Paris, je t'aime. Day 3 & 4

Day 3. Fri, 2-Oct-09

3rd day of our Paris journey was devoted to its cultural part, i.e. the pearl of the Museum World - the Louvre.

We got off at "Palais Royal - Musee du Louvre" and followed the signs leading us into one of the exit tunnels. Actually, metro in Paris deserves a whole separate story on its own comprising of dozens of chapters about metro lines and RER, about long tunnels and numerous numbered exists and, of course, several chapters to be devoted to people for whom metro became part of their lives - either as just a transport part or as a way of living (e.g. Anya told us that she had been seeing several times a band from Ternopil playing at Charles de Gaulle-Etoile).

Back to the art (smile). I don't know if system just worked well or we were lucky to buy the tickets and get into Louvre pretty fast. We decided to start from Denon where the main "attractions" were on the public display. I'm not the art expert so will share some thoughts, observations and some photographic representations of the paintings I liked (smile).

2 things out of several that I liked about Louvre:

1) I saw lots of student groups with a lecturer who studied art or history (or whatever they studied) sitting next to the original "thing" which I thought was quite cool. The same we had seen in Hermitage. Felt a bit jealous about that missed part of someone's education.

2) There were quite a few artists placed in different parts of the museum who were re-producing the famous paintings. It was quite overwhelming to observe those people in the midst of their creation stage. It was also great to see the different "stages" of the painting and artist's style.

Pieces of art I liked (and remember the names) - statue of Victory (Nika), quartet of Giuseppe Arcimboldo's "season" paintings, Delacriox's Liberty, Venus di Milo, Rembrandt's auto-portraits, Rafael's & da Vinci's works and quite a few others. Posting here some of them, so you might find something familiar (smile).

Definitely it was cool to see "Mona Lisa" and Venus di Milo as those are the most famous painting and statue in the world. It's hard for me to evaluate those from the expert point of view, but the feeling of being close to something great (even though the feeling is most probably has been created by fiction novels, stories from the textbooks, TV, etc.) is great and somewhat eternal (smile).

We liked Louvre a lot and could have spent more time there but didn't have much of the desire to do so. At certain moments all of the "greater things" become distant and all you want is to sit on the sun and enjoy your sandwich (smile). There was one more museum I'd definitely love to visit in Paris the next time - Musee D'Orsay with all the masterpieces of French impressionists of 19th century and my favourite Georges Seurat.

After such and intensive & extensive experience the best thing was to sit next to a fountain in Jardin des Tuileries just in opposite of Louvre & its pyramids and enjoy Sunday afternoon. Kids playing with ships, us having a snack, metal chairs (same as in Luxembourg garden) incredibly comfortable... and faces of the months (Yuliya with March, me with April - looked matching (smile)).

We were absorbed by the "Paris metro abyss" once again at Place de la Concorde and were delivered straight to Place de la Bastille. There was not much left at the moment from the world's famous prison except of the name, so we just enjoyed some minutes of rest and peoplewatching on the stairs of Opera Bastille and started following Rue di Rivoli towards Hotel de Ville and then Pompidou Centre of Modern Art.

It was already getting a bit dark, so we decided to explore that place of modern art during our next visit to the French capital. The building itself looked quite cool and the area around was full of cafes, lively streets with lots of souvenir shops, street artists, lots of small squares contained fountains, churches and other interests. We walked around a lot and enjoyed couple of happy-hour beers in a nice small pub. Great area for handing around evening time.

During those 3 day we experienced Paris in a certain way. To add to our experience one more perspective we decided to take an evening boat tour along Seine. We got out of the metro at "Alma Marceau" and walked towards Bateaux boat "station". 10 EUR per capita and in 15min we were enjoying an evening cruise in Paris. Except of the "Europe anxiety" and photography passion of a large group of Chinese tourist, the ride was really nice and relaxing. It was a great piece of the last evening in a very romantic and wonderful city.

We decided to add one more special piece to the great evening puzzle by getting back to Notre Dame, place which became quite special to both of us (hope the story is coming in the next post) during that trip and, for sure, for a long time after it. We took another walk in the area between Saint-Michel and Boulevard Saint-Germain enjoying the evening business of the narrow streets and two pints of 1665 French beer.

Day 4. Sat, 3-Oct-09

Half of the cloudy Day 4 was spent for 3 things.

1. We saw the original statue of Liberty which stood on Ile aux Cygnes. As we still hadn't been to NY, this piece of America in Paris looked quite cool (smile).

