All posts filed under: france

Best Art Museum in Paris: Centre Pompidou

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The Centre Georges Pompidou contemporary art museum is a must-see while visiting Paris.  The stunning views from the museum alone are worth every cent of the €11 admission fee (we can thank Jaime’s old student ID for the discounted rate, usually €14).  This museum is a world-class contemporary art venue and holds revolving exhibitions of the highest caliber.  Who’s down to check out the Mona Hatoum show and soak up some sun on the decks of this postmodern steel superstructure in the center of Paris?  I am!  Let’s go! ^^^The Mona Hatoum exhibition on the top floor of the museum. ^^^Centre Pompidou has an amazing permanent collection as well, as evidenced by this mind-blowing piece by Jean-Michel Basquiat. ^^^The museum lobby.  The entire building has an interestingly inside-out quality. ^^^Thank you Centre Pompidou!  Long live love!!!

Paris: It’s All About the Crêpes and Macarons

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Paris is a well-known foodie destination… and there is definitely a lot more than just bread and cheese going on here.  Of course bread and cheese is a staple of the budget-travel diet to which the Parisian boulangeries (bread bakeries) cater very well, but we are going to take a second to talk about the desserts.  Some of the desserts aren’t even desserts but entire meals in themselves, like the savory crêpes that can be found in their full glory among bustling Montparnasse crêperies.  But we will get to that soon, right now it’s time to check my blood sugar.  Hmmm it’s a little low… obviously it’s macaron time. ^^^Pierre Hermé and Cafe Pouchkine serve delicious macarons that are easy to obsess over. ^^^We visited multiple Pierre Hermé locations multiple times during our week in Paris.  The consumption of one of these delicate treats could be compared to a religious experience. These are priceier than macarons sold at other pâtisseries, but the taste and quality of these are well worth the splurge! ^^^Still a little low?  Tarte aux …

The Catacombs of Paris

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A lot of people live in Paris, and have been living here for a long time (since 9800 B.C. to be precise).  A practical question arises with this: what happens to all the the dead people?  The Catacombes de Paris is a sprawling underground network of tunnels which stores the remains of over six million corpses.  It’s hard to belive that the beautiful and vibrant city of Paris lies on top of a massive underground grave which contains centuries of  deceased Parisians. Wow this is sounding pretty creepy… can’t the bones just be buried under the ground and then we can leave it at that?  Nope, this is Paris and everything is beautiful, so the bones are displayed in an overtly ornamental manner and tickets are sold to visitors wanting to explore this “curiosity” of Parisian culture, and this is one of the most-visited tourist attractions in the city. Woah hold on a second, isn’t The Alternative Atlas  based on avoiding tourist traps?  What about this is cool and alternative?  While waiting for entry to the catacombs we got …

Doors of Paris

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Step one for visiting Paris: find a place to stay.  We rented a chambre de bonne, which is a fancy french word for a former maid’s quarters.  Our tiny room was situated at the end of a six storey climb up a narrow staircase; on the top floor of an old iconic apartment building in the center of the Pigalle district.  So what is so cool about that?  The doors to this building are beautiful.  Not just beautiful, but stunningly ornate.  And so are all the other doors in this neighborhood, and all the surrounding neighborhoods, and pretty much everywhere in the city now that I’m paying attention! Are we really doing a post about how beauriful the doors are in Paris?  Of course we are!  Just look at these amazing entranceways!  They are everywhere you look; every color, every style you could imagine.    We should take a second to discuss the most famous doors in the city… ^^^Considered a masterpiece of French-Gothic architecture, the doors of the Notre-Dame de Paris Cathedral are also …

How-to Avoid Lines at the Louvre

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Formerly a royal palace, the Louvre is an iconic monument in the center of Paris labelled as the universal museum among museums and is the #1 most visited museum in the world. What does this mean for us?  It will have a ridiculous line, as any #1 universal iconic monument should… and it will be full of tourists.  Maybe you are a really good person and you just smile and wait patiently as hordes of people push by you to stand in front of the artworks and take selfies; or maybe you’re like me and think that there should be a law against selfie sticks and annoying museum tourists in general.  Ok that’s a stretch, but we shouldn’t let them ruin our experience here, since the Louvre is all about heritage and excellence.  But I clearly won’t do any justice writing about the cultural heritage and overall excellence that this institution represents, so I will simply write about what I’m good at, which is seeing awesome artwork and saving money and having diabetes!  Sorry – …