Tag: paris

Au Revoir

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On my last day in Paris, Claire and I went to the Catacombs, going much farther than 6 feet under to see the bodies of the 6 million people buried underneath the streets of Paris. 

Photo credits: Claire

The catacombs came about out of a need for mass burial after a public health crisis and now acts as a popular attraction. 

The tunnels we walked through were cool and damp, dripping wet from the rainstorm happening well above our heads. It was eerie seeing millions of skeletons stacked on top of each other while walking through a narrow, underground tunnel.

We listened to the audio explaining how the catacombs came to be. Hint: the plague was big for the catacombs numbers. I never thought that I would be able to walk past a wall of skeletons as casually as I did in the catacombs, but we walked amongst skulls wrapped around walls, down the long, winding tunnels. 

Between the catacombs and Père Lachaise, I saw a decent amount of French burial grounds. After visiting Père Lachaise, a cemetery full of some of the richest and most famous people in Europe, it was shocking to see the 6 million bodies of unknown people lumped together underground. 

After getting a nice, chilling perspective on mortality in the catacombs, I decided to go and check out the flea market being held in the Marais district in the Place des Vosges, a park that straddles the 3rd and 4th arrondissements. Every weekend in Paris there are grand flea markets all over the city and I follow a woman on Instagram who posts nothing but where to find them each weekend. The internet is wild. 

I bought a couple more chokers and looked around at the paintings, gramophones, and other antiques that they were selling. It seemed true to what I had come to expect from all of the movies I’d seen of Paris, where gramophones and old records are casually sold on every other street corner.

While I was there, I went to the apartment that belonged to Victor Hugo, author of Les Miserables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame, which is now a museum honoring his life. It overlooks the park, with a sweeping view of the flea market. On every wall there are massive oil paintings, many of which are of his favorite daughter who preceded him in death. 

I walked through the fabulous apartment that Hugo lived in while writing his books about poverty. One of my friends later told me that after his death, they went through his financial records and found that he hired somewhere around two prostitutes a day and that all of the brothels were therefore closed on the day of his funeral because all of the women were in attendance. In case you were wondering, no, he did not die from syphilis. He died in his 80s from natural causes.

Towards the end of the day, I sat on a park bench. Couples walked by on dates, college students laid out on the grass, and kids ran around playing soccer in a way that made me both nostalgic and melancholy, because I will never be that young again. 

I was ready to leave Paris the next day, carting my painting with me. I’d had a dreamy first trip to the city, drifting into shops and cafes, with walks along the Seine interspersed throughout. I spent my time eating unbelievable food and getting lost in the charms of the city. This trip has inspired me to learn French (right after I finish learning Italian and Spanish, the two other languages I started but never finished studying). 

And to my friend Claire: thank you for hosting me, introducing me to proper French food, and for giving me my first taste of Paris. Without Claire, I would have bumbled my way around Paris, mispronouncing every word (I did that anyway). Instead, the two of us stayed up watching Audrey Hepburn movies at night and it enhanced my experience tenfold to watch Cary Grant chase Audrey Hepburn through a metro station that I would use the next day. 

I never went to the top of the Eiffel Tower, but I always like to leave something for the next trip. There are always smokey jazz bars, burlesque shows, and more Audrey Hepburn films to watch (I still haven’t seen Paris When it Sizzles). 

The good news is that I was able to do it all over again with my trip to Asia a few weeks later. Get ready for more pictures of food, stories about wily monkeys, and a beautiful tropical paradise. 

Off to my next big adventure!

So until next time, Paris!

Au Revoir!

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel
P.S.: Check out how I spent the previous day in Paris when I went on a spree

On a Spree

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For my second to last day in Paris, I decided to spend my time walking around, looking for stores to shop in. At first Paris seemingly did not have a bunch of places for me to throw my money at, unlike Italy, where I couldn’t walk down a street without seeing something in a window display that I wanted to own.

A random French shop

Everything seemed not quite right and with the kind of money they were asking for, everything had to be pretty right. I popped into a few jewelry stores, trying on crystal chokers and listening to the shop girls tell me how each choker worked with my hair. It was the kind of Paris shopping spree I had dreamed about when I was a little girl, twirling in front of my mirror in a tutu and fairy wings. 

