Now then, Paris. Paris is a beautiful city, as is well known to everyone who has visited it. I did visit Paris once when it was gray and rainy, and that time I was not very impressed, but this time our first day in Paris was filled with sunshine, and how can that not be the start of a great mini vacation? I enjoy both extravagant architecture and old streets, as well as bombastic nature scenes. In Oslo I get neither, so it felt very refreshing to visit a truly big city again, with cathedrals, castles that actually look like castles, and all that.
On our way, after a somewhat dramatic start.
There are so many things to do in Paris that I have actually managed to go there four times without visiting Le Louvre or Le musée d'Orsay. But now I've been to both! The second one is actually more interesting, but here is perhaps the ugliest painting (or motive, poor woman) I could find in the Louvre (We were a bit surprised at people taking photos in there, so I thought we should take a photo of this thing. Just because it's ugly).
Lots of people at that place.
Two Russian girls took photos of us outside the Louvre.
We naturally got lost quite a couple of times. Usually at night. Luckily, the first time we were not that very far away from the Tour d'Eiffel, and I don't think you can say that you're lost as long as you can actually see that thing. Right?
During previous visits to Paris, I thought I had been to the flea market at Porte de Clingancourt. But I hadn't. I was always surprised that it was so small, but this time we had some printed instructions that mentioned going past smaller flea market in order to get to the big one. The big one was kind of creepy, and everything was very expensive.
Before going to the Musée d'Orsay, we went to a café that actually served decent coffee. The garcon was clearly amused by us wanting to pay at the wrong moment and returning our empty cups to the counter when we left. Apparently we were doing his job ;) It was a very cozy place, and I really like this picture Sasha took in our little "booth".
A rather fancy cappuccino and the money the garçon didn't want until we left.
The first time I saw these little "bookshops" on the Seine was when I was in Paris for just one day three or so years ago. My friend, who was living in Paris, showed me around Le quartier latin, his fancy school/Palace, a very nice park and these lovely things. We actually found some Russian books this time, but they were very expensive so I didn't buy anything. I bought "Les Russes" here though, and it cost 2,5 euros.
The other side of the river and the middle, from a bridge.
We didn't really do a whole lot of eating in Paris, mostly because we were always walking somewhere. And when we did eat, we didn't always choose the classiest places! The baguettes were very good though, especially after like 10 hours without food.
Russia was rather present in Paris.
Sasha thought I was so colorful she just had to take a photo of me.
Paris Metro. I like it, it's very easy to navigate. But hard to find!
We spent a whole lot of time in shops, but I think that's okay since it's Paris. You can't go to Paris without doing some shopping, especially since it's so cheap for us. That's all for this time, folks!
