Original subtitles

Hi, I'm Rick Steves

back with more of the best of Europe.

This time we're exploring the wonders of Paris

magnificent and� thanks to monsieur Eiffel� riveting.

To me, Paris is the capital of Europe.

It's the city I can return to more than any other with grand monuments that need no introduction.

And it hides a lifetime of cultural delights.

Everything in this episode is within easy reach by foot and metro.

We'll see some icon of this gerat city.

The industrial-age iron of the Eiffel Tower

and the medieval stonework of Notre Dame

then, we'll see stark realism and dreamy impresionism

in the Orsay Gallery.

We'll join a friend, dining on french favorites

After looking at bones in the catacombs

We'll see how the French Revolution helped create this great city.

The Seine River splits the city into the Right Bank and the Left Bank.

Its two islands mark the center of the old town.

Most of the essential sights lie near the Notre Dame,

between the Eiffel Tower, the Latin Quarter, and Montmartre, the city's highest point.

The Eiffel Tower was built in 1889, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the French Revolution

and show off at a world's fair.

It was a muscular symbol of the Industrial Age.

To a generation hooked on technology, it was the marvel of its day�

trumpeting progress and man's ingenuity.

This 900-foot-tall tower has three observation levels:

the higher you go the more you pay.

For me the middle level is plenty high.

Thousands of iron bars and millions of rivets,

all assembled in just over 2 years.

Today, it stands tall, an exclamation point,

symbolizing the proud, independent spirit of the French.

The Trocadero Square, across the river, is the place to view the tower�

and to check out a colorful scene.

Parisians own their city.

In fact, twice a week streets are closed and thousands turn out to roll through the city

in an exuberant celebration of life.

Paris was born centuries before Christ

right here on the �le de la Cit�, an island in the middle of the Seine River.

The Romans conquered the local fishing tribe and set up camp.

Today the Notre-Dame cathedral marks the place where a Roman temple once stood.

The city's first bishop, St. Dennis, holds his head in his hands.

When Christianity began making converts here, the Romans beheaded him.

But, according to legend, Dennis just picked up his head and kept on going.

Inspired by this miracle, Christianity flourished

and the temple was replaced by a church.

Imagine the faith of people who built this

breaking ground in 1163 on a building which wouldn't be finished for 200 years.

Gothic architects incorporated the latest technology

flying buttresses to support the heavy rooftop.

Its ghoulish gargoyles multi-task:

they serve as fancy rain spouts and scare away the evil spirits.

The church is dedicated to �our lady� or Notre Dame.

Mary cradles the baby Jesus; the rose window provides a majestic halo.

The Virgin Mary was highly revered throughout the Middle Ages.

The faithful petitioned her in times of trouble to gain both comfort and,

through her intervention, God's mercy.

As worshippers headed for Mass they'd walk under a relief of Judgment Day.

Christ sits on his throne. The trumpet sounds.

All are judged: peasants, knights, nobles, royals � even bishops.

An angel weighs cute little souls while cheating demons yank on the scales.

The saved stand happily at Christ's right hand.

The damned� a sorry chain gang on His left.

Carvings like that� and like this scene of Eve tempting Adam with an apple�

remind us that this art was more than decoration.

These images reinforced the stories people learned in church.

While the church is dedicated to Mary, the rest of Paris seems dedicated to regular Parisians.

The old center, with its two islands in the middle of the Seine, retains a charming elegance.

The �le de la Cit� is laden with historic sights.

But the little �le St. Louis,

connected by a pedestrian bridge, is laden only with the delights of good living.

I'm rendezvousing with my Parisian friend and fellow tour guide, Arnaud Servignat.

The Ile St. Louis is charming. But the whole city of Paris is charming.

In fact, it faces the river Seine.

And the river Seine has been called by Parisiens the mirror of the city.

Ah, it's a great people's zone.

So, what is the french word for these little stalls ?

Bouquinists, we call them, it comes from old french.

Old books. Old books, yes.

They sell prints, you know.. And they go back a long time ?

Back to the 1600's , yes, indeed.