Crossing the Seine to get my shopping done

Sometime after lunch, I found a place called Free “P” Star, a reasonably-priced second hand store wedged between the high-toned shops of the Marais. This interestingly named clothing store is a definite young people’s shop, with its neon lighting and pop music blaring over the air waves. It could rival Abercrombie and Fitch for its headache-inducing medley of unnecessarily loud music and bizarre lighting that makes it difficult to see the clothes that you’re buying.  

Stopping for a drink

All of the clothes were inexpensive but trendy, the kind of outfits that you would wear on a night out. I walked away with a vinyl jacket, a red velvet jacket, and a pair of black velvet pants. 

For dinner, Claire and I went to “Red Poppy,” a tapas bar in Paris’s Chinatown district. The place is adorned with paper lanterns, graffiti-style murals, and hand drawn menus with cocktails ranging from light to heavy. 

So far I have been to a bunch of art museums, seen the Palace of Versailles, visited Notre Dame Cathedral, walked through Pere Lachaise Cemetery and, now, I had just had a day of checking out cool secondhand shops and even cooler bars. My trip to Paris was exceeding all expectations. 

After drinking a few cocktails on the heavier side of the menu, we called it a night. I went to bed and got ready for my last day in Paris. 

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out my previous blog post about my trip to The Palace of Versailles

The Palace of Versailles

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“Qu’ils mangent de la brioche!”

(Translation: let them eat cake)

–Marie Antoinette, but probably not really

Towards the end of my trip, I ventured outside of Paris to check out the Palace of Versailles. 

These dudes

Claire told me that it was something I absolutely had to see when visiting France for the first time, so I took the train and made my way to the palace.

The Palace of Versailles, once the home of two of the world’s most infamous monarchs that sparked one of the greatest revolutions in world history, is now casually situated along a busy French street that is teeming with Ubers. 

The palace lived up to its reputation, with its Rococo style and its countless paintings along the walls, including this one of Marie Antoinette. I took a picture with my fellow tragic queen and moved along. 

I had a picnic at the Gardens of Versailles, (a moveable feast, if you will) eating an apple, cookies, and a croque de monsieur, while drinking rosé and reading my book. It was a meal fit for a queen. 

I see now why they cut off the royals’ heads. After roaming the manicured gardens and the wholly unnecessary, but very cool, hall of mirrors, it was easy to see that they were in fact living in unspeakable grandeur. 

A room built for a mirror selfie

I walked around outside, amazed at how the palace kept expanding into the horizon. I walked past the ponds and rolling lawns until my feet hurt, solidifying for me just how grand the Palace of Versailles really is. I called it a day once I could barely feel my feet.

After I got back from Versailles, I had dinner with some friends of mine and Claire’s, at a restaurant called Le Compères, where I ate bone marrow for the first time and decided that bone marrow tasted incredible. 

Over dinner, I got to hear about my friends at law school. They got to hear about the novel that I am working on and the clumsy description that I always give of the plot.  

Everyone who told me that I needed to check out the Palace of Versailles was right. I’d had a fun day navigating the churn of tour groups throughout the palace, before enjoying the mild spring weather and a good book in the gardens. I took my time; it’s not everyday that you get to see a decadent palace where every wall is gilded in gold. 

At this point, I was nearing the end of my trip and only had two more days to leave my mark on the city. 

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out my previous blog post about my visit to the Louvre

Nice View

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I woke up the next day and went straight to the Louvre in order to see, at long last, the greatest art museum in the world. I had been dreaming about going there since childhood, ready to see some of the world’s best artwork all in one place.

Even the name of the museum seemed to roll off my tongue when I was a kid. 

For breakfast that morning, I went to Cafe Marly, the cafe at the Louvre, having champagne and tea for breakfast, because I’m the pinnacle of good health. Sitting there, I had a perfect view of the museum. 

For those who have never been, the Louvre is probably bigger than any of you are imagining. In order to do it properly, a person should probably spend at least two days walking through it. 

I saw countless beautiful paintings, many of which I’d seen before as refrigerator magnets and postcards, but could now stand in front of, as a real painting with brushstrokes and texture. 

