Paris Packed with People: Spring Break with the Johnsons-Part Three

Bryan Johnson
Apr 15, 2024
13 min read

April 2: Palace of Versailles & Wine Tasting Class

After an 18-hour, non-stop day yesterday, we have another jam-packed day ahead of us! Katie sure knows how to plan a trip and keep us occupied!

Vincent Salur Boulangerie

Of course, we had to start our day off right with coffee and pastries. We tried another boulangerie just up the street from our hotel, Vincent Salur Boulangerie. After some espresso shots, and arguably the best pastry I've had in my life, the crookie (a cookie baked into a croissant,) we made our way to the train station for our 40-minute journey to Versailles.

At the end of the journey, where Versailles was the last stop on the train line, a large crowd of people flooded towards the turnstiles to exit the station. As we got to the turnstiles, we tapped our Navigo cards to the card reader and -shocker- it didn't work.

Remember when we had issues with the paper tickets on day one of our trip? Yeah well, we tried to avoid those issues by buying refillable train cards and here we are stuck. Again. French public transit is the worst we've experienced in Europe.

A station worker came over and told us these cards wouldn't work on this train and that we should've bought individual tickets for this journey. Fortunately, she just tapped her fancy card and let us through so we could avoid being crushed by the 100+ people behind us also trying to get through the exit. So I guess we got away with a free ride to Versailles, but still, this system sucks.

Between this experience and the tickets being demagnetized yesterday, Katie and I have determined that Paris public transit is well behind the curve regarding their ticketing system; they have a lot of work to do if they plan on hosting a few hundred thousand more people this summer for the Olympics.

Palace of Versailles: Château de Versailles

At 10:00 am we met our tour guide and began our short walk to the palace. As we waited in line for security checks and to be herded through a small entry for group tours, our guide taught us a little about the history of Versailles.

In 1632 Louis XIII built a small hunting lodge at Versailles. After his death, Louis XIV expanded the chateau to resemble today's palace. In 1682, Louis XIV moved his court from Paris to Versailles and demanded that all minor royals and nobles move to Versailles with him. (You know the saying, keep your friends close, but your enemies closer? Louis XIV took that to heart and made them all move in with him!) Nearly 4,000 people lived in this lavish 2,300-room palace including the royal court and servants.

Gardens & Halls of Versailles

Now we have visited some hectic tourist sights throughout our world travels, and none have been as disorganized as entering Versailles. We watched our guide argue (in French) with other tour guides, as they all tried to herd their tour group to the front of the line. We felt like sardines packed in tight and fighting our way upstream to enter the palace gate!

Eventually, our pushing forward worked out and we finally entered the palace. We were welcomed by splendor with gold crown molding, beautiful art everywhere, and polished marble and wood floors. We made our way through ballrooms, numerous apartments, and sitting rooms, marveling at the extravagant ceiling paintings, tapestries, wallpaper, and art everywhere.

Arguably, my favorite part of the tour was when our guide yelled at a group of elderly Chinese tourists sprinting and elbowing other visitors to try and get through the galleries quickly. He stopped them in a doorway yelling at them in French, English, and broken Chinese telling them they were being rude and would have to wait for our tour to go through before he would let them pass. It was hilarious, especially since Katie and I had been bumped out of the way by some sharp elbows.

Hall Of Mirrors

After navigating our way to the westernmost side of the palace, we were greeted by this landmark's most picturesque room: the Hall of Mirrors. The Hall of Mirrors is 240 ft in length, decked out with 357 mirrors, 43 chandeliers, and a barrel-vaulted ceiling with stunning paintings, and it made us feel like we were in a Bridgerton episode.

Just off this room is where Silas Deane and Benjamin Franklin held an audience with King Louis XVI asking for French aid during the American Revolution. Very cool to be standing in the same building where a crucial event in early American history took place, over 4,000 miles away from home.

