We had planned on going to Versailles this morning and then later going to the Louvre. But Wes had barely slept last night and finally took what he thought was plain Tylenol around 3 a.m. What he actually took was a couple of Tylenol PM. These combined with little sleep really hit him hard. He was so wiped out and groggy he couldn’t do another day. So we skipped Versailles as none of us got up as early as planned to take the hour long trip there. And we figured another hour back we would really be cutting the time close to do the Louvre.
So instead Mia, Thierry and I went through the cemetery in Montparneseas we walked to the Catacombs.
We went through a market place that was set up the next block over from our hotel. The outside markets are very popular here as most people like to shop there for their fresh foods.
The Catacombs were only about a 30 minute walk from the hotel and there was not much of a wait to go in. There were more stairs to get to the underground tunnels which go throughout Paris. Here we saw areas where the bones go as far back as 90 feet. They had emptied cemeteries as they became so overcrowded they had nowhere to bury the dead, especially during epidemics, plagues and wars. So they brought the people (they don’t call them bones) into the Catacombs and for whatever reason they didn’t just stack them up but made very creative designs with them. There were hearts and all types of geometric designs. It is very eerie but fascinating at the same time. We could take our time as we walked through but they allowed no tripods or flashes. The guard that went along with us would shine his flashlight on areas to help illuminate it. The walls of bones just go on and on.
We headed back to the hotel around lunch time to see if Wes was going to be able to join us for the rest of the day. But he was still asleep and decided to stay in. I got him a sandwich from a small deli and did it all by myself. Most people here know a bit of English but it’s still hard to explain what you want. Wes got a real nice, dry turkey sandwich on that nice French hard bread. They just don’t do condiments here. And Mia, Thierry & I went to this Korean restaurant just down the street and had a BBQ lunch which was a do it yourself at your table. This was really fun as I even used chopsticks to take meat off grille as it cooked. We had an egg flower soup, rice, vegetables and the meat we cooked and it was all delicious.
After lunch we went to the Louvre and while we were inside it rained outside and even had some lightning. This is one gigantic building with some of the hugest paintings you could ever imagine.
And then you see the Mona Lisa which is surprisingly small. And besides being behind protective glass with guards all around it there is a roped off area that in front of the painting is about 15 feet back. The rope angles closer along the sides but the angle is not good for photos, lucky for my long lens with image stabilization.
Everywhere you look here is breath-taking, even the ceilings have frescoes and elaborate arches and gold trim.
We saw the Winged Victory and Venus De Milo besides many other famous paintings.
Gorgeous, gorgeous stuff.
And there are many different wings dedicated to different European and African art. We saw some beautiful old art from ancient Egypt and one area had Greek sculptures.
There was one very strange art object that we saw that was surprising. It was painting on a wall with a mannequin leaning his head against the wall with a pool of blood at his feet. It was disturbing which I’m sure it was meant to be as at first it didn’t look like an art object. But instead a man leaning into the picture and bleeding all over the place. Weird.
We made our way to their cafe area that was like a food pavilion at our shopping malls where we had dinner. Nothing fancy but a lot of food. I had lasagna and couldn’t believe how much I got. It was gigantic.
Then we were off to the Eiffel tower to see it at night. I was hoping to be able to take some pictures of it as the sparkling began. And we got there just in time, man is it every fabulous. The sparkling lights last for ten minutes at the top of each hour up until 1am. Then the rain began again. We were across the river from the tower so we hustled to get underneath for some protection from the rain. I took a few shots from underneath before we headed back to the hotel.
All in all, even with the rain at the end of the day it was another great day in Paris.
No comments:
Post a Comment