I went to Paris and I liked it

Hello, yes it’s time for another “this is what I did on my Paris trip” entry. Please ignore if it is boring to you. Some pics on Flickr.

Thursday
Went to see “Paris rayonnant” at the Musée du Moyen Age – about Gothic architecture.
Went to the Mémorial de la Déportation on the Ile de la Cité (had never seen this before, tho probably walked past about a hundred times).
Walked loads, through 4th, 3rd, 10th arrondissements (partly looking for exhibitions which I found out were closed – Thursday was a holiday in France). Afterwards, my feet hurt.

Friday
Cycled the previous day’s route cuz I wanted to see how many km it was, then discovered Runkeeper wasn’t working properly. Still, nice cycle. *lol*
Went to the Musée Maillol for “Vanités – de Caravage a Damien Hirst” (see here for Vanités – basically a still life that centres around the futility of life).
Had lunch & tea to warm up for it was cold.
Went to the Musée des Lettres et des Manuscrits for an exhib on my beloved Proust. This had, um, lots of letters and manuscripts. *lol*
Then cycled around 10th and 19th arrondissements for a while.

Saturday
Started by cycling around again as it was finally sunny and nice!
Went to “Paris des Rêves” at the Hôtel de Ville – Paris photos by the photographer Izis.
Walked to the Tuileries and sat in the sun for quite a while, reading and dreaming.
Cycled to the Marais and went to see RimbaudMania at the Galerie des Bibliothèques.
Then to the Musée Carnavalet for a photo exhib on Parisian prisons.
Theeen had lunch at the Place des Vosges, went to the Marché des Artistes on Bastille.
Then a massive cycle through 10-18-17-8-7 arrondissements. Took me around two hours and I managed to get lost at some point and actually leave inner Paris. *lol*
Then went to the Jardin du Luxembourg for some rest & strawberries.

Saturday night
It was Nuit des Musées, where (some) museums have special events and are open for free all night.
Went to the Grand Palais which had something called “Noctambulles” with, um, soap bubbles and music and scents. It was kinda pointless but fun, this massive hall with lots of people in it just standing around.
Cycled to Musée de la Monnaie which also had an event, which was also fun and atmospheric, with dangling stars and weird loud drum sounds. They were also showing a documentary on the museum which I watched. It was cute. *lol*
Then walked/métroed it home and got back after 1am. (unusual for me)

Sunday
Last day already! Gasp!
Cycled to the Pinacothèque for an exhib on Munch (L’Anti-Cri). This was… a bit disappointing. And very crowded.
Spent about an hour at the Tuileries enjoying the sun (sun! yay!) and having lunch. And reading & napping.
Theeen bike to the Marais, and went to the Hunting Museum. Um. They had some installation that sounded interesting, and that was kinda fun, but the rest of the museum was predictably boring. Dead animals and guns, yay.
Walked to the Ile de la Cité where I had a bit of an anxiety attack, but calmed down eventually.
Walked around the Fête du Pain (bread festival) on the Parvis Notre-Dame. Wanted to go into Notre-Dame but the queue was massive. Stupid tourists.
Then to the Mémorial de la Shoah – exhib about Jews in Berlin.
Then a final cycle up and down the Seine, and back to the hotel for my bag. I was tired.

And that’s it. All in all it was a nice trip, tho the weather was crappy the first two days. But Paris is beautiful. And the Eurostar is nice. 🙂