Paris: Day 3

This morning after we’d eaten breakfast, we all met in the lobby of our hotel and took the subway to The Louvre. The Louvre is amazing. It’s also huge. Laura and I got lost while we were trying to get back to the arranged meeting place. We only spent a few hours in The Louvre, but we managed to see the pieces of art that we’d wanted to see and we still had time left over.

Statue in The Louvre

Statue in The Louvre

One of the many extravagant ceilings in The Louvre

Statue in The Louvre

Statue in The Louvre

The Venus de Milo

Statue in The Louvre

Another statue in The Louvre

Winged Victory of Samothrace

Statue at The Louvre

Gigantic painting in The Louvre

Statue at The Louvre

Outside The Louvre

There are some amazing paintings in The Louvre such as the Mona Lisa and Liberty… However, I decided that my favorite part was the sculptures. There are so many and after a while they all start to blur together, but I still enjoyed seeing them. Even though the Venus de Milo gets a lot of attention, there are plenty of other sculptures at The Louvre that equal its beauty.

I’m not going to lie and say that I wasn't excited to see the Mona Lisa, because I was. I've heard so many people say that it isn't that great of a painting and that it’s not even worth seeing, but I was not disappointed. I’m glad that I got an opportunity to see it. The only disappointing thing about the Mona Lisa was that it was in a glass case which made it impossible to get a good photo of it.

When we finished inside The Louvre, we went outside and took a few photos of the outside before heading to get lunch. We ate at a small sandwich shop that was near an opera house.

Opera house in Paris

Opera house in Paris

It was at this point that my opinion of Paris became permanently scarred. We walked from the sandwich shop and proceeded to take a subway to a stop near the church, Sacre Coeur. The church itself is beautiful. However, the area surrounding it is not. Movies seem to paint Paris as a beautiful city full of flowers and whatnot. It’s really romanticized in film. The truth is, it’s not that nice at all. There definitely are really pretty areas. But for the most part, it’s not that pretty. Paris is a filthy city. It’s just plain gross. In a lot of areas there is trash piled in the streets. It was especially bad in the area surrounding Sacre Coeur. Paris also smells really bad. There are a lot of bad smells, but the two worst, in my opinion, are the smell of sewage and the smell of smoke. Everyone is Paris smokes. Every place you go. You can’t get away from the smell.

While the things I mentioned previously are pretty nasty, the thing that really made me not like Paris is the people. They can be pretty rude; especially the people trying to sell things on the streets. When we first went to The Eiffel Tower, there were men all over trying to sell miniature Eiffel Towers. They were pretty persistent; however, they WOULD leave after a while.

Today, when we got to Sacre Coeur, there were men trying to sell stuff again but in this area they would actually grab your wrist and try to make you buy stuff. It was pretty freaky stuff.

Near the church there was an area where artists set up booths and sell their artwork so we visited that for a while. When we finished there, we went through some tourist shops and bought some souvenirs. Not surprisingly, the area we were in was not far from The Moulin Rouge. So we walked by that just to see it. That area of Paris was definitely one of the sketchiest places I've ever been. I never thought that I would be able to say that I’m comfortable in a city the size of London, but I now realize just how comfortable I am in London compared to Paris.

We’re headed back to London tomorrow morning bright and early and trust me, we can’t get there soon enough for me. I’m so looking forward to being back in London again.

View from Sacre Coeur

Sacre Coeur

The Moulin Rouge

Michaela