The next morning, tired/jetlagged as shit, we went to see what the big deal with Paris was. It was a refreshing change from Latin America - old buildings, big boulevards, huge green spaces and trees everywhere. We decided to go to the Eiffel Tower first, coz why not tourism when you're a tourist?
Just across the river from the Tower we saw a Peruvian pipe band, who'd've thought?
The Eiffel Tower was pretty sweet, a nice bit of engineering for something built over 100 years ago!
All dat joint design...
We walked halfway up the tower, as it was way more expensive to go right to the top, and you'd have to wait ages for the elevators. View over the river towards a pair of museums in a fancy palace.
We overheard someone saying the tomb of Napoleon is in this guy, but it was a bit out of the way to visit.
Champ de Mars and some suburbs.
After the Eiffel Tower, we walked to the Arc de Triomphe, past the museums above.
So many chemtrails in Europe, omgz.
Arc de Triomphe with its traffic lunacy.
And then to the Louvre, though it was getting on in the day and we weren't sure what time it closed. To get there, we had to walk down what seemed to be one of the more touristy streets in the city, with thousands of people and hundreds of fancy-looking shops.
Gates to the Abercrombie & Fitch store. ugh.
We got waylaid a bit on the way by the Big and Small Palaces, across the road from each other. I was keen to see some fancy palaces, though Carl and Logan'd already seen a bunch in other parts of Europe. In the end we visited the Small Palace, since it was free and we couldn't work out what was going on in the Big one. Seemed like it was pay-to-play...
The "Small" Palace.
The door to the Big Palace.
Poor angel was just giving the guy a lift and now he's gonna get his throat cut.
Paintings on the roof in the Small Palace.
Need new pants? Kill a giant!
There was a whole bunch of old paintings being exhibited in the Palace, but the coolest things to me were all these weird sculptures. No idea how you'd make this thing...
There was also a whole series of these big-headed fellows in various neck-jarring positions:
Onwards and upwards, to the Louvre!
Never would've thought I'd see a statue of Simón Bolívar in France. Have to wonder how it came to be.
And we finally made it, but closing time was soon and we wanted to see Notre Dame too, so I decided to return the next day, while Carl and Logan were leaving Paris for cheaper waters.
We had lunch across the road from the Palace of Justice. Fancy.
Outside the famous church, with all the other tourists (and it was Sunday, so there was a service going on inside. Super weird.
Cool stained glass in the church. After the cathedrals of Quito and Buenos Aires Notre Dame is pretty spartan.
Poor guy doesn't wanna lose his head.
A little down the road there was a bunch of guys practicing their slaloms. This guy was the best.
After Notre Dame we went back to the hostel and drank a bit, then in the morning we said goodbye and I changed hostels (when there was 3 of us it was cheaper to stay in a cheap hotel than a hostel, which was hella expensive), before heading back to the Louvre. Was still pretty jetlagged though, so I got there pretty late in the day, and the layout's confusing so I didn't see a whole lot.
Turns out the Louvre used to be a fort of some kind, before being turned into a palace, before being turned into a museum.
The first thing I found was the collection of stolen stuff from Egypt. There was loads of people all crowded around another one of these guys, which possibly had some greater meaning or fame, but this one looked basically identical:
I shudder to think of the effort it would've taken to bring this stuff over from Africa, but most of it was pretty rad.
Pretty sure exhumation is illegal in most places, but apparently not 100 years ago.
The building itself was pretty sweet, though obviously sparsely decorated aside from the exhibits.
After the Egyptian stuff I found the Hellenic (I think, there was a whole bunch of Mediterranean things around the place) exhibit:
srsly how much manpower to move this thing?
Then I wandered around a big section full of what I think was mostly French sculptures.
So many people getting et by animals. And then the guy on the left just casually hanging his baby on a dead tree.
John Butler in another life?
"Wasn't me"
And then it was almost closing time, and I had no idea how to get to the paintings, so I just left. Probably only would've actually liked 10% of them anyway.
Cool arch outside the Louvre.
The next day I got the train 45 or so to the north of Paris to visit some friends I met in Colombia. They were living in a tiny town surrounded by other tiny towns and fields and not much else. It was cool to chill out there away from cities for a couple of days, and the sunsets were amazing:
I then bought a tent in a bid to save money on hostel beds, and caught the train through Paris to Blois, a small city surrounded by chateaux and wineries, though I only found out about the wineries later, and don't really have that much interest in visiting them anyway...
When I arrived in Blois I walked to the campsite in the city I'd found online, only to find it doesn't exist anymore, or ever, so I walked back to the centre and found the tourism office, where they told me the nearest campground was about 6km out of town. Determined to use my tent, I walked all the way out there in the ridiculous sun, before napping and reading for the afternoon. I'd pitched my tent in a quiet corner of the campground, and at night there were rabbits :D
In the morning, I walked back in to Blois to visit the chateau there, and the "House of the Magician," but more on that later. It's quite a nice little city on the edge of the Loire River, which waters the vineyards of the Loire Valley.
The chateau was cool too. Serving as the residence of several French kings, it was turned into an historic monument and museum in the 1840's.
Statue of some guy (a king, I imagine) on the outside of the chateau.
The 3 wings of the chateau each have different architectural styles, though I don't know a lot about architecture so couldn't name them.
Close-up of the fanciest staircase I've ever seen.
(Probably a reconstruction of) the royal throne.
Some old parts of the chateau have been preserved, as it was renovated several times while in use, and obviously at least one since.
Gold and silver salamander, symbol of the French kings.
Old gargoyles. I never realised before that gargoyles are basically drainage spouts for the roofs.
Slightly newer, more familiar gargoyles.
Ridiculous fireplace.
The queen's bed.
The queen's study, decorated with 180 carved oak things on the walls and ceiling:
Fanciest glass I ever saw.
The king's bed.
The creepy painting on the ceiling of the king's bed.
Cool old clock and its back:
Not sure why they kept this around.
Looking over the town and river;
Just next door to the chateau is the House of the Magician, which was the house of Jean-Eugène Robert-Houdin, considered the father of modern conjuring, and who Harry Houdini took his stage name from. Now the house is a museum of illusions and the history of magic, and there's a short magic show a few times a day. There's also this "clock" outside, which runs every half hour, and features a 6-headed dragon which comes out the windows and moves around a bit:
The first thing in the museum is a room with a bunch of interactive illusions, most of which are reasonably common, but some of them were really cool.
Halp, I'm trapped in a rook.
One of the dragons' heads waiting for its time.
I wandered round the rest of the museum, but didn't pay attention to most of it, as there was only French signs for almost everything. On the top floor they have a thing they call the "hallucinoscope," which was really cool. Basically you wear a mirror just under your eyes to make you look at the ceiling, and follow a handrail around a path of trippy shit on the roof. After that I watched the magic show, which was really entertaining, never having seen a magic show before that I could remember.
The next day I caught the bus to the Chambord Chateau, maybe 40 minutes from Blois. This one was built as a hunting lodge (the grounds are a huge park/forest) by one of the kings, though it wasn't finished when he died, and he'd only spent a handful of days there in several years. After that it served as the hunting lodge and residence of other kings, and now (like most of the chateaux in the area) it's a tourist spot.
Front of the chateau
And the back.
Huge ceramic space heater, 1 of 3 that was in the chateau, this one's been reassembled from the thousands of pieces it was in.
Liquor cabinet.
The governor's room.
Another throne, with a random little chair.
Royal stuff.
I'd love to've seen these things when they weren't all faded and ancient...
The king's bedroom.
The royal casino.
The room below, pre-restoration. So much work.
Post-restoration.
Double-helix staircase.
There was a bunch of these in this room. Not sure what the cross is about...
Early amphibious car.
View from the back of the chateau over some of the grounds.
Tower above the central staircase.
Looking up towards the top of the central staircase (you couldn't climb much higher)
One more night in the campground (it was then the weekend, and the place was packed with people cycling around, or driving in their campervans), then I took the train to Nantes. Pretty keen to buy a bike at this point, but it'd be hard to see much with the restrictions of the Schengen visa, unless I did it closer to western Europe.
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