The next stop during my sister's visit to France was Paris. She had never been to the city and Paris is a must see location when traveling to France, by anyone'sstandards I'm sure. I think that it would be hard to deny that.
We jumped on the train in Chantilly and headed over to the "City of Lights," early in the morning though, long before the lights were turned on...
I had a planned a walking tour for us that day, just to see some of the main sites of the city. We basically just did the touristy thing and checked out all of the main highlights.
Covered Passages
I always try and make the walk itself interesting on any trip and this time I managed to find a neat little spot on route just slightly off of the beaten path.
It was called "Passage des Panoramas" and it ended up being a very neat little find in the 9th arrondissement.
Though there are many covered passages in Paris, the Passage des Panoramas is the oldest in the city. It date all the way back to 1799.
It was basically just a covered walkway lined with bars and restaurants and unique little boutique shops. But some of the shops were selling some very interesting goods so it ended up being very cool and definitly worth seeing.
It's not everyday that you see a winged coyote now is it?
Domaine National du Palais-Royal
From there we made our way through the Gardens of the Royal Palace of Paris. It was basically just a public park,
but I have a thing for trees lined up in straight lines so I thought it was neat. I think it's the Symmetry of it or something. I find it very satisfying.
From there we transitioned into the palace courtyard.
The courtyard was kind of cool as well in that it had several statues and art fixtures to view - like these large metal balls. I feel like reflective balls are a favorite of artist. I can think of a few scattered around the places that I've been.
Another art piece is the installation of these black and white colored columns. Apparently they were both expensive to install and continue to be very expensive to maintain today.
It's not surprising that the art feature was met with a lot of criticism by the public when it was first created.
Without having any sort of stake in the situation myself, I personally think that it pretty cool to see.
I liked the Royal Palace as a brief stop over along our walk that day. I wouldn't necessarily go way out of my way to see it but I was glad to make the small detour that day.
All and all I would say that it was a good start to my sisters first time in Paris.