I am just back from a 48 hour trip to Paris. My first impressions were that it was very busy with people. Clearly popular with tourists. I saw lots of beautiful architecture starting with my visit to the Louvre. Great food (certainly compared to the food here in Inverness). Clearly a city with a lot of history and lots of culture. I found the Parisian people to be forward and direct with their expectations of social rules such as clearing up after myself when I have occupied a table, returning audio guide equipment to the right desk. Most Parisiens switched quickly to English when I attempted to speak basic French.

Paris is clearly a global cosmopolitan city. I heard all the major European languages when I was there. Chinese, Japanese too. 

While there I visited 3 museums: the Louvre, D’Orsay and the Pompidou. The Louvre seems to have the oldest art and artefacts from as far back as Ancient Greece (perhaps further). D’Orsay seems to focus on the 19th century with Van Gogh, Monet and Matisse. Stuff from when the art world started to become less religious. Finally the Pompidou had art from the last 100 years with Picasso and Salvador Dali. All 3 museums had large queues. Of course the Louvre had the largest queue and wait time (2 hours approximately with a booking).

My biggest take on Paris was that obviously it had an era, in the same way London once dominated Europe (and arguably the world). The huge volume of high quality art, the extravagant architecture around the Louvre and inside. The wide streets around the Seine in the 6th arrondissement where I stayed.  Just reading about sites such as the Catacombs while I was there gave me an impression of a city that crossed new frontiers, faced unique challenges and came up with unique solutions (such as the transporting of the bones to the Catacombs).

Just reading about the extravagance of Versaille (in my hotel room while deciding what to do) I can also visualise the power of the French crown once upon a time. What’s brilliant though is Paris is different from London. Its era was during a different time. It’s flavour was slightly different to that of London. Variety is the spice of life as they say.

My favourite part of the trip was probably the Pompidou centre. The building itself looked a little bit unusual from the outside, but obviously modern with metal and glass tube like walkways coming out of it. Pompidou was less busy (with people) than D’Orsay or the Louvre. The Surrealism section at the top floor reminded me of The Avengers (the ITV4 British TV show) with its dreamlike atmosphere. I loved that show a few years ago. Being introduced to such high quality modern art was a new experience for me and one I enjoyed.

Also at the top was a posh restaurant with views of the city through the glass walls and tasty food. The closing times of Pompidou were later so the vibe was a bit more chilled. 

On the other floors were more modern paintings of people and shapes and colours. This was in contract to D’Orsay where there were more paintings of landscapes such as by Van Gogh.

All in all a very worthwhile trip to Paris!