After looking at hundreds of paintings, I saw the main attraction. 

A massive crowd surrounds the Mona Lisa at all times, with tourists body-checking each other in order to get a photo. People rushed up to take their selfies with the Mona Lisa, not even looking at it. When it was my turn to get up there, I tried to stare and study the painting, before taking a photo of the most photographed painting in the world. 

People were churned in and out, standing behind a velvet rope. Everyone crowds around the painting, while quietly ignoring the Wedding of Cana painting taking up the entire wall across from it.  

After I was done in the Louvre, I walked through the tuileries, getting a sandwich from a food truck and then tossing pieces of bread at the ducks in the pond, which I was almost certainly not allowed to do.

I admired the sculptures in the garden and the violin playing of a guy who was chased off by a security guard shortly thereafter. 

From there, I walked down the Champs-Élysées to the Arc de Triomphe, the monument to Napoleon’s military victories many moons ago and the French Revolution. The Arc de Triomphe is accessed through an underground tunnel, not by running across several lanes of traffic like in a game of frogger. 

While walking underground, I passed several people in marching band uniforms who were carrying musical instruments. Then I passed several people in military uniforms who were carrying assault rifles. A military display had just wrapped up, ending with the French flag waving over my head as I stood underneath the Arc de Triomphe.

Standing at the top of the arc, I got an incredible view of the city. By now, it was night time and after glimpsing the Tuileries Garden as the sun was setting, I was able to see the City of Lights while it was all lit up. From the top of the Arc de Triomphe, I could see the Eiffel Tower and its beam cutting across the sky.

Between the cafe at the Louvre, the Mona Lisa, my stroll through the Tuileries, and standing at the top of the Arc de Triomphe, it was a day of sweet views. I saw the sights from all angles, enjoying beautiful art, sculpture gardens, and the city at night from one of its most famous landmarks.

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out how I spent the previous day in France

A Moveable Feast

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“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.”

–Hemingway, “A Moveable Feast”

After my couple of days of art museums, opera, and a cemetery, I decided to focus on purchasing two of the main things that I love: books and paintings.

Together, my aunt and I went in search of art. I’d seen enough movies and tv shows that romanticized the Parisian art scene to make me believe that there would be a starving artist on every street corner, hawking their wares to only the truest of art lovers (I’ve seen Titanic). That is a pretty old brochure for the city of love, as I learned when I walked the streets not seeing any intrepid young painters with easels sketching in the streets.

Undeterred, we ventured up Montmartre, one of the most picturesque parts of Paris, in order to get a view of the city from the basilica on top of the hill. We didn’t find any art there, but continued on throughout the city. 

No trip to Paris would be complete for an aspiring writer without making a pit stop at Cafe De Flore, an old stomping ground of Hemingway, Simone De Beauvoir, and Sartre, among others. 

Despite what other people will tell you about how the cafe is stodgy, overrun with tourists, and Instagram-famous (the biggest cardinal sin) I am willing to defend it. 

It is still a cute, charming French cafe with a lot of history. And, most importantly, it remains a good place to get a glass of wine.

After lunch, we walked down the street to Shakespeare & Co., an English-language bookstore that supported the likes of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Joyce back in the day. It sold Hemingway’s first novel and still maintains a line out the door most days. It sits across the street from Notre Dame Cathedral right along the Seine. 

Walking down the street in the late afternoon, my aunt and I found an art gallery, which is how I wound up buying a nude painting of a woman. It is an incredibly beautiful piece of art that I want to hold onto forever and pass on to my family members once I die.

It was a good day of shopping, drinking, and art purchasing. My new books are on my shelf. My painting will soon be on display in my apartment. The day left its mark. 

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: For more ideas about what you can do in Paris, check out my previous blog post about my trip to the Musée d’Orsay and Opéra Bastille. 

Art & Opera: A Day in Paris

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When I booked my ticket for Paris, there was one thing I knew that I wanted to do for sure: spend a day in the Musée d’Orsay and have lunch at the cafe inside. The Musée d’Orsay is one of the greatest art museums in the world, carved out of a hollowed-out train station that now houses some of the most famous art in the world. I have wanted to visit it since I knew it existed. Walking through it takes an entire day, so I planned on doing just about nothing else, wanting to feel like I had all of the time in the world.

