Can you really experience Paris in 9 hours? My answer is 100% yes. We arrived at the Brussels
North station extra early so we could find the international ticketing station to purchase tickets to come back to Rotterdam later that evening. After having to ask about three different information desks, someone finally pointed us in the direction of the international ticketing desk. We had a very short wait in line and got our tickets for the 7:30 pm Thalys back into Rotterdam. Jack, Zack and I boarded our Thalys train at 8:20 am from Brussels North Station to Paris North Station. After napping for most of the hour and a half train ride, I was ready to start exploring Paris. The first thing we did was find a station to purchase a 24 hour Paris metro pass since we wanted to make the most of our time in the city.
Paris’s transportation system is a little less chaotic than Brussels, but it still really makes you appreciate the Dutch transportation system and how easy it is to tell what direction you are travelling. We boarded the metro to take us closer to the Sacre Coeur, a cathedral at the highest point in Paris. I was not mentally or physically prepared for the amount of stairs that were required to get up to the Sacre Coeur, but the view was very worth it in the end. At the top of the hill, there is a sprawling view of the city. There was an aerial show happening over the city, meaning that the steps of the Sacre Coeur was very packed. The line was almost an hour to get into the cathedral, so we decided that it would be better to get lunch and head to the Louvre instead.
After a lunch at a French cafe, we successfully navigated across Paris to the Louvre despite having the metro stop we needed to get off at be closed. The line at the Louvre was insanely long, which according to Jack, was not the normal. Many of the roads leading up to the Louvre were closed off by armed guards, which we assumed was because of recent riots that had happened in Paris. As we got in line, we noticed that there were signs telling us that admission to the Louvre was free. After some quick Googling, we realized that it was Bastille Day, which is a huge French national holiday. I am not sure how we managed to plan our day trip on one of the most important days of the year for France, but it is certainly something that I will never forget. Even though the line seemed long, we only had to wait about 20 minutes to go through security and enter the museum.
I am not sure how any of the people who work in the Louvre have any sense of where they are in the sprawling museums. Within five minutes, I had absolutely no idea where we were relative to the entrance of the museum. The amount of art that is housed in the building is honestly overwhelming and it is definitely something that would take you multiple visits to see every single piece of art. The only thing that was really glaringly obvious is the clear lack of effort to include works of art from female painters and sculptors. I did get to see the Mona Lisa, although I was almost trampled by the insane amount of people trying to get a selfie with it. I really don’t understand why you would feel the need to push someone out of the way to get a selfie with the painting, but that’s just me. After about three hours of walking around, we decided it was time to take a break and grab some coffee before heading out.
The next and final stop on our Paris tour was the Eiffel Tower. I think we knew that it would probably be difficult to get into the park because it was Bastille Day, but it was way more insane than any of us thought it would be. We had to go through two bag searches and walk past hundreds of riot police to get to one of the two entrances in the park. The park underneath the Eiffel Tower was filled with people enjoying a concert that included some Broadway and opera music. We only had about an hour before we needed to leave for the train station. I spent most of the time taking pictures of the tower and saying no to the countless people who were walking around trying to sell things. After we were done taking photos and fed up with being harassed by peddlers, we gave ourselves some extra time to get back to the train station since security was so tight and the roads around the Eiffel Tower were closed off.
We arrived at the train station with 40 minutes to spare so we could grab dinner in the station before we left. Our seats were in the last car of the train and we got a full table to ourselves on the ride back. Jack and I spent most of the ride editing our photos from the trip while Zack took a long nap. To be fair, he had stayed awake that morning to watch our stuff so Jack and I could sleep, so it was time to return the favor. Around 10 pm we pulled into Rotterdam and topped off our OV Chipkarts before hopping on a train headed for Delft. We arrived back in Delft for an incredible sunset that filled the sky with purple and orange. Zack and I now have standing plans to take our cameras out into the city during sunset to get to experience the city at a different time of day sometime this week.
Reflecting on Paris, I was really glad that it was only a day trip. The main part of Paris really reminds me of downtown Seattle, and it’s not necessarily somewhere I would want to stay overnight. Paris has a huge homeless population that is predominantly people of color, which I think is something we really do see reflected in Seattle. I also noticed that most of the people pedaling things on the sides of streets in Paris were also people of color. I obviously have no insight into politics in France, but I would imagine that they are facing some of the same issues with systematic racial discrimination that we are still struggling with in the United States. I would also imagine that there has also been some gentrification that has followed alongside the rest of the European countries and the United States as well.