Semana Santa: Paris, Nice, (Monaco) and Barcelona

The Monday after we returned from Semana Santa, I sent my large suitcase home with Melissa's family (who were visiting Granada) so I would only have to lug around my travel backpack on our post-semester Euro trip. In it, I put my laptop, hence this delay between blog posts. So here I sit at our hostel in Madrid, passing time before our overnight bus to Barcelona, and am writing about Semana Santa on Becca's laptop.

Semana Santa in Spain is the week leading up to Easter, and processions down the streets dominate the celebrations. Unfortunately and a little regretfully, I didn't see any of these processions. Becca, Melissa and I traveled to Paris, Nice and Barcelona for the entire week. I guess I'll just have to come back to Andalusia some other year. I'll take any excuse to come back. :)

Photo credit: lonelyplanet.com

Paris was my favorite city of the trip, so I'll focus on writing about the City of Light.

Now there's a lot of hype about Paris, so much that some people are soured toward it because of its popularity.

But in my opinion, it deserves all the attention it gets.

I was in Paris four years ago with my family, and I can tell you that traveling with family in Paris is very different than three girls traveling alone. (For instance, I definitely didn't get tipsy on champagne under the Eiffel Tower with my family.) On the other hand, it was different because four years ago I ate escargot, and this time I ate prepackaged couscous, using hunks of baguette as a spoon. 

Anyway. What I loved about Paris is that it was so affordable for us. European Union students under 25 can get into most museums and monuments for free. I didn't even realize I was considered an EU student until recently. (Yes, that shows you just how real school feels to me...) Paris has so many things to do and see that we would have broke the bank if we had to pay for everything, but we only ended up paying to get into the gardens of the Versailles Palace.

Sorry I couldn't rotate it...

Here are the highlights of what we saw: Notre Dame, the Louvre, Musee d'Orsay (which, to my delight, had a special exhibit on Van Gogh. I saw "Starry Night over the Rhone," which I had a print of hanging in my apartment at school. The exhibit didn't have "Starry Night," so I'll have to get to MoMa in New York to see that.), Musee de l'Orangerie (which is a very small art museum at the beginning of the Champs Élysées. It houses Monet's Nymphaes, or the lily pad paintings.),  the Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, the Luxembourg Gardens and the Sacre Coeur Basilica.

Outside of Versailles Palace. Tip: Don't go in the morning/on the weekend! Extremely crowded.

Loving the Louvre.

One night, we rented bikes and rode along the Seine River. We also rode through the entrance area of the Louvre, with the big, glass pyramid. It felt so surreal to be biking through these absolutely gorgeous areas, and the feeling was amplified because it was night. All that was missing was an accordion soundtrack.

The best bike ride ever.

 Every night, we headed to the Eiffel Tower with a picnic and a bottle of champagne. There are lawns that spread out on one side of the tower, and many young people gather there to drink at night. Every hour starting at 9 p.m., there's a 5-minute light show on the tower, which is gorgeous. Men were constantly walking around, trying to sell beer and champagne, which we took them up on one night after haggling the price way down.

Cheap eats in front of Eiffel.

 We tried our airbnb for this trip, and ended up staying with a French couple in Malakoff, a town on the outskirts of Paris. I didn't know we'd actually be living with them, as opposed to a separate apartment they were renting out, so that was a surprise, but a good one. We got a little look into how the French live and were provided with fresh baguettes every morning for breakfast.

Great macaroons from Laduree. The blue/green one is called Marie Antoinette!

After Paris, we headed to Nice, a city on the French Riviera. I wasn't a fan of the city too much (a little too luxurious for me) but we stayed in a great hostel with really friendly people. A couple of the guys on the staff were from Madrid, so we had fun speaking a little Spanish. :)

Soaking up the sun in Nice.

One day, we took a day trip to Monaco, the second-smallest country in the world. It was just an hour bus ride from Nice. Monaco is an extremely luxurious country, so we felt out of place all day, but parts of it were pretty.

And this is Monaco.

Monte Carlo Casino.

After Melissa left to meet up with her family who was visiting Granada, Becca and I headed to Barcelona. It was interesting seeing the Catalan language (seemed like a mix of Castilian Spanish and French) and to see all the Catalan flags with the blue triangle and star on them, the sign of Catalan independence. I'm really interested to see what will happen in the next few years with these demands for independence from Spain.

The Catalan independence flag hangs from an apartment balcony.

 Toward the end of this trip, I was homesick for Granada, which was a different sensation for me. Granada has come to feel like my home, and I couldn't wait to maximize the little time we had left there.