2. We met Anya Kucherenko, another AIESECer from Kyiv, and went together to the Montparnasse cemetery. We didn't know who was buried as we got attracted only by the name (smile). We were quite excited to discover the "last homes" of a great Ukrainian Symon Petlyura and great French Jean-Paul Sartr whose literature both Yuliya and I like. Before that day we actually hadn't known who Simone de Beauvoir had been but were surpised to discover notes addressed to her on the gravestone together with the messages to J.-P.Sartr later we read that she was quite an interesting lady who contributed a lot into the feminism movement.

Then we walked back to Jardin du Luxembourg to enjoy a part of our last hours in Paris, said "thank & bye" to Anya near Odeon and headed back to Cite to tell "good-bye" to Notre Dame and whole Ile Saint-Louise, the "second" Paris island which we didn't explore before the last day.

Great time, great memoirs and peaceful French landscaped were saving us from realizing the result of our decision to take a 14h bus ride back to Prague (smile).

What a 3.5 days those were!

Paris, je t'aime. Day 2

Day 2. Thu, 1-Oct-09

Dreams were sweet but very short. Anya needed to head out to the city before 9. We joined her to start our 2nd day sightseeing from La Defense, business area of Paris with lots of skyscrapers and a big modern Arche Grande. First half an hour we enjoyed the morning sun and just sat on the stairs below the arch. View on the distant Arc de Triomphe (two arches are places exactly on the direct line from each other), lots of golden sunrays, best tourist breakfast - yogurt & French pastry, lots of pigeons, observing the square with "business" passers-by and hi-tech scenery around... Really perfect morning in Paris (smile)!

As clouds decided to take over the sky, I was running around trying to take some shots. The lines near Arche Grande were just perfect, so it didn't take much trouble to have several (at least on my mind).

As we were a bit tight on budget, we decided not to climb the arch as we had several other Paris viewpoints in our plan already. We walked around the area exploring the architecture more. It was the 1st time for me in such a modern surroundings. Living in Prague and having travelled to the neighbouring countries didn't allow you to enjoy a lot something different that old Gothic, former Austro-Hungarian, Soviet time built architecture. No complaints, for sure (smile) but it was great to get into something modern and very different.

As we started already with one Arch, we needed to get to another one (smile). That time we were not cheap and climbed it. The view was really stunning as we had 12 different roads heading of from the point we were standing. The main one, of course, was Avenue des Champs Elysees, but others were really great to observe as well. Besides, we had a great view on Eifel tower and Sacre Coeur, two sights we were about to hit 100% this day.

We walked down Champs Elysees and turned to see Grande and Petit palaces (small looked nicer!). Then we crossed Pont Alexandre III (a great bridge I must tell) and headed towards Invalides Palace where Napoleon was buried. We didn't have much of the desire to get into the huge palace and spend time there, so we satisfied our interests by entering the inner yard and walking around the place.

Yuliya and I decided to climb the Eiffel tower in the evening, so we decided to see it as well during the day. It did look like a big piece of metal, but a really cool one (smile).

Having crossed Seine we went up the hill towards Trocadero metro station. The square on the top presented us a great view of the Eiffel's creation.

We went out at Blanche to hit the Montmartre, definitely one of the most famous places in Paris with its famous Moulin Rouge and Basilique du Sacre Coeur. We took a route to see the house where Vincent van Gogh had lived and cafe in which Amelie had worked in the famous film. Streets of Montmartre looked nice and cosy. We didn't meet much of the people unless we hit the square with lots of restaurants, souvenir shops and street artist selling their painting or trying to paint one of yours.

200m from the square we had a magnificent view of Paris and gorgeous Sacre Couer behind our back. We sat on the stairs like hundreds of other people and enjoyed the live music of a street band and the moments of writing postcards to our family and friends.

After having had a drink in one of the cafes on Montmartre we decided to give it a try and try to get on the Eiffel tower this evening. We got very lucky as the queue was not that long and in 30min we were already in the cabin going up the tower's "leg".
It was really a good decision to do that in the evening as Eiffel tower by night looks really special. The view from the 1st and 2nd floors were already stunning, so imagine what you observe when you got it to the top! Great cities by night look really great (smile)!

We ended that beautiful day with a nice dinner and a bottle of good French wine in a cosy small restaurant in the area not very far from the Eifel tower.

Was very romantic and very... French (smile).

Paris, je t'aime. Day 1.