I'm taking Arnaud to lunch. Against his advice, I'm eating all the Parisian cuisine clich�s

in one meal.

Aperitif,... tell me about aperitif.

peritif is to open your appetite.

So, this is the first course.

Yes, this is the entree,and actually you guys call the entree the main course,

when the entree is the starter in France.

Ok, i have my escargot

And i just use this Yes

So, you stab it, then you twist it out.

What is the history of the onion soup ? The onion soup is something you eat more in the winter time.

because it was used to warm the employees on the central markets.

Ok, the principal plate

Stake tartare. Stake tartare, yes.

You know what it's made of ?

This is raw beef.

You've introduced me to something new.

I can't belive it. I'm eating raw beef, and it's good.

Especially with some red wine.

So we are having now the cheese course which is very important

And basically, you know, you order cheese to finish the wine and then order more wine to finish the cheese.

It's a nice cycle. It's a vicious circle.

The coffee always comes after the food. After the dessert, always.

What if you ask for your coffee with the meal ?

They will say, yes, sure, but it will come after the meal.

What a meal ! Excellent, wasn't it ?

I'm heading for the Orsay Gallery. Go ahead, I'm finishing my cognac.

Bye-bye, Rick.

Getting around Paris is easy on the Metro.

The original stations were Art Nouveau.

This new one celebrates the system's 100th birthday.

And the latest generation shows Europe's commitment to ever more efficient public transit.

The train is completely automated allowing passengers to watch the tunnel coming at them.

Faster than a taxi can take us� we hurtle beneath the city to our next stop.

The Orsay Gallery, famous for its much loved collection of impressionist masterpieces

fills an old train station.

The building itself is magnificent.

Train tracks used to go right down the middle.

The art of the Orsay takes you from 1848 to 1914.

This is the time when the old world meets the modern world.

It's conservative and revolutionary, side by side.

Before the impressionists, 19th century artists painted idealized beauty.

This was conservative art, popular throughout the 1800s because it was simply beautiful.

Cabanel's Birth of Venus is the quintessence of beauty.

The love queen reclines seductively, just born from the foam of a wave.

At the time, sex was considered dirty and could be exalted only in a more pure and divine form.

But while mainstream artists cranked out these ideal beauties,

a revolutionary new breed of artists was painting a harsher reality.

Cross the tracks and you find the Realists.

In The Painter's Studio, Gustave Courbet takes us behind the scene at the painting of a goddess.

The model, not a goddess, but a real woman, takes a break from posing to watch Courbet at work.

Ordinary people mill about.

The little boy seems to admire the artist, already notorious for his non-conformity.

No one would show Courbet's work� so he put on his own art show.

He built a shed in the center of town and hanging his paintings

basically thumbing his nose at the shocked public and his conservative critics.

Edouard Manet rubbed realism in the public's face. And they hated it.

Manet's nude doesn't gloss over anything.

The pose is classic, but the sharp outlines and harsh colors are new and shocking.

Her hand is a clamp.

Her stare�defiant.

Ignoring the flowers her servant brings from her last customer, this prostitute looks out as if to say:

�Next�

It's about 1880 and Manet and his rat pack of conservatively-dressed radicals gathered in Paris,

pushing the creative envelope.

It's time to let the revolution of Impressionism begin.

Impressionism initiated the greatest change in art since the Renaissance.

Now, artists were freed to delve into the world of colors, light, and fleeting impressions.

They featured easy-going open-air scenes, candid spontaneity, and always�

the play of light.

Impressionists made their canvases shimmer by an innovative technique.

Rather than mixing colors together on a palate, they applied the colors in dabs side-by-side on the canvas

and let these mix as they traveled to your eye.

Up close it doesn't work. But move back� and voil�!

Claude Monet is called the father of Impressionism.

For him, the physical subject was now only the rack upon which to hang the light,

shadows, and colors.

August Renoir caught Parisians living and loving in the afternoon sun.

Dappled light was his specialty.

In this painting you can almost feel the sun's warmth and smell the powder on the faces.

Even the shadows are caught up in the mood� everything's dancing.