My aunt and I met up and we walked the entirety of the museum. My father is the type of person who walks up to a painting, stares at it for twenty minutes, then backs away from it, and stares at it for another twenty minutes, studying every brushstroke and paint fleck. My aunt is not such a person. She could walk into a gallery, do a 360 turn, and then walk off, satisfied that she had gotten everything she needed from the paintings.

Like most people, I’m somewhere in the middle. 

We made it through the museum in record time in comparison to how my father would have done it, but I still felt like I savored all of the artwork. I saw all of the paintings that I wanted to see, starting with the “Birth of Venus” by Cabanel, which my parents have a print of hanging in their house. Seeing it in person is an entirely different experience, one that also makes you want to lay naked in the middle of the ocean with knee length hair while a bunch of cherubs careen over you. 

We checked out the Van Goghs, the Picassos, crossing off everything on my list except for Monet’s waterlilies (which weren’t on display and which I’d already seen). It was nothing but stunning paintings as far as the eye could see. 

We stopped to have lunch in a cafe that was behind a clock face that overlooked the Seine, sipping wine and chatting about the art that we had seen so far. 

After the Musée d’Orsay, I got ready to see the opera with Claire, one of my favorite people to go to the opera with. We saw Pelléas et Mélisande by Debussy, a French opera about…well, we weren’t quite sure what it was about. The show started and Claire and I promptly dozed off, taking high-priced naps at the Opéra Bastille. For me, it was jet-lag. For her, it was the rigors of being a full time law student. Either way, we were tired.

From what we did see of the performance, it was beautiful. There were loud, perfect voices ringing out towards the ceiling and actual children who could sing better than me. Nothing humbles me quite like going to the opera or ballet and seeing the talent of the stars on display, being made to look effortless.

After that, we called it a night.

Between the art museum and the opera I had the kind of day that most people expect to have when visiting Paris, one in which there is no shortage of art and culture. It was a blissful day of admiring some of the greatest artwork in the world, followed by the soothing tones of opera music.

Who can ask for a better day in Paris?

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out how I spent my previous day in Paris

Père Lachaise

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“Death must be so beautiful. To lie in the soft brown earth, with the grasses waving above one’s head, and listen to silence. To have no yesterday, and no tomorrow.” 

–Oscar Wilde

When planning a trip to Paris, lots of ideas spring to mind for what you should do: shopping, going to cafes, visiting museums, and walking (or taking the elevator) to the top of the Eiffel Tower. Visiting a cemetery is not usually one of them.

Yet, on my second day in Paris, Claire and I ventured across the Seine to Père Lachaise, one of the world’s most famous cemeteries so that we could see the graves of some of the greatest icons to ever live. It is home to an estimated one million late citizens of the world, many of whom changed it during their time.

Père Lachaise was eerier than most cemeteries (which is saying something) with crows pecking at the moss-eaten tombstones that lined the cobblestone paths. The only thing that was missing was the thin sheet of fog descending on what was already a cool, overcast day. We made our way through the cemetery like we were window shopping, asking each other which tombstone we could see for ourselves. (“I like the headstone on that grave” “I think I would prefer one of the standing ones like that one.”)

We visited the graves of Chopin, Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, Edith Piaf, Proust, and Balzac, all of which were littered with flowers, love letters, candles, and other esoteric objects that signified people’s enduring love for them. I stood back and admired the various legends who were buried six feet below my feet, whispering to Oscar Wilde and Balzac that I had read their works for class.

Towards the end, we found Oscar Wilde’s tombstone. It was only a tiny bit obvious which one was his, since it featured a bust of him as a sphinx (no one can say that he didn’t have style). Claire later told me that a tour guide standing nearby said that the sphinx once had a penis attached to it, but that someone stole it in the 1960s. Now his grave is encased in glass, which people have kissed while wearing lipstick. 

Spending time in an iconic cemetery brings up many strange questions, like what is worth putting on your tombstone, what kinds of people would ever visit it, and what a person would have to do in order to be remembered for something centuries after their death.

