chadwest.net » Paris http://chadwest.net Weblog for Chad West Fri, 04 Dec 2009 06:03:22 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 Paris Wrap Up… http://chadwest.net/2007/09/10/paris-wrap-up/ http://chadwest.net/2007/09/10/paris-wrap-up/#comments Mon, 10 Sep 2007 15:22:31 +0000 chad http://chadwest.net/2007/09/10/paris-wrap-up/ I had a great time in Pairs and probably could have hung out for another few days, but it was time to move on and head out to Italy. I have finally uploaded photos from the last 3 days I was there.

Paris

I left the best restaurant to the last night of my stay. After reading Nicole’s review of Restaurant a L’Impasse I knew I couldn’t miss out. Well it took me over an hour to find the place, it’s sort of tucked down a little alleyway, but I was super disappointed once I got to the door and saw this sign! Damn, well one more thing to look forward to my next trip to Paris…

Anyone want to go?!

Be sure to check out the other photos, some great ones from the Eiffel Tower…

]]> http://chadwest.net/2007/09/10/paris-wrap-up/feed/ 2 Paris – First day or two… http://chadwest.net/2007/08/30/paris-first-day-or-two/ http://chadwest.net/2007/08/30/paris-first-day-or-two/#comments Thu, 30 Aug 2007 10:14:30 +0000 chad http://chadwest.net/2007/08/30/paris-first-day-or-two/ I arrived by train yesterday around 6:30PM. Once I made it to Paris Nord it took a few minutes to figure out which metro line I need to get on, but once on it I only had to go 2 stops to make it to my Hotel. I opted for a single room, after reading though some of the Hostel descriptions for Paris and some of the reviews, I decided this would be the best bet. Well it was, I am loving having my own room. The bed is super old and actually not as comfortable as any of the ones in the hostels over the past 2 1/2 weeks, and there may be a rodentiside box under the wash bin in my room, but heck it’s all mine!

Paris

Le Sacré-Coeur — more photos…

Okay, well the room is in Montmartre area. Which is hilly much like SF, so last night I decided to hike up and see what it was all about. There are a ton of touristy areas, but the streets are pretty much out of Amélie, and the views from up there are amazing!

Today I was suppose to do the walking tour Rick Steves lays out, but once I made it to Notre Dame I noticed that my camera battery was dead. Plus, I noticed that running has started to irritate my right calf/tendon right around my achilles tendon… Anyway, it hurts to walk up and down stairs a bit, so I thought why not cut my losses and head to the Louvre and look at art all day..

The Louvre is HUGE… I spent over 3 1/2 hours wandering around, looking at everything from Greek sculptures, to Egyptian hyroglyphics and tombs, to paintings which include of course Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. It’s really not hard to find either, you just have to look for the crazy amount of people clustered together looking at the painting from over 40 feet away behind a huge wall of glass.

I believe technology may be getting in our way of understanding why we are at the Museum in the first place. Just about everyone is running around with camera, video recorder, or just their phone and taking pictures or running video of each piece w/o even taking the time to look at it. I really don’t think your camera phone is going to take a photograph that is any better of a painting that isn’t already in a book in your local library! I guess it’s more of the social pressure to go to the art gallery then actually wanting to go, so you take pictures to say: “Hey Mom… Look I’m in front of this important part of history!!”…

Am I getting a bit jaded?! Or is my New York upbring just coming though?!

Well the Louvre is just down the way from the Champs Elysées, and if you don’t know that’s the ending circuit for the Tour de France! I took a couple of photos, but will probably hit that up again before I leave, and if not then the next time will be to watch the ending stage of the Tour…

More from Paris to come….

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