Paris, Day 2

Paris, Day 2 (first read Paris, Day 1, located below the Feria post)

The next morning we met up with Elly and her class at the Bastille square, which was close to both our hostel and Elly's hotel. It is near the modern opera.

Elly mimicking the statue in the middle of the square

Then we headed to the Catacombs. While the Catacombs weren't at the top of my list of things to see in Paris, Elly's class wanted to go. They were definitely interesting. Basically, the catacombs are are an underground ossuary in Paris that contain the bones of more than 6 million people. They are a series of winding tunnels 100 feet under the city of Paris where bones were moved when the church cemeteries became full.

We descended a narrow spiral stairwell 19 meters underground to the dark, silent passageways. The first room we came to was a hallway of stone with displays about the former mines. Then we went through a long (about 1.5 km) hallway and stood before a sculpture that existed from before the mines became a tomb, of a fortress created by a former Quarry Inspector. Soon aver that we came to a stone portal, the ossuary entrance, with the inscription written in Latin "Stop, this is the empire of Death."

Long Hallway

And then began the bones. There were hallways and hallways of them, all neatly and carefully arranged, almost in an artistic fashion. I couldn't believe how many there were-- the passageways kept going on and on. It was hard to believe that each skull once belonged to a human being-- they seemed fake, like something you would find on skeletons at the health adventure. It felt almost wrong, being there, like we were intruding, being that close to dead human beings. It made me think about how short this life of ours really is, in the grand scheme of things.

Elly, pretending to kiss a skull

There were hallways and hallways like this. A LOT of bones.

Surprisingly cute picture from an eerie place

Going back up the second narrow, long winding staircase

After the Catacombs, Alyssa and I broke off from Elly's school group and FINALLY found our little pastry shop. I had an éclair. Delicious.

Later that afternoon we met up with Elly and Caroline in front of Notre Dame!

Reunited sisters <3

We all were wearing our sisterhood bracelets!!

Caroline couldn't stay for long because she was with her friend, who lives in Paris. But after she left Madame Delange gave the group some free time and Elly came with Alyssa and I to tour the Notre Dame.

Inside Notre Dame

After touring we tried to go to the Saint Chapelle, but it was too late in the afternoon. So instead, we followed Elly around town as she looked for a French rapper CD to give to Kyle. Then we took Elly back to her hotel to meet up with her group.

Bridge over the Seine river

Since we had been very stingy with buying food up to that point, mostly living on French bread, Alyssa and I decided that we deserved a fancy dinner on the Avenue des Champs-Élysées, one of the most famous streets in the world known for its high-end restaurants, cafés, cinemas and specialty shops. It's the second most expensive strip of real estate in Europe, with rents as high as 1.1 million euros for 1,100 square feet of space.

We started at the arc de triomphe, which again reminded me of Mary-Kate and Ashley.




And before long we were on the Avenue Champs Elysées, surrounded by Gucci, Louis Vuitton and limos.

Louis Vuitton window display-- a zebra juggling handbags

The street

We walked up and down the street a few times looking for a semi-affordable place to eat-- even though we wanted a fancy dinner, we refused to pay 40 euros a meal! We ended up at a delicious Italian place where I got a 5-cheese pasta and we could sit on the street to people-watch.

Dinner

After dinner we had to go to the Laduree, a very fancy sweets shop on the Avenue Champs de Elysées. One of Alyssa's friends who had studied abroad in Paris had told her "If you don't do anything else in Paris, you have to get a vanilla macaroon from the Laduree." So that's what we did. We took them to eat by the Eiffel tower.

the sweets

In front of the Laduree with our fancy bag of macaroons