tomorrow, we'll finish up the review of my stay in Paris with a little bit of this year's grand opening of the "Paris beach," along with some beautiful views of and from La Tour Eiffel!

Weird Paris Happenings and the Louvre

You know, for a relatively short stay in Paris, I have a lot to blog about, I suppose because it's Paris. And although I'm sure that many of you reading this have basically already seen everything in the picture's I'll be showing over the next few days, those pictures are still worth showing.

Anyway, while Kristen spent the weekend with her parents, Fernando and I went to Paris, where we stayed in Man-Yan's apartment. We basically only had one full day to do things, because the latest train on Sundays leaves at 3:25PM, but a lot of things (both exciting and weird) happened.

Let's start off with the weird. First, while we were at the Eiffel Tower, Fernando heard some ladies having a huge argument... in the bathroom! We wonder what they were fighting over to create such a scene at the toilettes. But wait, things get weirder later on!

After our long day, Fernando and I returned to the apartment. On the outer door to the courtyard, we heard some people inside and just thought it was some people having a chat. But once we opened the door, we realized that it was actually the police arresting some British guy. The British guy was handcuffed on the ground and was being very verbally belligerent, but let's just say the police got the best of him. When the guy yelled "I'm going to break your nose!" I was reminded a little bit of the "Black Knight" scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Then, when he yelled "you think you're so smart???" the French policeman replied (in English) something like "well, I'm smarter than you!" ZING!

Anyway, Fernando and I kind of freaked out at first, but realized after a bit that it would be safe to walk around. Upstairs in the apartment, we looked into the situation a tiny bit. The only things we could notice were: the sound of glass shattering; the policemen later taking the man away and putting him into a truck, where the dumb guy was still being belligerent; and the policemen going up into the opposite half of the complex and checking in a room up there.

We think that everything in the apartment ended up okay, because the police never came back, but we still have no idea what the British guy was doing in the first place to get himself in trouble like that. On the way out the next morning, we noticed that the door to the opposite side of the complex had a broken pane of glass with what looked like a little bit of dried blood on it. Yuck. Anyway, I didn't find anything in the news about it so the guy was probably just causing trouble up in the room the police checked out.

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Moving on... our first destination yesterday was the Louvre, which is not too far from where we stayed. The museum's building is huge... along the Seine River, three bridges run to the Louvre. In the courtyard is the obligatory statue of Louis XIV.

And of course there is I.M. Pei's giant glass pyramid, which looks a little out of place, but which makes more sense to me once you see the lobby below.

I don't have any pictures of the lobby, sadly, but I thought it was nicely designed. The pyramid also looks nicer, I think, from the inside.

Every one of the many rooms in the museum had its own personality, and many of them were ornately covered in artwork from wall to ceiling to wall.

And the museum, having one of the largest and most valuable collections in the world, was home to many works of art you've probably seen, such as:

Liberty Leading the People

Winged Victory (Nike)

Venus de Milo

Virgin of the Rocks (there is also a copy in London)

Of course, the most famous work of art in the Louvre is the Mona Lisa. So many people see that specific painting that they have an actual roped-off line to get close enough to see it. We were able to get a picture reasonably close up, but I thought this one, showing a little bit of the crowd, was more appropriate.

Even amongst all the famous works, you still can't neglect the other pieces of art in the museum, of which there is a nearly endless supply. In fact, many of them are just as good or even better than the "famous" ones. This one was kind of creepy.

And here's a portrait of Frédéric Chopin! I think it's the same exact one that is on the cover of a book of Chopin piano pieces that I have.

This room here was INSANE. It had a series of 24 paintings by Peter Paul Rubens, which were actually made to be laid out in a room such as this. These paintings were commissioned by Marie de Medici and depict her life, from her birth to the adulthood of her children.

Our stay at the Louvre was exciting and refreshing. Sadly, we were pressed for time. Such a museum definitely requires more than one day to fully appreciate. Also, it may be surprising that the museum does not have a comprehensive collection of French Art! I did not see a single painting by Money, for example. All of the "famous" French paintings are across the river, at the Musee d'Orsay, which we sadly didn't have time to visit.

More from Paris over the next two or three days!

Nice Food, Nice Race, and Moving On to Como

It's been more than a week since we came back from Nice, but now it's time to finish up writing about it...

Our morning started off with a trip to the Cours Saleya (the flower market), where we had some crèpes for breakfast. Fernando was the champion at our table with his extra-fancy crèpe, while Kristen and I opted for more ordinary ones.

After our quick meal, we headed up the Colline du Château - the hill from which we took the photos of the city from yesterday's post - of course, after grabbing some free stuff from the Tour de France caravan.

At about 1PM, the street by the shore was getting really crowded, since Stage 2 of the Tour was set to pass through at about that time. We were able to squeeze into a spot about 300m away from an intermediate sprint point of the stage. First, a breakaway of four riders passed by, which is pretty typical for this type of stage in the Tour.

Afterwards, the rest of the group (there are 180 riders total in the race), riding in a bunch called a "peloton," passed by at a relatively relaxed pace.

I took pictures of the peloton using the burst function of my camera, while Kristen was able to get everybody in this video. If you can freeze the video, you can catch a tiny, tiny glimpse of Lance Armstrong. He passes by at the 10 second mark, on the other side of the road, in a light blue and yellow jersey, and wearing a black helmet...

Video from Kristen. Can you find Lance Armstrong?

After the race, we went back to the Cours Saleya, where the flower market had been taken down and replaced by dining tables. We ate a prix fixe meal at a seafood restaurant, where for my entrée (which in France is the appetizer), I had some grilled sardines

to go along with my main dish - called the plat in French - of swordfish. Fernando, meanwhile, had a salade niçoise, which was basically a tuna salad,

with spaghetti marinara for his main dish, and Kristen ate a fish soup and some mussels.

Finally, we've reached the conclusion of our travels in Monaco and Nice. After a mostly uneventful week, we embarked on our next weekend trip, to Lake Como in northern Italy, close to Milan and just a few steps away from Switzerland. The lake was formed right in the middle of the Alps after some glaciers receded. Fortunately, the result of this melting was a beautiful lake completely surrounded by mountains and mountainside towns.

Over the next two to three days, I'll be recounting our journeys in the Lake Como area. I'll also be going on some hikes in the Turin area over the course of this week to warm up for our trip to the Alps on Sunday, so I'll have to find a way to fit everything together. Stay tuned!

Nice Beaches

It's late and we just got back from our weekend trip to Lake Como, but I think I have time for a quick post.

Nice is famous most probably for its beach, which is consistently crowded throughout the summer, day and night. The city, on the southern coast of France, lies right on the Mediterranean Sea.

Nice's shoreline is nothing less than magnificent.

Now, the beaches here are interesting in that instead of sand, they have stones. These are really uncomfortable to walk on without shoes, but they're actually kind of nice to lie down on.

And instead of making sandcastles, we had fun balancing rocks on top of each other.

Like I said, the shore is no less energetic at night, when the whole downtown area lights up.

We found a stone shaped just like an egg that we couldn't resist taking a picture of. Over in the background is a hill from which we took our panoramic photos of the city.

Here is an excellent view of the city!