Day two, after light breakfast of orange juice and some sponge cakes we bought from the supermarket the day earlier, we made our way to Louvre. Louvre was just 15 minutes walking distance from Chatelet. Now, Louvre was huge. Located at the heart of Paris and originally a royal palace built in 12th century, it became a public museum at the end of 18th century.
One of the prominent features in Louvre is its glass pyramid which was actually a recent addition built only in 1989. The glass pyramid is also the entrance to the Louvre Museum which houses over 35,000 objects where a large part of the collection consists of European paintings and sculptures and most notably, Leonardo Da Vinci’s Monalisa painting. Unfortunately for us, Louvre Museum was closed on that day. (It closes every Tuesday). So we decided to walk to Eiffel Tower.
The broad walkway from Louvre was sandwiched in between two huge stretch of parks with neatly trimmed bushes, manicured green lawn and neatly positioned trees as well as wooden benches all around, if only…(I’ll tell you later), people watching was fun, I like watching people without being so obvious. I’ll go ‘Oh he’s cute’, ‘Oh she’s pretty’, ‘Awww, the two look so sweet’, ‘I wish my children would be as cute as them’ etc. In the middle of the broad walkway was also a round lake with green steel chairs arranged around it for people to just sit and relax.
Anyways, the unpleasant part of it was the weather. Despite the weather forecasted the day to be sunny, it was windy and boy was the wind cold. It chilled you right to the bones. Had the weather been nice, I would love to have picnic at the park or sit around the lake. Boo to the weather. It was supposed to be spring! And remember I told you about the Middle Eastern women who begged for money, well apparently they are known as gypsies and it’s not only in Paris but all over UK. Along the way, we met like 3 more of them before we learn how to avoid them when we spot them from afar. Another incident which was quite funny in a way was, on our way to Eiffel Tower, right after we crossed a bridge, we were walking when all of a sudden a guy walking from the opposite direction picked up something from the ground and as he held the thing up, it was a gold ring. Well, at least it looked like a gold ring. The guy exclaimed, “Oh, a ring. Someone must have dropped it. I guess I’m lucky.’ We smiled at the guy. The guy called us. “Excuse me, would you like to have the ring? I’m lucky. So, I want to bless you with my luck”. We declined politely but he insisted. So, we accepted it and thanked him and continued to walk. The guy called us again, “Excuse me, can you give me some money for lunch?” And that’s when we knew the whole thing with the ring and the luck and the so called blessing us with it was all scam. At first we told him, “Oh, we don’t have much money. We need the money too.” The guy pleaded, “Please, just a little” and so we gave him a few euro cents and we parted way. At that point, I didn’t know whether to laugh or feel annoyed. But hey, it’s the experience that counts, right? Yeah right.
A couple of minutes and we were standing just a hundred meters away from Eiffel Tower. Now, I really feel that I’m in Paris. They say you have not been to Paris unless you've seen the Eiffel Tower. Standing majestically at 984 ft, Eiffel Tower was built in the late 18th Centuries. It is one of the most recognizable standing structures in the world. We took pictures of it and with it from afar and near. We queued up along with hundreds of people all over the world just to see Paris from Eiffel Tower. I guess we were lucky we only queued up for half an hour because I heard on better days; people would queue up for hours to get tickets to walk up Eiffel Tower. So we got our tickets and off we went and walked up the flights of stairs to the 1st Floor of Eiffel. That alone was quite high up. On the 1st floor, we enjoyed the bird eye view of Paris and decided to have another coffee break and we had croissants to accompany with it. They say that Paris makes the best croissants. So, if you come to Paris, try the croissants at least once, especially Chocolate croissants. I miss them!
After Eiffel Tower, we continued walking and all the while still glancing back at Eiffel Tower and taking pictures of it from various angles. Lots of pictures to prove it.
We saw Champs de Elysees from afar but decided to keep it for the next day. We continued walking side by side, hand in hand and along the way saw many things that was quintessentially Paris; quite charming really. We talked, bickered, laughed, teased and took many more pictures whenever we saw something that captivated us. A whole lot more things that were not photographed simply because sometimes, it is best to just be fully in the moment, that’s when you can appreciate not only the tangible things but the intangible things as well. I think that is why Paris is romantic in a way .The city is so beautiful that you can’t help but feel grateful, blessed, peace and loved. Enchanted. Maybe. We had dinner at an inexpensive joint where they had pastas and pizzas. The food was filling but not fulfilling. But the company was priceless.
Another day in Paris. Another day with each other. We are blessed.
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