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July column, for the July Revolution in 1830 (think Les Misérables)
We drove first to the left bank, the area known for the universities of Paris, past the Sorbonne, the oldest university in Europe, to the Panthéon. The Panthéon is a church that was built by King Louis XV in 1744, who on his death bed vowed that if he recovered he would build a shrine to honor the patron saint of Paris, Sainte Geneviève. This building is now used as mausoleum for important French citizens. Inside, which we didn’t visit that but I did when I lived in Paris, you can see a Foucault pendulum and the burial sites of people such as Louis Braille, authors Voltaire, Emile Zola, Victor Hugo (author of the Hunchback of Notre Dame), Alexandre Dumas (who wrote The Three Musketeers) and the scientist Marie Curie. We learned from our tour guide that even though France has many important French women as their symbols (Marianne is their equivalent of Uncle Sam, the aforementioned Sainte Geneviève, and let’s not forget the important Joan of Arc) there are only four women interred in the Panthéon.
Near the Panthéon (and located off the side of the bus I was sitting on so I could snap a better pic) is the church Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, which is the church that now honors Saint Geneviève and is said to contain her relics. From here we drove to my favorite park in Paris, the Jardin du Luxembourg, where we were able to jump off the bus for 10 minutes to snap some pics (“quickie pickie” our guide exclaimed) and walk around the grounds. The Jardin du Luxembourg has beautiful manicured lawns, with fountains (some in which children can rent miniature sailboats to push around), statues, perfectly shaped rows of trees and beautiful flower beds, but also the beautiful Palais du Luxembourg, created by the French queen Marie de Medici (wife of Henri IV) to match her childhood home in Florence, Italy (the Pitti Palace) in 1612. Now the palace is where the Senate meets. 
      Our next stop was the Hôtel des Invalides. Ready for more history- you better be! Hôtel des Invalides is a whole HUGE complex of buildings which started as a military hospital but now is a military museum. Also part of the complex is the Dôme des Invalides, which holds the remains of of many important military heroes, most notably Napoléon, who is entombed under the gold dome in six coffins- one inside another (think Russian dolls). While we jumped off the bus to snap some pics, we were greeted by hordes of immigrant salesmen, pushing their Eiffel Tower key chains and paintings. I take such pleasure in talking people’s prices down and got 20 key chains for 2 euros and a painting on canvas. It was great fun teaching the kids that they should barter to get the best deals possible.    Next we stopped at the Eiffel Tower, getting off at the Champs de Mars to snap some pics of the famous monument. With as many times as I’ve seen the Eiffel Tower, I never tire of saying it. How about some fun facts about the Eiffel Tower, how many of these did you know?
        After driving around the Eiffel Tower so we could probably see it from all it’s sides, we drove to the Place de l’Etoile to see the Arc de Triomphe. This square, which literally means Star Square, has 12 avenues that meet here and can be pretty nerve-wracking to drive through, or exhilarating if you are a thrill-seeker. The Arc de Triomphe, which is accessed by an underground passage, was built in 1806 to honor those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars. On the walls are the names of the French victories and generals, and underneath the arch is the tomb of the unknown soldier with an eternal flame (which inspired the flame at the tomb of JFK).
We also had a few minutes to find a cafe to grab some coffee or drinks and a bathroom. My small group ordered citron pressé (lemonade), chocolat frappé (like a chocolate milkshake) and one student was even brave enough to try a French specialty with me- an espresso! It was their first time in a real French café, and it was great!       We ended our tour at the Opera Garnier, the beautiful building that is the home of the Phantom of the Opera.
 Here, we got off the bus and split into two groups for our free time in Paris. As I had just finished my unit on Impressionism with my French 3, 4 & AP students, there were several students who wanted to check out the Musée D’Orsay, and I arranged ahead of time for my former student Kari to meet us there. Kari and I traveled to France when she was a student at Troy HS and she traveled to France with me about 10 years ago. Since then, she has studied abroad in Tours (comme moi!), been an au pair (comme moi) and now is teaching English at a Parisian school. Before arriving at the museum I taught my group of 13 how to navigate the metro (we had to switch trains but they figured it out with no help from me!) and even when we emerged from the train I didn’t tell them which way we were going, we started going the wrong way but they figured it out and changed directions after about 50 feet, very impressive! We passed a boulangerie so decided to stop and get lunch; some people got quiches, some paninis but myself and three others were able to get freshly made-for-us vegetarian sandwiches. I’m going to pay for eating all the gluten since I now know I shouldn’t be having it at all, but how can I resist when I’m in the country with the best bread ever? And my group agreed, it’s hard to have these sandwiches and then return to the States and have our subs. The vegetarian sandwich had cheese, tomatoes, egg an mayo and was awesome! We walked about two blocks to the Musée D’Orsay where I finally got to see Kari after about ten years, and she looked exactly the same! The queue for the museum looked pretty long, but we were in and through security in about 40 minutes. Inside I had to pay but all the students under 18 got in for free.
