France is Cool, I Guess.

For our second multi-day excursion as a program we traveled to Colmar, Beaune and Paris, France. I was looking forward to adding another country to my list and I never thought that I would ever actually be going to Paris in my life. 

So we loaded up the bus early Monday morning and set out for Colmar, which is located in west France, very close to the German border. When we arrived we first went to the Unterlinden Museum where we saw medieval and early renaissance art, including the Isenheim altar. Most commonly, plague or ergotism victims would come to pray at this alter. The alter depicts images from different moments of Christ’s life, as well as the patron saint for ergotism, St. Anthony. Hence, this is why ergotism is commonly called St. Anthony’s fire. From the museum we made our way through the streets lined with medieval buildings and bakeries filled with the smell of macaroons, where we definitely stopped to take free samples. 

That afternoon, we hopped back on the bus to drive to east toward Beaune. That night we ate some traditional French dishes which included beef bourguignon and Burgundy wine. We spent the night at a small little hotel and woke up to the smell of warm croissants and fresh orange juice. We then had a tour of the famous Hotel Dieu, well, famous for wine auction goers. This hotel used to be a hospital that was built in the middle ages and used until the 1970’s. 

From Beaune, we made our way to the most touristy city in the world, Paris! I honestly did not have any expectations for the city, except that the Eiffel tower would be there. I didn’t think I would like Paris, I thought that everything I heard about it would be overrated. But I was wrong! I really liked Paris, I liked the art, the wide streets, the river, the beautiful buildings. It was great, and we were fortunate enough to have un-european-like whether, aka sunny. 

While here we got to see a lot and our tour guide Julien was great. We went on a bike tour where we stopped by the Eiffel tower and Notre Dame to take pictures. We had crepes and crepes, and more crepes. We toured the Pasteur Museum, you know, the guy who discovered the rabies vaccine, which wasn’t all too exciting. Even Dr. Fajt was telling us to hang in there till the end.  We also toured Versailles and Marie  Antoinette’s village, aka the Queen’s Hamlet. At Versailles we had a picnic with all sorts of French cheeses and quiche that Julien’s fiance made. 

One night we also went up the Eiffel tower and got to see the skyline of Paris at night. Another day Kelly and I went to visit the Muse de Orsay before it closed. Although, we only got a chance to look at the impressionists art before they closed. Speaking of museums, we of course made a visit to the Louvre. It was fairly crowded but still an enjoyable experience that I never thought I would have. 

After the program ended on Friday, a small group of us prepared for our flight to Dublin that night.