2009 so far was not full of travelling (not considering within CZ and Ukraine). When the good news came about Yuliya's new place of employment, I decided it was the time to spend the last bits & pieces of available saving and celebrate all of the good things in Paris.

We found a cheap flight for 65 EUR with Smartwings arriving early Wednesday morning and had to buy bus ticket back for the same price (~14h) arriving to Prague on Sun morning. Our old AIESEC friend Ganna Verbyts'ka (aka Verbitskaya) kindly agreed to host us in her small but very cosy apartment for all that time.

If you want to hear all the feelings the city can raise in oneself, you better ask Yuliya for that. I'll describe thing we saw and liked and some of the other interesting things (smile).

Day 1. Wed, 30-Sep-09

We had no problem to get from the airport to the city centre and managed to get to our 1st place of interest in Paris by 10 a.m. which was - the one and only Notre Dame. From the 1st glance it didn't impress me a lot when we approached the cathedral from St.Michelle square. I think the main reasons were the grey skies and "unusuality" of the facade with two "cut" towers. Otherwise, it was a great piece of Gothic architecture similar to quite a few one can see in Europe and one I saw many times in Prague (smile).
The opinion started to change when we came closer and started to stare more precisely on the details. Useful information for the book we had with us was quite interesting as well.

After entering Notre Dame (free) we started to discover more and more the magnificence of the building. Inside it looked really huge with very tall ceilings and huge stained glass windows. Spent quite some time taking several "think-to-be-nice" shots.

That time we decided not to climb Notre Dame to see the famous chimeras but to do that on a sunnier day.
We explored a bit more of Cite (one of two main islands on Seine) and got to Sainte-Chapelle which was situated inside the square building of Palace of Justice of Paris. The upper part of the Chapel was incredible as it had huge glass stained windows which let in quite a lot of light inside. Each of those windows was telling some story connected with the Church. Unfortunately we didn't have the full sunny day to enjoy the play of light, but still Sainte-Chapelle was worth a visit and money paid.

We continued exploring Paris by crossing the part of Seine and heading towards the Latin Quarter. We stopped for a bite in a small park and walked to Sorbonne university and Panteon. And it was only next to Pantheon where we saw the Eifel tower on the city horizon. Pretty exciting, I must tell, were we (smile). Just behind Pantheon there was a very nice Sainte-Genevieve church which we liked a lot as well.

The next stop for us was Jardin du Luxembourg which turned to be a perfect place of rest for us. Together with a nice palace and beautiful alleys, pathways, trees and lawns, there was a small pond with fountains with lots of heavy metal chairs around. Sun came out from behind the clouds and it made the moment. We were sitting, enjoying the weather and the sun, watching passers-by, the palace and how kids played with the ships in the fountain... Unforgettable!

We decided to take the chance and get back to Notre Dame to climb it while it was still a great sunny weather. On our way we enjoyed streets of Paris, full of cafes and shops. Lots of shops had a really great and nice collection of postcards, so if you want to get some really great ones, Paris is definitely the place to do so.

Standing in a queue took us almost an hour as they let people in by small groups not to make it very crowded on the top. And the moments on the top were breathtaking! We could see all the Paris and enjoy a nice day which was getting into its evening phase... Yuliya and I had one more special moment, but I'd rather make a separate post on that after having told the Paris "sightseeing" story.

The next destination point was Louvre. It was getting dark, we got quite tired but still willing to get more of Paris on the 1st day. By the time we reached pyramids of Louvre, they started to switch on the lights. Evening Louvre looked just great and we were so looking forward to paying it a proper visit a bit later. That time I took my tripod and tried to make some nice night shots and couple of them were quite worthy (smile).

Before heading to Anya's apartment we wanted to make the last stop by the top Paris attraction - Eiffel Tower. We saw it rising over the night city beautifully lit and just couldn't miss on the 1st day. We got into the metro to get out at La Motte-Picquet-Grenelle. Before entering Parc du Champs de Mars we had a pancake donner at a small street stall (apparently, pancakes are something very Parisian and you can buy them all around the city).

To say that Eiffel tower looks great by night won't really help to understand the emotions one has when actually sees it. I'm a bit an unemotional person but I can really imagine what it can be. Besides I have a really good helper who transfers all my "unsaid & unshown" into her "said&shown" (smile). Some people say Eiffel Tower looks like a huge piece of metal. It may definitely be so, but the 1st experience of ours came late in the evening when this piece of metal is sparkling and glowing in the dark, piece of metal and stands in a romantic and beautiful city and that mattered to us a lot.
We sat on the Mars Fields and enjoyed the last hours of the first day in Paris which was so...

