Weekend in Paris

This week I've come down to Paris to attend a workshop called 'Exploiting the Planck and Herschel data'. I've been looking forward to this for a while, as it's aimed specifically at young astronomers who want to learn how to extract, reduce and utilise data from the Planck mission and Herschel Space Observatory. As I fit both these criteria, it sounded perfect for me.

But this blog isn't about what I'm learning and doing this week at the workshop. It's about the weekend before the workshop, spent briefly in Paris, trying to do and see all the things that make Paris Parisian, but within the space of a few short hours.

We arrived at Charles de Gaulle (CDG) airport last Saturday afternoon following a quick flight that never seemed to go above the clouds. Quite eery really, staring out the window. (Actually, having just re-read this sentence, it's also eery how 'eery' doesn't really look like a real word. I had to check my thesaurus!!)



My hotel was very well placed right in front of the Gare du Nord train station, which is about 25 mins on the RER blue train from CDG. Which was just as well seeing as it was raining and my bag was super heavy. Unfortunately I had to pay Paris 'in front of the train station' prices, but considering it was only a 2* hotel it wasn't too bad.



That evening it was still raining but we managed to find a cute little restaurant to have dinner in which was nice and cheap. There was absolutely no one in there except for the waiter/owner, but his English was pretty good and he didn't talk our ear off. However he provided us with plenty of baguette and cheese, and together with the wine I was pretty happy by the time I went to bed.

The next morning I got up super early because we wanted to beat the queues at the Louvre. Anyone from the EU who is under 26 years old doesn't need a ticket to enter the exhibitions though, so getting up so early was a bit of a waste. Nevertheless, I got my glimpse of the famous Mona Lisa who, by the way, is not all that. Everyone had told me that it's a pretty small painting, so I was quite surprised when I saw it as it was a lot larger than I expected. I half suspect that it wasn't the real painting, as they wouldn't want to risk it being damaged by camera flashes and general light pollution. But I'm no art connoisseur, so I am probably entirely wrong.

Breakfast of Champions

Stone Dice!!!

This amused me....he looks like a clown

From inside the pyramid

Notre Dame - mid bells

River Seine

In the gardens

Pyramid from outside

I wandered around the Louvre for about 2-3 hours - caught glimpses of some statues and paintings, as well as the Egyption exhibition, which is totes my favourite. But by noon time I was desperate to go outside to the sunny sunny weather, so I set off for a long walk around the area.

Mostly I was working on my suntan, so I kept sitting down and just watching Paris go by. French woman wear way too high heels on a Sunday. I passed by the Notre Dame and heard the noon time bells go, which was pretty cool. The line to get in was ridiculous though, so I decided to skip that little adventure.

Eventually I wandered back towards the Louvre, with a stroll through the Tuilleries Gardens. It looked like all of Paris had shown up for a bit of sunbathing at that point. I wanted to stay there forever, but I had to make my way to Sevres for the workshop, so off I went, and managed to work on my tan when I got there :D