Renoir paints a waltzing blur to capture not the physical details

but the intangible charm of a restaurant on Paris' Montmartre.

Montmartre, a Parisian hill crowned by the dramatic neo-Byzantine Sacr� Coeur church

was famous for the ambiance captured by the Impressionists.

A block away, the Place du Tertre is jumbled with artists - and tourists.

If you really try, you can almost imagine Renoir, Van Gogh and Picasso

who came here a century ago, poor, carefree, and seeking inspiration.

Back then, life here on Montmartre was a working class commotion of caf�s, bistros, and dance halls.

Painters came here for the low rent and ruddy joix de vivre.

To get away from all the tourists, simply walk the back streets, where a bit of Montmartre's village charm survives.

Aah, the steps of the Sacr� Coeur

This is a place where locals and travelers alike congregate to marvel at Paris, or each other.

From here, the city of light fans out at your feet.

Your parisian experiences are a blend of great museums, fine food, and characteristic neighborhoods.

The Latin Quarter is the core of the Left Bank, as the South side of the Seine River is known.

This has long been the city's University District.

In fact the University of Paris, a leading university in medieval Europe,

was founded here in the 13th century.

Back then the vernacular languages, like French and German, were crude�

good enough to handle your basic needs.

But for higher learning, academics, like this guy, spoke and corresponded in Latin.

Until the 1800s, from Sicily to Sweden, Latin was the language of Europe's educated elite.

And parisians called this university district �the Latin Quarter�

because that's the language they heard on the streets.

Today any remnant of that Latin is buried by a colorful tabouli of ethnic restaurants.

Still, it remains a great place to get a feel for the tangled city

before the narrow lanes were replaced by big modern boulevards in the 19th century.

The scholarly and artsy people of this quarter stoked a new rage: Paris' caf� scene.

By the time of the Revolution,

the city's countless caf�s were the haunt of politicians and philosophers

who plotted a better future as they sipped their coffee.

And the Caf� society really took off in the early 1900s

as the world's literary and artistic avant-garde converged on Paris.

In now-famous cafes along Boulevard St. Germain and Boulevard St. Michel

free thinkers like Hemmingway, Lenin, and Jean Paul Sartre

enjoyed the creative freedom these hangouts engendered.

With its university and caf� scene, Paris has long been a launch pad for bold new ideas.

In the 18th century, ground breaking political and social thinking of French philosophers

like Voltaire and Rousseau ushered in the Age of Enlightenment.

And later, this Enlightenment gave the French Revolution its philosophical basis

and it gave the American constitution many of its basic principles.

Paris honors its intellectual and cultural heroes with tombs and memorials

in its neo-Classical Pantheon.

It looks like an ancient temple but it's only about 250 years old�

from the time of the Enlightenment.

During the Enlightenment and the Age of Revolution, which followed,

everything was subjected to what was called �the test of reason�

if it wasn't logical� it was tossed out.

Nothing was sacred: the whole notion of royalty was challenged

and churches were turned into temples of reason.

Even the use of city land for cemeteries, as you learn at the catacombs of Paris - was rejected.

The sign reads:

Halt. This is the empire of death.

It kicks off a one mile hike you won't soon forget.

The anonymous bones of 6 million permanent Parisians line former limestone quarries deep under the streets.

TIn 1785 Paris decided to make its congested city more spacious and sanitary

by emptying the cemeteries

which traditionally surrounded churches, into this labyrinthine ossuary.

For decades priests led ceremonial processions of black veiled bone-laden carts

into the quarries where the bones were carefully and artistically stacked as much as 80 feet deep.

Each transfer was finished with a plaque identifying from which church the bones came

and the date they arrived.

While there's history in dem bones, the Carnavalet Museum

filling a lavish aristocratic old mansion, is the best place to sort through the story of Paris.

Pre-revolutionary France had a government by, for, and of the wealthy.

And as the rich got richer and richer, people who lived in fabulous mansions like this

became blind to the growing gap between the haves and have nots in their country.

Louis XIV - a.k.a. �the Sun King�

was the ultimate king back when people accepted the notion that a few were born to rule and be rich

while most were born to be ruled and taken advantage of.

