July 16th: From Villa Savoye to Eiffel Tower!

On the morning of the 16th, we caught a train out to Villa Savoye, designed by Corbusier. I slept on the whole train ride, which was pretty great. When we got there, it was in a really weird setting. Everything that we had done up to that point had been in a very developed urban area. Villa Savoye was different. It was in a more residential area, and it was set back away from the road in a little open space of its own surrounded by trees. It was one of those things that while you were looking at it, you kind of forgot what it was because it’s not possible to really be at Villa Savoye. It was unreal. We got to walk through the entire house, including the roof gardens, and of course the famous bathroom with the unique tub design. One thing I learned that I hadn’t realized before is that you can get anywhere in the house except for the basement by using a ramp. It was designed to not have to use the stairs. The bathroom was everything it’s ever been made out to be. It was so beautiful. After touring through the house, we sat outside for a while and sketched the house. It was a really hard thing to do, because I know that any sketch I could do would not do the building justice. Also, it was really difficult to get the proportions right on the bottom part of the building and on the columns. I feel like I did a pretty decent job though, compared to a lot of my other sketches.
After Villa Savoye we took the train back into Paris and went to a restaurant called Kong for lunch. The restaurant is significant because it was designed by Phillipe Stark. He also designed the Ghost chair, and that’s what we got to sit on at the restaurant. The restaurant was in the upper level of a high rise building, and the walls were lined with the windows so you could look down around you. The whole place was really cool. There was a lamp made out of a tutu, which was pretty interesting. And the food wasn’t half bad either. I had a club sandwich, which I thought would be pretty American, but that wasn’t really the case. The only similarities were meat, lettuce, and tomato. The bread was a different style, there was a weird sauce on it, and there was a fried egg on top of the sandwich. It was different, but it was probably some of the best food I’ve had in Europe. I want to start ordering my club sandwiches with a fried egg when I get back home.
From Kong, the group split in half, and half of us went to Notre Dame and the other half to the Musee d’Orsay. I was in the Notre Dame group because I hadn’t seen it yet. It really does deserve all of the fame that it has. It was an amazing church. It’s incredible to see the differences between Italian and French churches. The Italian churches were covered in mosaics and were usually longer. In France, the mosaics are replaced by stained glass, and the churches get so tall on the inside. The ceilings just seem to be expanding farther and farther up. It’s also really interesting to see the different arch styles because we spent so much time studying them in history. Seeing it in person brings on a whole new understanding. We tried to climb up to the top level of the church, but that part of it had closed about 15 minutes before we tried to do it so we had to skip it. When we were walking out the front of the church, there was a group of people surrounding a circular tile set into the cement, and Susie explained to us that the circle was the true center of Paris and that everything went out from that point. So of course we had to get pictures and especially a foot picture because it was a cool thing on the ground. We had no choice, right?
After Notre Dame, we went to the Musee d’O rsay. It was probably my favorite classical museum. It had a lot of the big movement and influential artists, such as Renoir, Van Gogh, Manet, and Monet. They had an entire room dedicated to Van Gogh, which was really cool. Unfortunately though, his most famous work, Starry Night, is not kept at this museum. But they did have his self portrait, which is probably the next best thing. They had Manet’s famous painting, Le dejeuner sur l’herbe, where the 3 people are eating, and the woman in front is naked and looking towards the viewer. They also had a great art nouveau collection, containing one of the original Paris metro signs by Hector Guimard. I liked this museum a lot because I felt like it had enough interesting things, but it wasn’t overwhelming. It only took us about 2 hours to get it done, which is much better than 5!
We also really wanted to climb the Eiffel tower that night, since we hadn’t been able to the previous nights. So at 8:15 we left the museum and rushed towards the Eiffel tower. We got a little delayed in the metro system because we got on at the wrong stop, but after a couple line transfers we figured it out. When we got to the tower, we realized that our rushing hadn’t been necessary because the top was actually open until 10:30, not 9. So we had plenty of time. We got in line to buy our tickets, and when we finally got through the line we took the elevator to the 2nd floor. The 2nd floor contains an overlook area, the official gift shop, and it’s also where you wait in line to go to the very top. It was so breathtaking to look out over the city at night. Paris is massive. It was also a bonus because there was a storm happening out around the edges of Paris, and we got to watch the lightening from the second floor. After taking pictures for about 5 minutes we got in line for the elevator to the top. We had been standing in line for about 5 minutes when it started to rain a little bit. Most of the 2nd floor is covered so it wasn’t really that big of a deal. . .until it started to downpour. The wind picked up a lot, and was blowing the rain straight in at us. Everyone in the line got down on their hands and knees to try to get protection, and it wasn’t really working very well. As many people as could fit crowded into the gift shop, and others crowded into doorways and under awnings. It was absolutely crazy. People were soaking wet within a few minutes. Although it was pretty fun, it was a little scary. It was a large group of people in a mild panic trapped on the middle of a tower. And there were some people being a little unreasonable. Everything turned out ok though, and the rain started to slow down, so we got back in line. Unfortunately, because of the storm they had closed off the top, because with winds that hard the top of the tower actually sways and it can be dangerous to be up there. So we got back in the elevator to go down, and it was broken. The storm had knocked it off level a little bit, so the doors wouldn’t close and the car couldn’t operate. We were stuck with about 20 people crowded into an elevator for a good 15 to 20 minutes. They couldn’t even let us out to go down the stairs because they had closed the stairs to protect people from slipping on them. It kind of sucked. And people were starting to get really pissed off, and the poor elevator attendant couldn’t do anything about the situation, but she still had to deal with the people. When the elevator was finally operational, we got down to the ground level and started walking home. It was not quite the Eiffel tower experience we were expecting; instead it was a whole new kind of tourist experience.