GrandMa

I actually don't really know how to start this post. I don't know if it's short or long, how many photos I'll post and what words I'll use... I've chosen "Lacrimosa" in winamp playlist to accompany me during writing...

25 years are a lot and actually not really, you've gained your friends for life, you've found person you're incredibly in love with, you're living in an amazing city, you've travelled to lots of countries, you've faced certain life challenges, you've defined more or less things you value. During all this quarter-of-a-century "living your life" the only thing you think/hope/dream/want to be sure that it stays the same is connected to the people you love the most - your your parents and grandparents.

You call them twice or more than twice a week, come back home 3-4 times a year (which is a lot but still so little), you try to live your life and make them proud of the way you do it...

And one day you call and hear that one of such people is... gone. I called my Grandma on Aug, 31 in the eve and lacked only 5 minutes to hear usual:"She's ok, same health problems as usual, same problems, but She's ok". Just minutes before I called, She had passed away...
She was 89 and last 3 years Her health condition was "stable poor". Last half a year were worse. She almost stopped walking much but had a very clear mind though lately couldn't talk easily with me on the phone. We all knew this would happen sooner or later, but at the moment it does, nobody expects it...

And this pPrson was so, so... dear to me. My other grandparents on Mom's side are in Russia, my Grandpa on father's side died before I was born, so the only "grandperson" who was close to me during all those years was my Grandma. My parents were usual engineers at big Soviet plant with not much time to spend with me during the day, so all of "bringing-up burden" was carried by Her. She never shouted at me, never raised Her voice at me, She sat with me hours reading faily tales and later teaching me to read and to count. Thanks to Her at the age of 5 I could read and knew multiplication table.
She insisted on taking me to school #3 (one of the best in Ternopil' with focus on English language) instead to the nearest one preffered by my parents as they didn't have much time to devote to taking me to and from "far-away" school.
She always cooked me my favourite dish "soup with halusky" whenever I came. She always gave me some additional pocket money, even when I was earning money myself (smile). She was so proud of me and I loved Her so much... always... and will do!
She told me lots of stories about Her life and I was careless enough not to write them down...

I know She lived a hard but great life. People who worked with her even 30 years ago were still in contact with Her and came for the funeral. She made lots of good things for the people and was never asking anything back...
And what I appreciated (and always will) a lot in Her was Her incredible will to live. Despite of having poor health for last 10 years She had such a strong desire to LIVE. And this was so incredible!

Grandma, I love you so much!

R.I.P.

4 days in Ternopil

I had full 4 days of being back home. All those visits are very similar in the way I spend the time - staying home, chatting with parents, going to the dentist, running around the town arranging different things, visiting relatives, spending time with my nephew, meeting friends...

All of these was present again this September, except the only one but the most important thing... Need to think more about a separate post on that...

Some reflections of that time:

1. Spent a great time with Kesha&Dehtyarova who came to see us (Khruslova came for Sat to Ternopil coz of that reason). Had a nice time walking in the city and then spending the evening in a nice pub with great live music (some things do change for the better). Then more of time together at the smallest but nicest kitchen in the world (the one at my home)(smile).

2. On Sunday travelled with all the family to Berezhany and then to dacha outside of the city. Great nature, great place, dearest people, kids, great food, great talks. Found lots of old pictures of Kiyashko family in the old albums which I hadn't seen before. For the first time saw the picture of my grangrandpa.

3. Visited my "eldest" goddaughter Nastya and took her to school. She's growing up and becoming a lady. Still long way to go but she's on the right track (smile).

4. Spent time with my other "kids" - nephew, Sashko, and "younger" goddaughter Yana. Amazing kids, so nice and smart and loving... and grow up and develop so fast, learn so many things in the breaks between my home visits. Wish I could be more time close to them!..

Though the visit was short and intense, it paid off sooo much and will always pay off . Even if I travel home for a day or two, that will be more than enough satisfaction to "justify" 2 days of return travel.

So, friends, pack and go home (smile).

Traveling Home - Trancarpathian Region

This time my travel home took a different route than usual Prague-Ivano-Frankivs'k-Ternopil.
My desire to save 8h for the sleep at home made me chose another one - Prague-Kosice-Uzhgorod-Mukachevo-Ternopil' with a potential stop-over in Lviv.