As we exited the Hall of Mirrors we continued to work our way through numerous apartments, including the apartment for the Queen of France, and galleries with portraits of Marquis de Lafayette and Jean-Baptiste de Rochambeau. You may recognize those names from Broadway's Hamilton since both Frenchmen were heavily involved in the American Revolution! For my fellow Hamilton-obsessed friends, here's some familiar lyrics about these guys:

Yo, turns out we have a secret weapon

An immigrant, you know and love, who's unafraid to step in

He's constantly confusin', confoundin' the British henchmen

Ev'ryone give it up for America's favorite fighting Frenchman'

Lafayette!

I'm takin' this horse by the reins makin'

Redcoats redder with bloodstains

Lafayette!

And I'm never gonna stop until I make 'em

Drop and burn 'em up and scatter their remains, I'm

Lafayette!

Watch me engagin' em! Escapin' em!

Enragin' em! I'm-

Lafayette!

I go to France for more funds

Lafayette!

I come back with more guns

And ships

And so the balance shifts

We rendezvous with Rochambeau, consolidate their gifts

We can end this war at Yorktown, cut them off at sea, but

For this to succeed, there is someone else we need

I know

Hamilton!

We also got to see a duplicate of The Coronation of Napoleon painting. (We'll see the OG tomorrow in the Louve!)

Before arriving at the palace, Mom and Dad expressed interest in visiting the Gardens of Versailles. Unfortunately, a good portion of the gardens were under renovation for the Olympics since the equestrian events are taking place in the gardens. Instead of paying an additional fee to watch construction in the gardens, we walked through the ladies' apartments on the ground floor of the palace and grabbed a couple of pictures in the front courtyard before heading out.

Chez Lazare

For lunch, we were trying to find an authentic French restaurant (a little less touristy), so with a quick Google Maps search we found Chez Lazare. Each of us got the lunch special, which consisted of a delicious pork chop with fries, a side salad, and a dessert; for dessert, Mom and Dad got the apple tart while Katie and I got the lemon and raspberry sorbet. This place was awesome and felt authentic since everyone in there was French-speaking! I think we found a good spot!

After lunch, we made the short walk back to the train station to get back to town for our wine-tasting tour at 4 pm. As we got to the train station there were only four available kiosks to purchase tickets and approximately 200 people waiting in line. Given we had little time to spare and needed to make the next train scheduled in less than 15 minutes, we didn't have time to wait in these ridiculous queues.

We decided it was worth spending €20 extra to Uber into town. Again, I would like to harp on the fact that Paris is not prepared to host the Olympics this summer. They can't even control queues or figure out how to get their public transit ticketing system into this millennium, what's going to happen when you add hundreds of thousands of extra people?!?

The Uber ride worked out for our benefit since our driver took us straight to our wine tour AND we got to pass the French Statue of Liberty. Standing at a quarter of the size of its American counterpart, this Statue was a pretty fun spot along the Seine River!

Terres de Café Saint-Germain-des-Prés

After the 40-minute car ride back into town, we decided it was time for an afternoon pick-me-up before our two-hour wine tasting. We walked up the block from the wine store and ran across Terres de Cafe where Katie and I enjoyed our standard double espresso, Mom got a hot chocolate, and Dad got his regular, cappuccino.

I have to say that I'm very proud of Mom for learning and attempting to speak French everywhere we went; she was our translator. However, the cashier at this cafe was a bit douchey when Mom tried ordering our coffees in French, giving her a hard time when she mispronounced or worded something incorrectly.

Fortunately, Mom didn't let this get her down and she kept speaking French throughout the trip! For those looking to travel to Paris in the future, be warned that they can be assholes if you don't speak their precious (dying) language correctly.

La Dernière Goutte

Now, for the last scheduled event for the day: wine tasting at La Derniere Goutte. We were joined for our tasting by a lovely British couple and a neurologist from Chatanooga, TN. For the first hour or so, our "instructor" taught us about the different regions of France and how the climate in the regions affects the taste of the wine, as does the variety of the grape, and the type of soil at the vineyard.

We should have known we were out of our element when this man pulled out maps and a pointer. This was a legit class! After nearly an hour of not understanding what was going on, it was time to taste some wines!

For our first wine, the instructor asked Katie what she could smell from the wine. Of course, Katie and I only know wine in the sense that we can buy it for €3 or less at Mercadona and if we find a bottle we like, we just memorize what the label looks like and we buy it over and over again.

