Suffering from OCD
I'm suffering from OCD; but in a good way I suppose. My trip to Europe is still ten days away, but you wouldn't know it by the level of anxiety I am feeling. I'm so concerned about making sure that I 'see everything' and don't 'forget anything I might need', that it is already becoming a consuming thought.
I've been to Paris three times before; once on vacation and twice on a business trip yet, still, with all of that, there are many things I should have seen that I missed. This time, I am taking my daughter for her first ever trip to Paris and I want to be absolutely certain she experiences as much as possible.
The second half of our trip is in Rome and, frankly, other than the obvious (the Vatican and the Roman ruins; i.e. Pantheon and Colloseum) I'm not sure what all there is to see.
On my previous trips to Paris I have wasted inordinate amounts of time wandering aimlessly trying to find something that I had no clue how to get there. Paris a crazed maze of streets and street names and, unless you are a native, you spend the bulk of your time being lost. On your way to one site you might, quite easily, pass five other incredible monuments without realizing they were just around the corner.
Not this time though.. I spent a bunch of time planning out my trip using Google Earth. I was an early Google Earth adopter, in fact I signed up for the service before Google ever bought the original company. I even paid for the premium service even though it offered no obvious benefits.
This time I noticed many improvements to the Google Earth software; particularily improved satallite images. The software is getting better as well but it still amazes me that so many major landmarks fail to be annotated. They have added the ability to hyperlink locations to their corresponding Wikipedia entries; which is truly awesome. The problem is that only a small percentage of the landmarks in any given city are hyperlinked. I'm sure this will be corrected in time.
I did find one new feature which was useful. They now have a mode where markers will show up hyperlinked to any comment made by the general user community. This has proven quite useful as I can simply scan for a high-density field of user markers to find prominent landmarks in any city in the world.
One of the biggest triggers for my OCD is the combined expense and length of this vacation. This vacation is costing an enormous sum of money. I don't regret that decision; but it puts a great deal of pressure on this one trip to become a great success. I don't want to return only to find out I missed many things I wanted to see had I only researched it a bit further ahead of time.
One of the things I was worried about was wasting a lot of time wandering around lost in Paris missing many major sites. This evening I finally put that concern to rest. I finally figured out how to tell me GPS that I was 'in Europe' and I was able to look up every single destination I want to visit during my stay. These are all now programmed into my GPS ahead of time and with the click of a button I can get anywhere from anywhere else in the city. This is a huge relief.
I had much less success with Rome, however. The names of things in the guide books I have don't match up necessarily with the names in the GPS. I may have to switch to latitude and longitude co-ordinates to make sure I have all of the key destinations pre-programmed in.
My rough Itinery for Paris is as follows. This is largely subject to change; at least in terms of which things I see when, but these are definitely the major landmarks I want to visit. Items in italics I have already been to before but I plan to visit them again so my daughter can have the experience as well.
Itinerary:
Sunday July 8th, Eiffel Tower, Hotel Invalides, Notre Dame, Seine Cruise:
9:30am : Arrive
12:00pm : Go to hotel.
1:00pm : Eiffel Tower
2:00pm : St-Louis-des Invalides
2:30pm : Dome Church
3:30pm : Notre Dame
4:30pm : Saint Chapelle
6:00pm : Dinner cruise on the Seine or dinner then cruise
Monday July 9th, Louvre, Musee de l’Orangerie, St. Eustache, Operate:
9:00am : The Louvre
2:00pm : Musee de l’Orangerie
3:30pm : Place de la Concord
2:00pm : Petit Palais
3:00pm : The Grand Palais
5:30pm : Les Passages, dinner
6:30pm : Arrive at Opera Garner for the Ballet
Tuesday July 10th, Versaille, Petit Palais, Champs Elysees:
9:00am : Versailles
4:00pm : Saint Eustache
4:30pm : La Madeleine
5:00pm : The Pantheon
4:00pm : Musee Jacquemart-Andre
5:00pm : Avenue Champs Elysees
6:00pm : Arc de Triomphe
7:00pm : Dinner
Wednesday July 11, Muse Carnavalet, Musee d’ Orsay, Paradis Latin:
9:00am : Musee Carnavalet
12:00pm : Musee d’Orsay
3:00pm : Musee de Cluny
7:00pm : Paradis Latin
Thursday July 12, Sare Coure, Chateau de Vincennes, Train to Rome:
9:00am : Sacre Couer
12:00pm : St-Severin
1:00pm : St. Sulpice
2:00pm : Chateau de Vincennes
5:00pm : Overnight train trip to Rome
Friday July 13, Rome????!???
What follows is a list, based on area in Paris, of everything I want to see if I can fit it into the schedule at all. Page numbers refer to my guidebook.
Ile De Le Cite & Ile St. Louis
Sainte Chapelle – 4 Boulevard Due Palais – 9:30-6:30pm (Page 88)
Notre Dame – 9am – 7pm (Page 84)
The Marais
Musee Carnavalet – 23 Rue De Sevigne 75003 10am-6pm (closed Mondays) (Page 96)
Place De La Bastille – 75004 (Page 98)
St. Paul – St. Louis – 99 Rue St-Antoine, 75004 8am-8pm daily (page 99)
St-Gevais – St-Protais – Place St-Gervais 75004, 5:30am – 9pm daily. (Page 99)
Hotel de Ville – Place Hotel de Ville 75004, not open to the public (Page 102)
Beaubourg and Les Halles
St-Eustache, Pl du Jour 75001 metro Le-Hallses 9:30am-7pm daily. (Page 114)
Tuileries Quarter
St-Roch, 296 Rue St-Honore 75001, Metro: Tuileries, 8:30am 7pm. Church. (Page 121)
Musee du Louvre, Metro: Palais Royal – Musee du Louvre, 9am-6pm (Page 122)
Musee de l’Orangerie, Jardin des Tuileries, Pl de la Concord, 75008, metro concord. (Page 131)
Place de la Concord, 75008, metro Concord, page 131
St-Germain-des-Pres, 3 Pl St-Germain-Des-Pres 75006, 8a-7:30pm daily, (oldest church) (page 138)
Musee d’Orsay, Quai Anatole France, metro solferino, 10am-6pm,(Page 144)
Latin Quarter
St-Severin, 1 Rue-des-Pretres-St Severin 75005, Metro: St. Michel, 11am-7pm (church) Page 152
La Sorbonne, 47 Rue des Eccoles 75005, Metro: Cluny-La Sorbonne, 9am-5pm Mon-Fri, Page 153.
Musee National du Moyen Age or Musee de Cluny, 6 Pl Paul-Painleve, metro: Cluny-La-Sorbonne, Page 154.
Pantheon, Pl du Pantheon, Metro: Jessieu, Cardinal-Lemoine, Page 158.
Luxembourg Quarter
St-Sulpice, Pl St-Sulpice, Metro: St-Sulpice, 8am-7pm daily, (Page 172)
Montparnasse
Catacombs, 1 Pl Denfert-Rochereau 75014, 11am-4pm, (Page 179)
Cimetiere du Montparnasse, 3 Blvd Edgar Quintet, 8am-6pm, Metro: Edgar Quintet, (Page 180)
Invalides and Eiffel Tower Quarter
St-Louis-des-Invalides, Hotel des Invalides, chapel for the soldiers, 10am-6pm, Page 186.
Dome Church, page 188.
Eiffel Tower, page 192.
River Seine tour.
Champs-Elysees
Pont Alexandre III, Champs-Elysees-Clemenceau, (bridge) Page 206
Grand Palais, Port A, Avenue General Eisenhower, 10am-8pm, Page 206.
Petit Palais, Page 206
Musee Jacquemart-Andre, 158 Boulevard Haussmann, 75008, 10am-6pm, page 207.
Avenue Champs-Elysees page 207.
Arc de Triomphe, Pl Charles de Gaulle, page 208.
Opera Quarter
La Madeleine, 9am-7pm, page 214.
Opera de Paris Garner, page 215.
Les Passages, page 216.
Montmartre
Dali Museum, page 222.
Sacre Couere, page 224
Out of the Way
Chateau de Vincennes, page 233
Versailles, page 248
Comments
I think you are being far too structured in your approach. Visiting the wonderful cities of Paris and Rome is not just about rushing around the sites and not really having time to see anything properly. In my opinion time spent wandering around is an important part of a trip, if you want to get any tad of authenticity during your visit. Relax and enjoy and really see fewer things rather than this mad dash around, which will be superficial and could lead to frustration if your itinerary goes awray eg due to heavy traffic, needing to find a bathroom etc.
Thanks for your feedback. The thing I didn't make clear in my post is that I have already been to Paris three times before. The previous two times were on business and lasted a total of three weeks.
Then I had a great opportunity to just soak up the atmosphere and enjoy the beauty of Paris at a slower pace. It was a very pleasant experience and if you were to go back into the archives of my blog entries to about January of 2006 or November of 2005, you could read about it. I posted lots of pictures if I recall.
In all of my experience in Paris I never seem to break out of always feeling lost. Even though I can use the metro to get around the city, the second I step out of the tunnel I am totally lost and confused.
On many occasions I am sure that I missed seeing some incredible landmarks that were less than a block away had I only known how to get there; or that it was there at all to begin with.
Even though I have spent a total of about a month in Paris with all three trips combined, there are still many things I have never seen that I want to.
What makes this trip especially important is that I am taking my daughter. My daughter is a very talented artist and is soon to be heading off to college. This is our first, last, and only chance to take her to see the sights of Europe before she leaves home.
It is a important to her as it is to me that we see as much art as possible during the visit. The fact of the matter is that this trip is costing me a fortune; over $15,000 for the ten days we will actually be in Europe (plus two travel days). I will be paying off this vacation for at least the next two years.
If we don't see everything on the list, that is fine. I just don't want to miss things this time because I was unprepared. I don't want to feel lost all of the time and I don't want to miss a monument that was just around the corner had I only known ahead of time.
Thanks,
John
I do wish you and your daughter a great trip. I hope that your daughter appreciates this trip. It is really easy to get lost in large cities, even if you carry a map you sometimes lose orientation.
I agree that one has to have an itinerary and some focus for a trip, know the location and opening hours of places that you wish to visit. I just think it great to be a bit spontaneous and relaxed some of the time too.