Trip started 21:00 at Prague's Florenc when I got into a comfortable Student Agency bus to Kosice (~€15) which for some reason appeared to be not that comfortable (smile). Arrival in Kosice - 6:00. Bus to Uzhgorod - 6:40 (€5.60). Slovakian border was definitelu much more friendly than Polish. No bus queues, no stupid queuing just to enter the customs area even if there's no queue inside, quick passport checks. Great thing about the border is that destination point in Ukraine - Uzhgorod is 100m from the border itself (smile).

I arrived to Uzhgorod at 10.40 (Kyiv time) and discovered no buses leaving for Lviv directionin the next 4 hours which meant the best option was to wait for Uzhgorod-Kyiv train at around 16:00. Lady in the counter tipped me that there might be buses to Lviv or Stryj from Mukachevo, small town 30min from Uzhgorod (ticket ~€0.85). Decision was taken (smile).

As there were no buses in Mukachevo I bought the rail ticket directly to Ternopil (~€4.5) which gave me extra 5.5 hours to spend in the town.

I've never been to Mukachevo but had heard nice things about it. Besides, one of my close friends - Lehkyy had grown up there and from time to time had been bringing great home-made Transcarpathian wine.

I asked for the directions to the centre and started my sightseeing tour. By some strange coincidence once I entered the centre area through the street on which Lehkyy's mom had her a shop. And that fact defined my next 2h in Mukachevo. Lehkyy's mom asked me all the possible things in the world - about life, each of the friends, Prague, marriage, etc. She even offered me a tie as a present from her shop but I managed to refuse (smile). She also took me to a nice cafe and we had a coffee and a tea with great apricot strudel.

Afterwards I walked around the centre, bought some postcards and went to the bank of Latorytsya river. There I spent more than an hour watching a person fishing, enjoying the great weather and writing postcards to my friends.

Even though I spent almost 7 hours this time not traveling, I enjoyed the time in Mukachevo a lot. Definitely a good alternative way to consider when traveling back home to Ukraine.

Bratislava in 2 days

Yuliya decided to spend the time before starting in DHL back home in Ivano-Frankivs'k. So for the upcoming weekend I was happy to join a group of AIESEC trainees in their travel to Slovakian capital. Yuliya had already been to Bratislava, so no issues on that side (smile).

Guys left on Fri evening & I joined them on Sat morning in the hostel at 11a.m. No wonder they were asleep at that time. Saturday was devoted to Bratislava exploring. Lots of people had told me one day had been enough to do that. Actually this was more than true. Centre of Bratislava appeared to be small (compared with Prague) but still very cute & nice. I liked a lot the Blue Church and lots of different monuments in the old town.

We climbed the hill to reach the castle which appeared to be under reconstruction. Anyway, the view over the Danube was nice and we spent an hour lying in the grass enjoying a really great weather. Then we went down the hill to grab some food & actually found "Slovenska krcma", friends' suggested place to try national Slovak food. "Halusky" tasted a bit weird and were of totally different kind than in Ukraine (soup ones from my Granny were the tastiest in the world!). Beer was great!

After taking a power nap in the hostel we went out to the city centre. Don't know if the adoption of EUR brought lots of benefits for SK, but the beer prices in Bratislava are way higher than in Prague. We managed to find a place with only 1.5 EUR but on Fri night guys had been in the club with 3.5 EUR for a beer. For comparison in Prague prices vary from 1 EUR to 2 EUR and in most of the clubs 2 EUR is the price for 0.33 Pilsner Urquell. Anyway, I wasn't planning to stay beerless this evening, so beer price had no impact on my overall consumption (smile).

The next day after a late wake up we took a bus to Devin castle just outside Bratislava. The weather was still great when we climbed the hill with the castle. It looked similar to the Spis one, just smaller & closed for the visitors. What Spis castle definitely lacked was a great view over the Danube present in Devin. Before taking bus back we spent some time sitting on the river bank & enjoyed the great weather.

There was 1 more place I wanted to explore before the departure - Slavin hill. As there was not much time left guys decided not to hurry & find a place to eat. I caught a trolley-bus and went towards the hill. Slavin appeared to be a great place with a great view over Bratislava. The hill name derives from Slovakian "glory" and is the place where Russian soldiers involved in freeing Slovakia were buried. I spent hour an hour there taking pictures, lying on the grass and watching the city.

Slavin hill turned out to be a great place to finish my acquaintance with Bratislava. Afterwards I caught a trolley-bus going downhill, picked up my backpack in the hostel & left for bus station.
Bratislava appeared to be a nice weekend time off. I'm not sure I will be back to explore it once again, but sure will have transit trips to reach great spots in Slovakia.