Room after room shows the opulence of the upper classes in the age leading up to the revolution.

Louis XIV, who enjoyed the luxury but anticipated trouble

said �Apres moi, le deluge.� (After me the flood.)

The heart of the museum features that deluge, which hit when this man, Louis XVI was king.

The French Revolution was kicked off with the storming of the Bastille prison.

Supporting the The liberal wing of the government met in this indoor tennis court declaring it wouldn't quit

until the people had a constitution.

It was vive la nation, libert�, egalit�, and fraternit�

until the people literally beheaded the king and queen.

La Place de la Revolution, or Revolution Square

It was here that the new fangled guillotine, considered a humain form of execution in its day, was setup.

And it was here that Marie Antoinette, Louis XVI, and over two thousand others were made

�a foot shorter at the top.�

According to this painting, it took three to run the guillotine� one to manage the blade,

one to catch the blood and one to hold the head, in this case of Marie Antoinette, up to the crowd.

Today the vast Revolution Square is called Place de la Concorde, place of harmony.

The guillotine is long gone, and its centerpiece is an Egyptian obelisk.

The king and queen were beheaded by a stark and egalitarian government.

But the French love of fine living couldn't be kept down.

The 19th century was a boom time for Paris.

The entire city was beautified with grand boulevards and fancy architecture.

It was an exuberant age of money, if you had it� you flaunted it.

From the place de la Concorde, the Champs-Elys�es

once a royal carriageway� now Europe's grandest boulevard, leads to the Arc de Triomphe.

The arch was dedicated to the victory of the people and their republic�

the triumph of French Nationalism.

A glimpse of the decadence of that beautiful age or bell� epoque is enjoyed along the Champs-Elys�es.

Paris' old opera house, the grand palace of this gilded age, was finished in 1875.

The real show was before and after, when the elite of Paris, out to see and be seen

strutted their elegant stuff in the extravagant lobbies.

Think of the grand marble stairway as a theater itself� filled with Paris' beautiful people.

The actual theater is a palace of plush and ornate seating.

Above it all, a delightful ceiling, painted by Marc Chagall in the 1960s

frolics around an eight-ton chandelier.

Nearby, the Jacquemart-Andr� Museum fills a 19th-century mansion offering the public a rare

aristocratic open house.

Edouard Andr� and his wife Nelie

spent their lives and fortune designing, building and decorating this incredible mansion.

I'm enjoying a tour by one of the museum's fine guides: Kiera.

You could almost imagine the clutter of jewelry mixing with the chamber music

as Edouard and Nelie threw a party.

This is italian. Exacly

because they travelled in Italy, they loved italian arts.

And they brought paitings of Bellini, Botticelli, Montegna, Carpaccio.

And Tiapollo, whose fresco graces the mantion's lobby.

And this was Edouard's bedroom, complete with a deluxe bathroom.

For more of the decadence of that age, check out the ritzy shops.

It's ritzy in the true sense, since they cluster around the original Ritz Hotel.

Enjoy the luxury of this neighbourhood by window-shopping.

Or, as the French say, "Faire de lache vitrine" (window licking)

Actually, today's Paris thrives with ordinary people.

The good life feels accessible to all

and, in the spirit of France's revolution, the government truly seems to work for the people.

While the stunning Georges Pompidou center holds one of the world's top modern art collections,

most Parisians seem happy just to hang out in front.

And apart from its world class attractions, millions of people call this city simply� home.

Neighborhoods enjoy first-class public transit and, if a train line's decomissioned,

it's put to good use, with its arches housing colorful shops and the elevated track made into a long skinny park.

The Promenade Plant�e is popular for jogging or strolling

or just a peaceful break from the city.

There's a time honored finesse to Parisian life

a comfortable time-tested rhythm with kisses on the cheek, neighborhood market streets

and familiar faces at the corner caf�.

Whether you visit for the blockbuster monuments,

its captivating history or the simple delights of a caf�,

Paris just might steal your heart.

Thanks for joining us. I'm Rick Steves.

Until next time� Keep on travelin'.

Au revoir.