"The last time I saw Paris..."

I am in love with French baguettes. But my affections are also claimed by croissants. And of course I can’t forget my adoration for crêpes…

Paris is indeed la ville d’amour: believe it or not, there are even more things to love than the food. Like the Christmas market stretching all along the Champs Elyées. Or experiencing the beauty and balance of the church of Sacre Coeur in Montmartre. Or going up the Arc de Triomphe at dusk instead of the Eiffel Tower because, well, wouldn’t you rather look at the Tower? Or hanging out with my aunt, uncle, and cousins, eating snails and watching the Eiffel Tower sparkle at night. Or getting into the Louvre for free. It’s gratuit for European Union citizens under 25, so I walked up to them, showed my student ID card and spoke French with an outrageous Italian accent. It worked!

Winding our way through the colorful Latin Quarter, the traditional home of Parisian academics, Michael and I found Julie and Meghan, two other Domers spending the year at the Sciences Po. They did us the incredible favor of showing us to the best crêpes on the Left Bank, and to the Panthéon.

Yes, you read that correctly, and yes, we were still in Paris. This impressive monument differs from the one in Roma in that it’s not about all the gods, but rather about all the wonderful people France has produced and housed over the centuries. In the extensive labyrinth of the crypt you’ll find anyone from Voltaire to Marie Curie (actually born Russian, but we’re not splitting hairs here). And if dead people aren’t your thing, you can enjoy the interesting experiment of Foucault’s Pendulum, designed to demonstrate the rotation of the Earth.

A few tourist-ing notes: Monuments and museums in Paris are free on the first Sunday of the month. However, if you’re planning on going, I’d suggest getting there early to avoid the lines. It’s possible to spend the night in the basement of Sacre Coeur. You just need to sign up for one hour of Adoration and five euro. The relics of Christ’s Passion are displayed at Notre Dame Cathedral the first Friday of the month.

Signed,

la Sengenblogger