So here it is: Day 2, we get a late start to the day thanks to a couple baby bottles of wine and a stop at the Chat Noir for a follow-up. 11am, we’re ready to hit the tour bus for an overview of the city. We pick up the 2 day hop-on hop-off for $100+, I don’t even want to do the conversion for a bus ride!
First stop, the Louvre:
The Louvre is hardcore about it's art, even the "rule" signs are art:
The Louvre is utterly impressive.. as I’ve probably said fifty times before, you just can’t put a lot of these experiences into a 256kb pic on a blog. I’m almost doing this more to trigger the feelings and memories of our journeys than to share with the rest of you what we’re seeing. I’m just not skilled enough to express or photograph the experience properly, so I apologize.
To sum up the Louvre – I think I was more in awe of the museum or building itself than the priceless art and sculptures it contains. Although, Yan Pei-Ming’s art exhibition is not to be missed if it ever comes to a museum near you. We saw Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, maybe it was the hype, it was cool to see, but not the reaction I thought I would have seeing it in person. I mean, I have a slightly more than average interest in art, I’ve read “History of Art” for fun (the leading textbook used in most every art history major’s curriculum). So I have a good appreciation for the classics; but Yan Pei-Ming’s interpretation was just a smack in the face of freshness. Enough said, check out his work if you can.
Perpsective..
Some American's that we bartered photo skills with to take pics, I think they got the better deal, is that his friggin thumb in the bottom left of the shot?? Thanks.
Inside the Louvre:
Those are all the pics of what you’ve probably seen a thousand times before. We also took the time to check out the history of the Louvre. Here are some pics of the underground, the medieval history of the Louvre:
Model of the Castle that stood in the location of the current Louvre:
Some of the ruins:
Finished as much as our feet could handle of the Louvre, back to the tour bus!
Here’s some pics from around Paris:
Here’s some pics from around Paris:
Arc de Triomphe:
La Madeleine's Paris. Supposed to have some great acoustics, no windows:
What the....... Brit Car:
Holy crap, is that my dad!? Scooters are popular in France. They are EVERYWHERE... didn't realize what a man of the world my dad was:
Notre Dame, yep, we went to Paris. Here's the proof:
Notre Dame, yep, we went to Paris. Here's the proof:
Point ZERO. This is where all distances to Paris are measured from.
La Bastille!
Back to the museums, we visited Musee D’Orsay the last day of our trip. There just isn’t enough time or scar tissue on the bottom of my feet to appreciate all that Paris has to offer. Great exhibits, from Roman sculptures to impressionist paintings, to da Vinci, to once again the structure itself.. Here’s a pic from the top floor of the Musee D’Orsay:
Finally, we got a tip from someone Ashley knows that has spent a lot of time in Paris. We skipped the huge lines to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower (feeling a little regret, but hopefully we’ll go back), instead we went to the top of Tour Montparnasse. As I said, Paris does not have a lot of tall buildings, but Montparnasse is one of the few, it’s 56 stories tall. You can go to the roof and get a 360 degree view of all of Paris, truly one of the best tips we’ve been given. Have a look at some of the pics from that experience and I think you’ll agree:
Just before sunset...
The Eiffel tower at Sunset:
La Bastille!
Back to the museums, we visited Musee D’Orsay the last day of our trip. There just isn’t enough time or scar tissue on the bottom of my feet to appreciate all that Paris has to offer. Great exhibits, from Roman sculptures to impressionist paintings, to da Vinci, to once again the structure itself.. Here’s a pic from the top floor of the Musee D’Orsay:
Finally, we got a tip from someone Ashley knows that has spent a lot of time in Paris. We skipped the huge lines to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower (feeling a little regret, but hopefully we’ll go back), instead we went to the top of Tour Montparnasse. As I said, Paris does not have a lot of tall buildings, but Montparnasse is one of the few, it’s 56 stories tall. You can go to the roof and get a 360 degree view of all of Paris, truly one of the best tips we’ve been given. Have a look at some of the pics from that experience and I think you’ll agree:
Just before sunset...
The Eiffel tower at Sunset:
Les Invalides!
The Tower sparkles on the hour with thousands of bulbs...
Unfortunately I injured my ankle weeks ago on a previous weekend trip, around the Stratford-Upon-Avon timeframe. Ashley wears her pedometer all the time – we’ve averaged 20+ miles a weekend walking. My ankle cut our trip a couple hours short in Paris as we haven’t exactly been sitting around to give it time to heal. I held out until it got to the point where I doubted I would be able to make it to our airplane without high-jacking a Rascal (scooter old people ride). :) I can’t begin to tell you the immense pain I was in, three steps and I had to stop.. it got bad! According to Ashley we still pulled off about 15 miles that day alone !!
Naturally, we took a lot more pics than we’ve posted. But Paris is a city that filled the appetite from many aspects and left you wanting more: aesthetically with it’s architecture and layout, visually with it’s unending supply of art/museums, culturally with it’s lackadaisical side street café’s and way of life, culinarily with it’s selection of restaurants that produce some of the best food we’ve had in months.. time and the beating your body takes trying to absorb everything it offers is the only limitation. Worth the pain.
Oh yeah, and they still serve beer at Mcd’s !
Unfortunately I injured my ankle weeks ago on a previous weekend trip, around the Stratford-Upon-Avon timeframe. Ashley wears her pedometer all the time – we’ve averaged 20+ miles a weekend walking. My ankle cut our trip a couple hours short in Paris as we haven’t exactly been sitting around to give it time to heal. I held out until it got to the point where I doubted I would be able to make it to our airplane without high-jacking a Rascal (scooter old people ride). :) I can’t begin to tell you the immense pain I was in, three steps and I had to stop.. it got bad! According to Ashley we still pulled off about 15 miles that day alone !!
Naturally, we took a lot more pics than we’ve posted. But Paris is a city that filled the appetite from many aspects and left you wanting more: aesthetically with it’s architecture and layout, visually with it’s unending supply of art/museums, culturally with it’s lackadaisical side street café’s and way of life, culinarily with it’s selection of restaurants that produce some of the best food we’ve had in months.. time and the beating your body takes trying to absorb everything it offers is the only limitation. Worth the pain.
Oh yeah, and they still serve beer at Mcd’s !
Paris in a nutshell. We went to St Albans & Windsor Castle this past weekend, maybe I'll have something posted up before the weekend. We'll see...
Sounds cool. Put up more pics of restaurants, meals, drinks, cars and people.
ReplyDeleteAny more updates from this w/e?
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