   Then upstairs to the 5th floor to check out the Impressionists like Degas, Monet, Pissarro, Renoir; it was so exciting to see some of the art work that my students had learned about and even recreated for their projects. It’s fun to see the interior of the Musee D’Orsay too, since it’s an old train station, with its large clocks and windows. Down on the second floor we got to see up close the Van Gogh, Cezanne and Gauguin. Unfortunately, the Seurat and Toulouse-Lautrec rooms were closed, but we still had an awesome time and hopefully (fingers crossed) the kids liked it too, I know the 5 I was with loved it.
  
After spending a few minutes in the gift shop, we threw around ideas of what to do next before deciding to go to Montmartre and check that out. We left, walking through the Jardin des Tuileries and passed a demonstration (it’s not a normal Parisian weekend without a strike or demonstration) about rights for children for Autism. We then took the metro, with Kari as our guide because she knows this city so well now (what a proud teacher I am!) We took the metro to the Blanche stop so we could see the Moulin Rouge. We didn’t catch any can-can performances, but it was fun to see.         Luckily, the walk we took didn’t have as many steps as it usually takes to the get to the highest point in Paris (I later heard the other group complain about how many they had to take); our route was more windy as it headed up the hill, but we did have to take a few staircases to reach the summit of Montmartre where the basilica of Sacré Coeur stands. It was busier that I’ve probably ever seen it, but it’s a must-see spot for the spectacular views of Paris.     The white church you see in the Basilica de Sacré Coeur (sacred heart), built on the Butte Montmartre, the highest part of Paris. The basilica was built between 1875 and 1914, making it one of the most recent churches in Paris. And the white stone they used in building it will always stay white, it cleans itself when it rains. We didn’t have a lot of time in Montmartre but we wanted to run into some souvenir shops to get some kitschy souvenirs, including some beret for our Seine river cruise we were doing later in the evening! After that we had to descend the hill to get back to the group for dinner, and I had to say goodbye to my former student, making plans to hopefully meet up later. We headed towards the Champs Elysees to meet for dinner at Flam’s. Every tour I’ve ever taken has us eating flammekueche, a type of flat bread “pizza” with a white garlic sauce instead of the red we are used to- this pizza comes from the area of Alsace. I’m not very fond of it, but on the plus side the students get a lot more to eat, and they made vegetarian flammekueche for us. And the desert flammekueche with chocolate or caramel was delicious. After dinner we walked to the Eiffel Tower, as it started to Rain (but at least it had held off all day unlike the meteo had predicted), and it didn’t last long. We headed to the Seine next to the Eiffel Tower for Seine boat cruise, and got there just in time for it to take off, and just in time for the 9pm sparkle session: every hour on the hour for about 5 minutes the Eiffel Tower sparkles and its just awesome, so as soon as we were on the boat cruise it did just that, enabling us to get loads of front row pictures, in our matching berets of course. Unfortunately, our cruise wasn’t as long as normal, it didn’t even go by Ile de la Cité (where Notre Dame is located) because the water level was too high- the boats won’t fit under the bridges. But a trip to Paris isn’t completed without a boat cruise. And look at these beautiful pictures of the Eiffel Tower by night!       After the cruise we decided to hang out on the quai a little longer and get some snacks, I helped students get some more keychains for a good deal, the kids decided that I should get a second job just haggling with people- the key I’ve decided being eating something so as to seem completely disinterested and being seen walking away from one person to another until you find the best deal- the first guy wouldn’t sell any less that 5 for a euro, the second wanted 3 euros for 18 and finally I got 20 keychains for 3 euro- not that big a savings but a very fun practice lol.
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Two Days in Paris- 2018 (part two)
This is day two of my Paris, Provence and Barcelona school trip, spent entirely Paris. If you didn’t read about the first day in Paris, check out the first blog here.
After a very full first day in which we got off the plane and immediately explored Paris until bedtime, our wake up call was at 6:45, after which time I scalded myself in the shower in my room (one of the things that my students later said they thought was the most different in Europe from life in the United States was their bathrooms, such as the lack of shower curtains and the handheld shower heads), breakfast at 730 (pain au chocolate and yogurt- another difference from the United States, the lack of a big breakfast consisting of mostly bread-stuff and no eggs), and on then we were on the bus at 830 to do a guided tour through Paris. In the past with guided bus tours I’ve experienced either a) dull guides who didn’t know how to talk to students or b) students who weren’t interested in hearing what the guide was talking or the were so concentrated on their phones that they didn’t hear anything that was said anyways, so I was a little nervous when we picked up the tiny older British woman at Bastille. However, she was hilarious and she really captured the kids attention, meaning they got an awesome tour of Paris by bus!
We picked up our guide at Place de la Bastille, the square where the Bastille prison stood until it was stormed and torn down, marking the beginning of the French Revolution, July 14, 1789. Now in this square stands the July Column (Colonne de Juillet) and the modern Opéra Bastille, the main opera house in Paris, built in 1989 when President Mitterand added many modern architectural structures to Paris, such as the glass pyramid at the Louvre museum.