These are thoughts that, much like the one million or so bodies in Père Lachaise, will fester.

From there, Claire and I went for a stroll in a park. It made for a nice relaxing end to our day, as we admired the waterfalls and flowers. It was a beautiful spring day in Paris.

Later that evening, I met up with my aunt and uncle and my uncle’s nephew (they all also ended up being in Paris at the same time as me). Together, the four of us went to see the Eiffel Tower and grab dinner at a nearby cafe. 

The Eiffel Tower is one of the few landmarks in world history that is just a little bit bigger than you think it’s going to be in real life. After years of imagining what it would look like up close, it did not disappoint. It shimmers on the hour every hour for five minutes and I was able to see the glittering tower just as it changed. Child Raquel was squealing on the inside.

We didn’t go up it. We just admired it from afar.

After checking out the Eiffel Tower, we had dinner together and then we called it a night.

I scratched off several things from my Paris itinerary in a single day: the graves of beloved icons and the Eiffel Tower. I was ready to see what my next day in Paris had in store for me.

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

An American in Paris

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“I love Paris in the Springtime”
–Cole Porter

Like so many little girls growing up in the US, I always dreamt of going to Paris. It consumed my personality: I had an Eiffel Tower lamp, an Eiffel Tower statue, and a calendar of famous Parisian landmarks. I even made a painting of the Eiffel Tower once. 

Anytime I saw a movie or tv show set in Paris, it seized my imagination, and I could suddenly picture myself strutting down cobblestone roads and seeing the Seine lit up with street lights late at night. 

Many great American writers lived in Paris for a time, like Hemingway, Baldwin, and Stein. It made me hope that one day I would do a stint in Paris as well, reading and writing in an epicenter of art and culture.

Despite all of my dreams of visiting, I didn’t always think it was going to happen. Paris always seemed nebulously far away, more of a romantic ideal than a potential reality, but when my friend Claire returned to Paris to finish her studies at the Sorbonne, I asked if I could spend Spring Break sleeping on her couch. I was thrilled when she said yes. 

Mon ami

While she went to work, I tooled around town, doing all of the touristy things that locals would never dream of doing. I waited in long lines, seeing the sights, and mumbled my way through the few French phrases that I knew (“Je suis désolé, est-ce que vous parlez anglais?” was the most popular and I left out half the words.)

The day that I arrived, we started by getting brunch at a restaurant called Jozi. We ate avocado toast and mimosas, while I fought my jet lag and lost. It was my first Parisian meal, not including the tiny bread roll that I was given on the plane, and it more than lived up to my expectations. 

After that, we walked along the Seine and waited in line for the Notre Dame Cathedral. The line was so long that it zig-zagged across the plaza.

It was one of the first times in years that Notre Dame Cathedral was open to the public since the fire in 2019. The bricks of the cathedral are now a lighter color than they used to be, but you otherwise cannot tell that the church is any different. The line moved shockingly fast and before we knew it we were being ushered through the church. 

We took our time milling through the cathedral, looking at the paintings, listening to the church organs, lighting candles, and buying rosaries for devout Catholic grandmothers.

The cathedral is just as beautiful as I imagined, with sunlight streaming in through the stained glass windows, dimly lit by candles, and smelling vaguely of incense.  It has been perfectly restored since the fire. 

Parts of it were a surprise to me, like the statues of saints that lined the front of the cathedral and how they stared down at you, almost as though they were doing it from heaven. 

It’s hard to find an original thing to say about Notre Dame Cathedral, the beautiful gothic church that has captured the minds of writers, artists, and Disney execs around the world. All I can say is that it’s worth seeing if you ever find yourself in Paris (and Paris is not a bad place to find yourself). 

After that, I dragged my tired ass home. I could barely keep my eyes open or feel my feet, but I had gotten my first taste of the city. I was ready to spend the next day conquering the city, dominating the public transportation system, and getting to know Paris.

I’ll keep you posted!

The Tragic Queen,

Raquel

P.S.: Check out my previous blog post about the feminist birthday party I attended a few weeks ago that raised money for nonprofits aimed at upholding women’s rights around the world.