Basically, Katie, Mom, Dad, nor I know much about wine and this class solidified the fact that we know nothing. The guide even asked us to swish the wines, spit them out, and then run our tongues around our mouths to get a good flavor profile. When he was done tasting the wine, he would just dump the rest out.

Katie and I felt bad about wasting wine, so when the British couple said, "We're British, we don't waste alcohol," we decided to bottom-up on our glasses too. After an hour of tasting wines, which Mom liked none of them, we were tipsy and felt even more stupid about wine than when we had walked in.

Hey, we may not be wine connoisseurs, but we know we like affordable, flavorful wines. Plus, we made some friends along the way! Now get us out of the €300 bottle-of-wine shop.

Combo Restaurant - traiteur

Following our wine tasting, we bumbled down the street looking for a place to grab dinner. The first few restaurants we tried had 1+ hour waits, but eventually, we landed on Combo Restaurant where we were seated immediately.

Mom and Katie each got a bowl of Onion Soup, Dad got the duck, and I had glazed pork ribs. We all shared a bottle of wine and frog legs (which legitimately did taste like chicken); Mom and Dad shared a creme brulee for dessert while Katie and I split a chocolate cake with a vanilla custard sauce. Definitely a great French meal!

Mikkeller

If you've read any of our blogs before, you know that Katie and I are obsessed with Mikkeller, a Danish brewing company we were first introduced to by our friends Megan and Grant in San Diego.

While in Asia, we visited all of the Mikkeller locations in the entire continent, so when we learned about the brewery in Paris, we had to visit. After enjoying a few drinks and a couple more rounds of hearts with the 'rents, we called it a night after another great day in Paris! Mikkeller is always a wonderful way to end a fun-filled day!

April 3: Louve & Tower Climb

Café de la Comédie

Today is another jam-packed day, highlighted by our guided tour of the world's most famous museum, the Louvre. First, we started with coffee and pastries at Cafe de la Comedie, just a short walk from the museum.

Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel

At 9:00 am we met our tour group and were ready to enter the museum!

Musée du Louvre

We made our way through the "lesser known" entrance, but thanks to TikTok and other social media influencers, this entrance was extremely packed. Lucky for us, the Louve was more organized for groups and we jumped to the front of the line to begin our tour!

As we made our way through security, we were welcomed by a lot of natural light coming through the glass pyramid above. I gotta say, the Loue does have a stunning lobby area!

Our first stop of the tour was the Mesopotamia section within the northern wing of the museum. The two coolest pieces in this section were the Ain Ghazal Statue, a 9,000-year-old plaster statue discovered in Jordan, and the Statue of Ebih-Il, a 4,500-year-old alabaster statue well-known for its craftsmanship and preservation.

While our eyes may have glazed over at parts, Mom and Dad were quick to find some fun by posing with the headless statue!

The next part of our tour was Greek antiquities. I'm not well-versed in Greek history, philosophy, or sculpting, so I'll let you marvel at the works rather than babble and pretend to know what I'm talking about.

Our next, and very crowded, stop along the tour was Venus of Milo. This ancient Greek marble sculpture was created sometime between 160-110 BC and was discovered in 1820 on the Greek island of Milos.

As we left the statue to head up one floor towards the Italian paintings, we took the "Stairway to Victory." This marble staircase is topped by another ancient Greek marble statue of the goddess Nike, known as the Winged Victory of Samothrace. This winged statue was placed at the top of the stairs because it was originally on top of a Greek place of worship. Similar to how we had to walk up the stairs to reach its beauty, the Ancient Greeks had to look up in awe as they entered the worship area to see this magnificent sculpture.

As we made our way into the Italian Paintings Gallery, we were all antsy to see the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa. However, before entering, we were treated to three additional Leonardo da Vinci pieces: La Belle Ferronniere, the Virgin of the Rocks, and The Virgin and Child with Saint Anne. Usually, the Louvre is home to Saint John the Baptist, but it was loaned out to Louvre Abu Dhabi for two years starting in November 2022 to celebrate its fifth anniversary.

Housing five paintings and 22 drawings, the Louvre boasts of having the largest collection of da Vinci works in the world.

