Paris: Whoa, The Entire Blog Could Be About Paris

I...could spend a month, everyday, writing about our two visits to Paris.  What you need to know is that Paris is absolutely everything that it's hyped up to be.  I mean, every single over-the-top thing you know from movies or books or whatever, it's all true.

Except berets.  No one wears berets.  Come on.

And the other thing you should know is that before I went to Paris I was 145% sure that no city could ever be better than London.  But...guys...Paris is better than London.  I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry, but it is.  So much guilt admitting this opinion.

The first time we went to Paris was September 2013.  Frankly, it was a lame time of my life.  I have a pretty great life, now, but September 2013 in particular was, like, real, real bad for me.  And even going into the trip with all that "ughhhh why is the world exploding around me????" baggage, it still was breathtakingly beautiful.

The second time we went to Paris was June 2014, when I took my parents and sister around as their tour guide.  The thing I most remember about that time was that we lived in a beautiful apartment across from the Luxembourg Gardens.

I honestly don't know how to write about Paris here.  It  doesn't make sense to try and list everything we saw or did.  Maybe I'll just pick five memories and blitz you with a bunch of pictures.  Sounds good.

* Walking through the Marais and stumbling on the Jewish Quarter with all its bagels and delis and synagogues was a delightful surprise - I'm always interested in cultural enclaves and this one was the first vibrantly Jewish community I'd ever been to.

* The Saint-Chappelle windows were even more beautiful than I could have imagined, and I've imagined them for a very long time.  Ever since seeing them in my Humanities 101 class over 10 years ago.  Live living in a jewelbox.

* Taking a fat-tire bike tour at night was a super fun activity - not only did we get some exercise, but got to see how the different neighborhods of the city interconnected.  Plus the river cruise at the end was magical - watching from the deck as the Eiffel Tower sparkled and the Notre Dame glowed.  I loved it.

* Finding a little crepe shop our friends recommended to us (they used to live in Paris) off in a "real Parisian neighborhood", getting a couple eclairs with Paul from a kind old lady's bakery, and sitting in a park to eat them while we watched families coming home from school and day care playing.  

* Being surprised at how emotional I got seeing the Waterlilies at the Orangerie.  Maybe it was because my expectations were low, but those canvases are maybe the most beautiful works of art I've ever, personally, experienced.

Belém: Where People Really Go When They Go to Lisbon

In our short experience with Lisbon, we realized pretty quickly that the "big sights" were actually a bit outside of the main city in the historical port of Belém.  This was the place where all the ships during the height of the age of discovery set off down the coast of Africa.  So, Belém is the place with all the big memorials to exploration, the old port tower, and of course, the amazing Jerónimos Monastery.

This monastery, I mean, wow.  First, it's blindingly white and absolutely huge, covered in the most intricate carvings and elaborate columns and arches.  Which, you know, is fitting since it was pretty much funded by the huge influx of money Portugal got from importing spices in the 15th century.

I remember being particularly in love with how every column was completely unique, but the entire place as a whole still came together without looking absolutely insane.  It was hands down the most amazing place we saw in Portugal.

Right in front of the monastery, where the sailors would have their last mass before heading off into terra incognita, you can walk across a giant plaza covered in Lisbon's famous black and white mosaics and toward the giant Monument to the Explorers and the Tower of Belém.

For such a hugely important place, it's actually not super easy to get to - we ended up taking a taxi, actually, but it's totally worth it!  

And, after you see it all, get a little sunburned, and learn waaaaay more about the age of exploration than you ever could have imagined, you can go to the little, famous bakery next to the monastery and get yourself some Pasteis de Belém - the pastry of Portugal, a little custard filled tart that is kind of mind-blowing.  Sit out under the trees (because shoot, it's hot there), and take it all in.  

Lisbon: Wonderfully Unexpected

We went to Lisbon is August, so...hot.  Yes.  And one of the more vivid memories of the trip was us waiting in a searing hot street with no shade for forty minutes for one of the old-timey trams that were supposed to come every ten.  It was one of those situations where we waited, decided to switch sides of the street, then the tram would come right when we left, and so then we'd wait again, and switch sides, and the tram would come on the other side!! etc.  It was hot.  It was frustrating.  We didn't like it.  Bleh.

BUT, on our second try enjoying Lisbon, we really warmed up to it...and the trams too.  Our better plan that day was to just take it easy and not feel like we had to check off fifteen things in an afternoon.  That kind of jazz just isn't the way things go over there on the Iberian peninsula. 

So we went to the aquarium, strolled around the castle, got the view at the top of one of the more picturesque hills, and wandered down into the old (oooold old old, tiny alleyways, clothes hanging out to dry between buildings, cobblestone, etc.) Alfama fisherman neighborhood around dinnertime. 

I remember turning a corner to see a little restaurant where you ate on tables in a tiny courtyard underneath the shade of a single ancient olive tree with lights crisscrossed above, it was just a little bit of magic - and the bacala deserves its own special mention. 

I don't know, it was just...so...nice to take a day to just wander around and come across things on our own.  We don't let ourselves do that often enough in our trips because most of the time we're so worried about regrets for missing a "big site", but I have to remember that, for me, the best memories have usually been the little discoveries - a particular black and white pattern on the sidewalks (Lisbon is famous for the black and white mosaic sidewalks), a tiled wall in a flowered courtyard, a neighborhood ice cream shop, peeking out of the open window of a trolley car as it goes up a narrow hill street, coming up from the metro by our hotel at the bull fighting ring stop and walking it's red and yellow walls (surprisingly smaller building than I'd expected) one last time. 

We had a really nice time in Lisbon, you know.  Really nice.

Sintra(!): Go to There

August 2013, we went for a long weekend to Portugal.

Now, Portugal wasn't ever on our list of top trips, so when we had a chance to get there for real cheap, I have to say that my expectations were pretty low and I had a kind of, "Meh, sure.  It will be interesting at least...don't know much about Portugal" attitude.

And, in my rankings of European capitals, Lisbon is a solid C+, I'd say.  Interestin' places to see though, get to all that later, but overall it was kind of just a big, hot city as far as we got to in our first two days.   

But, then, on a recommendation from a friend who had just visited, we decided one day to take a train further toward the west coast to Sintra and Sintra was AWESOME.

First off, the second we got off the train, I was sold because suddenly everything was lush and green and ten degrees cooler (way different from the more scrubby, Mediterranean look closer to Lisbon).  We walked down a little street toward the city center lined with tiny cafes and got some lemonade - something which has just not existed in Northern Europe, at least not enough to find easily.  And after our little break found ourselves in this beautiful little town full of palaces and Moorish fountains and gardens and hilltop castles and it was just lovely.

 Our first stop was to the royal family's Summer Palace, full of all kinds of beautiful ceilings, weird animal head soup tureens, tiled walls, and paintings of saints in negligees (yes, that actually is the plural form there).  One of my favorites were the corn-motif tiles, made right when the age of exploration was really kicking off.

  Then, we found the (very, very necessary) bus that drove to the top of the hill nearby to the insaaaaane Pena Palace.  It's kind of like the Neuschwanstein of Portugal - a castle built with all kinds of crazy styles all mashed together to look "fairytale"ish.  The end result here, though, was just a little...uh...wild.

And finally, we ended our day a little lower on the hill to see the old Moorish fortress and look out over the city before hiking back down and in search of dinner.

Dinner, by the way, was unbelievable.  Some kind of shellfish stew that exploded my understanding of the universe.

And you know what was super awesome about Sintra, even after we left?  Two things.  1) The Amazing Race went to Sintra right around the same time we did (woo!  one step closer to fame!) and 2) The NYT highlighted it as a new hotspot for those who are hip and cool a whole year after we went ourselves.  So #trendsetting.

Takeaway message is Sintra, go to there.

Elsinore (Helsingør) - Something Not At All Rotten

For Paul's birthday in 2013, I surprised him with a trip to Helsingør, about a half hour train ride north of Copenhagen as part of our UNESCO World Heritage Site exploration goals.  Other than the basic motivation to "collect them all", we mostly wanted to see the castle since it is where Hamlet was meant to be set (Helsingør = Elsinore).  Which, you know, makes it already pretty cool.

BUT it was waaaay more interesting than even that and I'm so glad we took the time to get out there and learn a bit more Danish history.  Helsingør is massively important in Danish (even world) history and, as a strategic fortress located right at the narrowing of the only navigable way into the Baltic, essentially made the country extremely rich through shipping tariffs.

Don't want to bore anyone to death about what we learned in Helsingør, but just wanted to make a note that, hey, it was a great museum with great hot chocolate and gave us a beautiful view over to Sweden.  Two thumbs up to this most excellent fortress-castle, even on drizzly days.