The Academy-Award winning actress, Audrey Hepburn once said, “Paris is always a good idea.” I couldn’t agree more. As soon as I arrived to Paris I immediately thought, I’m in love. I could spend the rest of my life here. I can’t describe why I felt this way, after all I had only seen the airport, but as cliché as it may sound, love is truly in the air in Paris.
There is so much to love about Paris. But what stood out for me, was the abundance of old and famous artwork. I remember walking through the city and feeling like royalty as I passed beautifully architect buildings with gates dipped in 24 carat gold. Each monument was also made of gold and glistened in the winter sun. My first stop in Paris was the Louvre Museum which is the world’s largest, most-visited art museum and a historic monument in Paris, France. The museum is harbored in the Louvre Palace which was initially constructed as a fortress in the late 12th century under Phillip II. It was later abandoned when Louis XIV gained power due to his hatred for the palace (frequent attacks) leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection. Remnants of the fortress such as moats and canons, are recognizable from outside the palace (opposite the main entrance of the museum). As I walked through this entrance to the palace I could smell the smoke from the cannons and picture knights on horses galloping above the moat that was once filled with water.
The Louvre is home of the most famous work of art in the world, The Mona Lisa, a half-length portrait painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci. It is also home of about 38,000 works of art dating from prehistory to the 21st century. It is almost impossible to see them all, the museum has an area of 782, 910 square feet and it requires about three metro stops to cover the size of the museum. After exploring The Louvre for about three hours my brain grew numb and I could no longer appreciate the art work. Nonetheless, my favorite exhibits were the collection of ancient Greek and Roman sculpture, the Islamic art and The Mona Lisa. As an Anthropology minor, I was attracted to these parts of the museum because they were filled with culture that belonged to a very distant past that is no longer in existence. In the United States, there is a limited collection of ancient art work on display that can be studied. However, the Louvre offers a lot of insight regarding the thoughts, artifacts, and way of life of various prehistoric groups of people. I value this information because it allows me to make sense of the world I live in today and how it came to be.
My second stop was The Eiffel Tower, a wrought iron lattice tower on the Champ de Mars in Paris, France. The tower was built (from 1887-89) and designed by Gustave Eiffel as the entrance to the 1889 World’s Fair. The tower is about 1,063 feet tall (the same height as an 81-story building) making it the tallest structure in Paris. During its construction, the Eiffel Tower surpassed the Washington Monument to become the tallest man-made structure in the world, until the Chrysler Building in New York City was finished in 1930. Like any new piece of architecture in Paris, the people hated and criticized it for its design, especially some of France’s leading artists and intellectuals. Over the centuries however, it has become a universal cultural icon of France and one of the most identifiable structures in the world.
My friend and I visited the Eiffel Tower twice. The first time we visited it was during the day. We took a bicycle ride from The Louvre to the Eiffel Tower, walked around it (I took a few selfies) and had lunch at a place right around the corner from it. I felt like the tourists in Time Square, stopping every five minutes to stare and admire the famous landmarks. I’ve dreamt of seeing the Eiffel Tower up close in person. I felt like I was in a scene from the movie “Paris, Je T’aime”. When I conversed with some French students studying in Paris they described similar feelings about New York City. We concluded that the emotions we were referring to are perceptual. Both cities are frequently depicted as well as, romanticized in movies therefore, depending on which city (or country) you grew up in, you may experience TV nostalgia about the other. The second time my friend and I visited the Eiffel Tower was at night. We decided that would be the perfect time to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower. I didn’t realize how much I was afraid of heights until I took the second elevator to the very top of the tower and was terrified to look down. When I stepped outside to get a view of the city I was blown away, literally. I remember my cheeks hurting from smiling so hard and the wind smacking me in my face. The lights that lit up the city left me speechless and my heart full. It was at that moment, when I was staring down at the city in aw that I realized that this is what life is about, turning dreams into reality.