Gay Paris!

First off, let me say I enjoyed Paris far more than I thought I would.  Aside from all the French people it's a beautiful city with some amazing architecture.

May 17th - 20th - Paris
I got in fairly late because I'm a retard and didn't book a train ticket from London to Paris in advance, instead buying it the day before.  Besides costing 180 pounds sterling, the earliest train I could catch was at 5pm, which didn't get me into the city until almost 9, Paris being one hour ahead of the UK.  I did a quick walk around the neighborhood of my hostel but mostly sat in the bar drinking beer.

I managed a bit of a sleep in but woke up feeling like complete ass.  I had started acquiring a cold in Ireland and it hit me full force on Tuesday; sore throat, achy body, general lethargy.  After going to the train station to buy my ticket to Switzerland I head to the fountain at St. Michel as I was going on a free walking tour of the city at 1pm.

St. Michel kicking Lucifer down to Hell.  I'd rather rule in Hell than follow in Heaven too.

The free walking tour was put on by a company called New Europe that does tours in a bunch of cities throughout Europe.  It went for about 4 hours and covered a fair bit of the city.  Nothing too in depth but a good primer on the lay of the land and some history and interesting stories thrown in.

We went by Notre Dame, under the New Bridge, actually the oldest bridge in Paris, the spot where the legend of Friday the 13th being an unlucky day came about, The Louvre, the Champs Elysee and ended about 15 minutes from the Eiffel Tower, with lots of other places in between.

Left:  The gardens by The Louvre.  Right:  Chris when he doesn't shave for 3 days.

After the tour was finished I continued on to the Eiffel Tower where I climbed the stairs up to the second floor.  Some bitchy old American lady kept whining to her husband that she wasn't going to make it and how annoyed she was that he decided to go the stairs way instead of taking the lift.  It's about 500 stairs but come on lady, shut the fuck up, you're at the Eiffel Tower in goddamn Paris.

The Eiffel Tower in goddamn Paris

The view from the second floor of the Eiffel Tower, ruined by some ugly dude getting in the way.

The queue to take the lift to the very top of the tower, the only way to the top, had about 67,000 people in it, and what did we learn from my London entry and the London Eye?  Steve doesn't like queues.  So needless to say I said fuck it to that idea and didn't bother going to the top.  The view from the second floor was plenty awesome.

A word about tourist sites in Paris.  At all the major tourist sites in the city you'll find Middle Eastern and African men trying to sell crappily made souviners of Paris.  Think lime green plastic Eiffel Towers and Eiffel Tower keychains that are no doubt 87% lead.  These guys didn't bother me because I gave them the don't-fuck-with-me face.  On top of these guys there are scammers everywhere.  Gypsy women approaching tourists asking if they speak English and holding a piece of paper with some English writing on it.  What happens here is they get you deciphering the message for them while they or someone else picks your pocket.

From the Eiffel Tower I walked back to the Champs Elysee, Paris' main shopping boulevard, and up to the Arc De Triomphe.  The Arc is where the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier lies, along with the eternal flame.

The Arc De Triomphe and the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

At this point I'd been walking for a good 8 hours so I decided it was time to go back to the Hostel and drink more beer.  Mmmm, beer.  I know that in Paris one should drink wine but come on, wine kind of sucks.  Maybe in Italy I'll actually drink wine for a bit, we'll see.

The next day I got up nice and early and made my way to The Louvre.  There were two main things I wanted to see at The Louvre:  The Mona Lisa and the Venus Di Milo.  As in THE Mona Lisa and THE Venus Di Milo.  And see them I did:

Mmmm, gummy di milo...

The Louvre is pretty awesome.  First of all, it's huge.  It holds so many works of art; paintings, sculptures, statues... That it's impossible to see everything in just one day.  I spent about 3 hours there, getting the Mona Lisa and Venus out of the way first and then just wandering around.  I really enjoyed the Greek marble statues and the whole area showing pen and pencil graphic art from hundreds of years ago.  Leonardo Di Vinci pencil sketches?  Yes please.

 Ooh, a sculpture of a pretty woman.  Look closer:  She's got a dick, man!

After The Louvre I took myself to the underground catacombs, home of thousands upon thousands of skulls and bones; remains of people who died hundreds of years ago.  Basically, Paris had a number of mass graves around the city and decided that those locations could be used for further development.  So, they dug up the graves and took all the remains to the old stone quarry and lined the bones along the walls of the tunnels.  Super creepy and super awesome and super worth it.  Possibly the best place I visited in all of Paris.

  Pictured:  Maybe your great, great, great granfather.

And that's it for Paris.  A bit of a whirlwind tour through such a large and magnificent city but c'est la vie.  The next day I got on a train for Switzerland and here I sit, in the Swiss Alps in a town called Gimmelwald.