Now to view the most famous painting in the world, the Mona Lisa. This 30 x 21 inch oil on white poplar panel was painted by da Vinci in the early 1500s and was purchased by King Francis I of France in 1519.

From its arrival at the Louvre in the late 1700s when the French Revolution claimed the royal collection as property of the people, to a short stent in Napoleon's bedroom, to its theft by an Italian glass installer in 1911, to overseas visits to America & Japan in 1963 & 1974 respectively, Mona Lisa's smile has made its way around the world.

The four of us had to fight many people to get close enough to view the piece. Imagine a mosh pit filled with tourists and selfie sticks and you get a small picture of the Mona Lisa frenzy.

Fortunately, we didn't have any environmental protestors throw soup at her like what happened back on January 28, 2024. Lucky for us (and the rest of the world) Mona is protected by bullet-proof glass and numerous security guards. After enjoying the rest of this small gallery, we rejoined our tour group in the French painting gallery.

The two most famous works in this gallery are The Coronation of Napoleon (1807) by Jacques-Louis David and The Raft of the Medusa (1819) by Theodore Gericault. These two large, oil-on-canvas works were most impressive due to their size and detail.

Katie was incredibly disappointed that Liberty Leading the People (1830) by Eugene Delacroix was not on display because of refurbishment; this painting is thought to have influenced Victor Hugo's Les Miserables (1862) and is commonly displayed on the curtain during performances of Les Mis around the world.

As our tour began to wind down, we made our way back to the ground floor where we ran across Michaelangelo's The Rebellious Slave (1513) and The Dying Slave (1515). Katie and I have seen four other Michaelangelo pieces: Madonna of Bruges (1503) in Brugges, Belgium, Pieta (1499) and the Sistine Chapel (1508-1512) in St. Peter's Basilica, Vatican, and Moses (1515) in Rome, Italy. Just call us art enthusiasts; Cindy would be impressed!

There were other amazing sculptures in the Michaelangelo gallery, but once you've seen a real Michaelangelo, the rest of the Neoclassical Italian sculptures just don't compare.

As we made our way to the exit, we were beyond thankful for our tour guide. This was a huge museum and we know we barely scratched the surface, but at least he was able to get us around and share the highlights with us in our three hours together.

Ravi

For lunch, Katie and I forced Mom and Dad to succumb to our love for Indian food. We found a place not too far from the Louvre named Ravi. We each got a lunch set, which included an appetizer, rice, curry, naan, sorbet for dessert, and an espresso shot. We left very full, energized, and ready to take on the rest of the day.

Librairie Gallimard - Paris

Along the way to our next stop, we made a detour to a bookstore for Katie and I to purchase our French copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. We were lucky to find our French copy with a unique cover we don't have in our collection! Big win!

Montparnasse Tower: Tour Montparnasse

Our next stop was the Montparnasse Tower, which is the tallest skyscraper in Paris proper and offers 360-degree views of the city. This was the second viewpoint of our trip, and although not as cool as the Arc de Triomphe, this did offer us a different vantage point to view the city!

We also watched as a storm passed through the downtown area. While Mom, Dad, and I were worried we needed to find shelter, Katie filmed this time-lapse of the storm passing through! It's pretty cool!

Following our views of the city from up above, the crew split up briefly for Katie and I to head to a nearby Starbucks where we bought a limited edition Paris Olympics coffee mug. While we were mug shopping, Mom was shopping at C&A, a French department store. She walked away with a nice NC State red knee-length raincoat to celebrate the Wolfpack making the Final Four!

Campanile Marne La Vallee - Bussy St Georges

After spending the last 2.5 days hustling around the city, it was time to head a few miles east for Disneyland Paris. Katie booked us a hotel in the nearby town of Bussy St. Georges, just a short 40-minute train ride outside of the city.

Deal’M

After checking into the hotel, everyone was pretty hungry for dinner, so we headed to Deal'M where we enjoyed smash burgers, cheese fries, and milkshakes!

While we're galavanting around the French capital with Mom and Dad, our babies are back home being pampered by our amazing dog sitter Jessi! Traveling is so much easier knowing that the pups are well cared for while we're away. Just check out the cute updates she sent us throughout the week: