Paris Trip: Day 3

We dedicated our last day in Paris to two museums: the Louvre and Musee d'Orsay. We left our luggage with the receptionist and headed out around 10am to the Louvre.

The glass pyramid is in the right corner.


The Louvre is huge, so we basically did the greatest hits tour. Here's Winged Victory.


Here's the Mona Lisa (which we actually passes trying to find it...oops).


And here's how close you are actually allowed to get to the Mona Lisa.


The Feast at Cana


This is the famous Wreck of the Medusa.


I don't think this is a famous painting, but I liked it.


One of the many Da Vinci paintings.


The statue that defined what a beautiful woman was, the Venus de Milo:


The Louvre is actually built on an old castle, which is cool because you can go down in the basement and see the original wall and mote. But it was kind of dark so the pictures didn't come out too good. The Louvre also had a number of Egyptian relics, but nothing too outstanding.

Except for the Ramses II statue and the seated scribe.




Here's Brian with the winged bulls. We were getting pretty tired by this time, and it was hot.


And this is Hammurabi's code, which is the oldest written laws ever found.


The tomb of Philippe Pot.


This is the mini Arc. Apparently, Napoleon Bonaparte wanted to walk under the Arc de Triumph when he got married to his second wife, but it wasn't finished yet. So the architect built a smaller one here first. Do you see me?


And so, we said goodbye to the Louvre.


We started walking to the Musee d'Orsay but got sidetracked because they closed a bridge for the Tour d'France. Psh. Who cares about sweaty men on bikes. Anyway, we had to drag our tired and bruised bodies another two blocks across another bridge and then swing back around. By this time, we had seen so much and walked so much in 3 days my body was basically broken.

All I really wanted to see was Monet and Van Gogh, but we saw some others too.



This is a Monet.


And here is Starry Night, by Van Gogh. Unlike the Louvre you could get real close to all the pictures, which was cool. I think I stared at this for about 10 minutes.


Unfortunately, and much to my disappointment, all of Monet's water lily paintings were temporarily at another exhibit in a different museum outside of Paris. So...I didn't get to see those. But hey, I did get some magnets.

It was at that point that my camera battery died. But, somehow, Brian used his magical powers to get it to turn back on for 1 more picture. Which was really important, since this was the picture...


Exhausted by our travels, and starving, we grabbed some cokes and some more crepes outside the Orsay before heading back to the metro station, picking up our luggage, and taking the train back home. All in all it was a wonderful journey where we saw lots of amazing things and had a really fun time. But boy were we glad to have Mama and Papa pick us up, feed us, and put us to bed early. Haha! Well, now it's off to Rome for more adventures!

Paris Trip: Day 2

After sleeping like the dead, we felt refreshed and rejuvenated on Saturday morning. We got up around 9:30am and had a nice continental breakfast before heading out to our first stop: Sacre Coeur, or Sacred Heart Chapel. Brian had never seen this before, and we were told it had excellent views outside of Paris, and beautiful painting inside.



Here is the altar with the beautiful mosaic (fresco? I dunno):


A close up:


The view of Paris from Sacre Coeur. So beautiful. Can you find me?


Here I am!


We really enjoyed Sacre Coeur; I think it was one of our favorites along with Saint Chapelle and the Pantheon. Next on our list was the Mary Magdalen. It is dedicated to my Patron Saint, so I really wanted to see it. The architecture is very roman.


Here is the altar. Again, not the greatest picture because it was a bit far away, but still very beautiful.


Unfortunately the entire Church was decorated with modern art. We weren't really sure why...it was pretty ugly. There was a pyramid made out of old water bottles, and a curtain of iron rods, and some ugly statues. They got in the way of the real beauty of the church. The only thing that wasn't obstructed was the gorgeous ceiling.


After this we were very hungry, and walking around the town to our next destination we found a little crepe stand that smelt so good we couldn't pass it up. They make the crepes on this big hot plate, and we had ours with chocolate and bananas. It was so delicious!


Then it was time for the Pantheon, where all the famous French people are buried. I must say, I was pretty impressed with the inside as well even if it wasn't as ancient as some of the other Churches we saw.


They had this giant pendulum clock thing which was pretty cool, although I'm not really sure how it worked...


The walls were covered with painting about Saint Genevieve's life, but I wasn't too interested in that. I wanted to see the crypt! Here come the dead people!

The famous philosopher Rousseau. The Constitution is based off of many of his ideas.


OMG It's Voltaire. Yes. He's really in there.


Here is Jean Moulin, the martyred leader of the French Resistance movement. He was tortured and left to die in a train on the way to Auschwitz by Klaus Barbie (who I did a lengthy report on in college).


And here is the legendary Marie Currie, along with Pierre Currie. If you don't recall your history, you can read up on how important she is here.


Others included Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, Henri Bergson, and even Louis Braille! Yes, the man that invented Braille. COOL. The Pantheon was huge so we were there for a pretty long time. We made a quick stop afterward at Saint Severin's, which is the only medieval church in Paris that has remained largely unchanged.

I really liked the design of their stained glass windows.


These are the bones, or relics, of Saint Ursula.


We were getting pretty hungry, so we hurried to see the Arc de Triumph before dinner time. It was funny, actually. You have to take an underground tunnel to get across the traffic circle around the arc, but some people didn't know that and they attempted to cross the HUGE traffic circle (4 lanes) by running across. It was hilarious, but only because nobody got hurt.



The tomb of the unknown soldier with the eternal flame. And a pigeon (he was not invited).


Well, we didn't want to pay money to go to the top and have to wait in a line, so we took our pictures and then headed to dinner. This cafe was much nicer than the first. We had a very good waitress, it wasn't too crowded, and we got a nice table where we could sit in the shade and watch the people on the street. For desert, of course, I had the french classic (and my favorite) crème brûlée.


After a nice and leisurely dinner we headed back to the Eiffel Tower to try our luck again. On the way we ran into a protest about political prisoners in Iran which was rather interesting. All along the park by the Eiffel Tower the protestors carried green banners with words on them. This was Brian's favorite:


Then came the big wait. Two hours in line to get up to the 2nd floor of the Eiffel Tower, and another 45 minutes to wait in the line to the 3rd floor. It was painful, but we did it! And really, I think it was worth it.







Well, that was Day 2 in Paris. Thanks for reading!

Paris Trip: Day 1

We left home at 6:10am so Mama could take us to the Hauptbanhof. Our train left at 6:50am. After a boring train ride where I got no sleep since I cannot sleep upright, we arrived in Paris at 10:30am. This is the first picture we took, outside the very famous Opera House.



After a good hour of looking for our hotel (Brian read the street name wrong, so we thought it was on Aubre, but it was really on Hadrel) we arrived, sun burnt and exhausted. But we weren't going to let that stop us! After riding up on an elevator that literally fit 3 people (more like 2...) we took a break in our small hotel room before heading outside to see the sites!

First on the list of To Do's: Saint Chapelle and the Hall of Justice. Here they are together; Saint Chapelle is on the left. We didn't actually go in the Hall of Justice, but only admired it's golden gates.


These are the oldest frescoes in Paris.


I was happy with the stained glass windows on the first floor, but as we walked up the stone staircase to the second floor, I was astonished. My mouth was literally open in amazement.






And here is tour guide Brian with the low down:


Needless to say we stayed here for a pretty good amount of time, just enjoying the scenery. But we knew we had to leave if we wanted to see everything else. So, it was off to Notre Dame! Unfortunately, it was in the rain...


But it wasn't that bad. The line to get into the Cathedral was ridiculously long, and this girl behind me kept trying to hide under my umbrella...um...no. Get your own. Here's an unobstructed view of the Cathedral:


Because we were not allowed to use flash, the quality of these pictures really does not do justice to the Cathedral. Notre Dame is huge and very impressive, especially given its gothic architecture. Unlike other churches which took centuries to build, Notre Dame was constructed in a relatively short period of time, by the 13th century.

Here is the famous rose window.


We lit a candle to remember our loved ones that have passed, and said a prayer.


Here we are!


The outside of the Cathedral.




Then it was off to Ecole Militaire, which is where they trained the soldiers back in the day, and it actually has small bullet holes in the bricks from WW1. Across the park is the Eiffel Tower. We came back here after dinner at a local cafe, which had good food but terrible service. I guess they were short on waiters, so the owner took our order, but halfway through she got upset with one of the waiters and stomped off to tell him what he did wrong and was gone for 5 minutes. No, "Excuse me, I'll be right back" or anything. Anyway...we went to the Eiffel Tower after dinner as we planned to go to the top.





Unfortunately we got there too late as they had already closed access to the 3rd floor. So we went back to our hotel and rested our tired bones instead!