Rome, Italy - Travel Scrapbook
Danny and Simone's Travel Scrapbook of Rick Steves' 7-Day Best of Rome (and a little Paris too)
Sainte-Chapelle Church and The Louvre Museum
Danny’s cell phone alarm goes off at 3:45am; the wake up call comes at 4:00am. We both shower and finish packing then head to the front desk to turn in room and safe keys at 4:30am. We get coffee to wake us up just in time for the taxi that arrives at 4:35am.
At Fiumicino Airport our wait to check-in is delayed as it appears the attendants are working on customers to Lyon first. Boarding should start at 6:45am for our 7:20am flight. Bad news – bad weather in Paris is causing delays in Rome. The original one-hour delay then gets increased an additional twenty minutes per the pilot.
Finally at 9am the plane pushes back from the terminal with lift-off at 9:20am. 11:09am we arrive at our gate in Paris. 
While still stateside, we’d mapped out our RER and Metro subway route from Charles de Gaule Airport to Hôtel Muguet using the transit website http://www.ratp.info/.
Taking Rick’s advice, we purchase a carnet (set of 10 discounted train tickets) to save time buying subway tickets during our short stay.
It takes us until 1:00pm to exit the subway on our way to Hôtel Muguet in the Rue Cler neighborhood. When booking the room, we decided to splurge on a room with a view of the Eiffel Tower.
|
|
|
|
Map to Hôtel Muguet |
Checking in |
Sainte-Chapelle Church
Back on the train, we navigate to Sainte-Chapelle Church which is on our list first. We purchase the Paris Museum Pass, more so to skip the lines than for the discount to all the museums. The line is not too long, but everyone must go through security.
Such a beautiful church with 6,458 sq. ft of stained glass (two-thirds original) — built in six years to house the relics of Christ’s Passion, especially the Crown of Thorns.
|
|
|
|
Paris Museum Pass - front |
Paris Museum Pass - back |
|
|
|
Saint-Chapelle guide |
|
|
|
|
Sainte-Chapelle—stained glass |
Sainte-Chapelle—stained glass |
The Louvre Museum
Leaving the Sainte-Chappelle Church, we walk to the Louvre Museum even though Notre Dame is just down the street. The Louvre will be closed tomorrow. We’ll come back to Notre Dame tomorrow.
|
|
|
|
Danny at I.M Pei’s designed pyramid |
Simone at I.M Pei’s designed pyramid |
|
|
|
Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel across plaza from Louvre museum |
|
|
|
Louvre guide |
We hit the three most popular pieces first: Winged Victory of Samothrace, Venus de Milo and Mona Lisa. We go gallery walking, through the African section on to the Borghese collection.
We are starved so we eat at the museum café.
|
|
|
|
Winged Victory of Samothrace |
Venus de Milo |
|
|
|
|
SiMONA Lisa |
Statue in Borghese collection |
On the subway ride home, our seat companion started up a conversation with us. Maybe we didn’t look like locals or he heard us speaking English, but he struck up a conversation and for the duration of our train ride, the three of us communicated. He spoke as little English as we spoke French yet we found out he had emigrated to Paris from Tunisia. He was sixty years old and showed us pictures of his handsome family. We told him we were on holiday and visiting from Atlanta, Georgia. We talked about what we had done today and planned to do tomorrow.
At our train stop I gave our Parisian Tunisian train friend a keychain from Atlanta and on the platform Danny and I waved goodbye through the window. I think he was genuinely touched I even had something to give him.
Note: my pedometer was accidentally reset so distance is undercounted.
[Steps: 3,834/Miles: 1.814]
End of Day 9: Paris Arrival
