Paris-Day 3

Note to Olivia: You realize that you are pretty much the sole reason that I will force myself to maintain the narrative section of this blog as opposed to just uploading pictures. I haven't told anyone besides you and Mel about it and she already knows almost all of the day to day updates, so consider yourself special ;D


Note to Mel: I hope this isn't painfully redundant for you, but I thought you'd like the pictures :)


Ok, so, on Day 3 we took the San Francisco style uphill hike to Montmartre-or, the region of cool stair photos. Note: I have no clue how anyone would actually get a photo like this for real-there are a billion people all over the stairs at all times, so you'd have to be one really patient little bugger. I guess the fact that it was taken basically 100 years ago would have helped.

Either way, it was pretty impossible to get a decent shot of the stairs-point and shoots + a million people + parents who are sightseeing happy doesn't lend itself well to staking out a good shot. So, this is the 21st century equivalent-I call it "The Steps of Montmartre as Seen While Waiting in Line for the Restroom":

Steps aside, the first port of call in Montmartre was to see Sacre Coeur, another really old church. But, this old church has a bit of significance besides being a really old church (insert anecdote for Olivia): Mel's high school is called Sacre Coeur and was started by a nun (I think?) who came from this Sacre Coeur and decided to start a school branch in Melbourne! On a more literary note, it's also where Madeline went :D (Mel-was your uniform the same as hers? If so, I want a photo :D)

So, here are some photos of Sacre Coeur-the Paris version! (A bunch of photos follow, as per Mel's request):

After Sacre Coeur, we went to the Montmartre Museum. A lot of the salon culture in Paris originated in Montmartre, so the museum had a lot of the old salon posters and such, including the ORIGINAL Chat Noir poster! :D

The building itself was an old arts house where a lot of resident artists used to live and work during the time. It was pretty and peaceful.

There was also this pond in the back with a duck. Dad spent about 5 minutes taking pictures of the "duck." I had to break the news to him that it wasn't real.

I didn't get to take many shots of the architecture in Montmartre, but it was a BEAUTIFUL area-it had a bit of a Greenwich Village vibe to it.

After Montmartre, we went to Marais. It's meant to be the "hip" section, but it was kind of lost on me-I found it a bit touristy and a bit boring lol! So, not many photos from that section. There was, however, a really pretty ivy covered building:

After Marais, mom and I headed off for the Louvre. We went about two hours before it closed, so that was a bit daring given that it's about the size of a small city. I had seen the overview of it a few years back and was just wanting to see a few specific works, so we figured it wouldn't be THAT traumatic. Turned out that they had closed off one of the sections I wanted to see-seriously, how can you close the ENTIRE PRE-CLASSICAL SCULPTURE SECTION?? That's like saying that the Mona Lisa has fucked off to tea and isn't around. People make entire pilgrimages to the Louvre to see that one section-BAD museum people, I say. It's not that they are bad people, but that's just VERY VERY bad behavior. (Whoever gets the movie reference gets a virtual cookie :D)

Either way, I still got to see two of my top choices-Winged Victory of Samothrace and The Raft of the Medusa. I had NO clue RotM is so large. It's MAMMOTH size. We also "saw" the Mona Lisa again, if you can even call it that-it's cordoned off about ten feet away from it and is behind bullet proof glass. The first time I went, you could press your little nose practically up against it. Now, there's hardly a point in seeing it in person besides seeing how her eyes follow you around.

After seeing these works, we wanted to try and find the Flemish paintings section. Now, the Louvre is divided into separate adjoining buildings, and the Flemish bit was in the farthest possible building from where we were. We spent about 30+ minutes finding our way to the other section such that neither of us cared by the time we got there-we decided to leave lol! One bonus: there was a really sweet view out of a hidden window in one of the hallways overlooking the Louvre courtyard area.

And that, my friends, is Paris in a nutshell.

Paris-Day 2

On the second day, my dad thought it would be a great idea to walk in the pouring rain to the Musee d'Orsay. Given how much we both like Impressionism, it's a bit of a sin that we hadn't been to this museum on our prior trip to Paris. However, by the time we got there, we were so thoroughly soaked that they almost didn't let us in! Luckily, we convinced them that would wouldn't ruin their artwork.


The Musee d'Orsay is a giant converted train station-it's kinda like if you took Grand Central Station and turned it into an art gallery. It's a stunning building-unfortunately, like most places in Paris, you weren't allowed to take photos, so I'll rely on some handy google image pics.

A lot of the Monet works had been moved to the Exhibition hall for a retrospective, but they still had some of my favorite Manet works on display:

They also had a few Tissot paintings on display that looked oddly familiar-Mel, did you show me this one once before? I feel like you did...

I also discovered a new favorite work. I have rarely seen a painting that catches my attention like this one-no photo can do it justice. The gold paint and attention to detail make it look like a still out of a movie-the light literally dances in it. It's called Une Soiree by Jean Beraud.

Here are some of the statues on the outside of the museum:

After the Musee D'Orsay, we walked down the Champ Elysees to the right bank of the river. There was a nice view of the fall trees and the Eiffel Tower.

Once we had walked down the right bank, we went to the museum with the Monet exhibition. Unfortunately, the exhibit was sold out until December. The good news was that the building was really pretty.

After our failed attempt to see the Monet exhibit, we had lunch and then wandered over to the Pantheon to see the awesome architecture and Foucault's pendulum.

The architecture inside was STUNNING. 

There was also a really cool (but creepy) crypt in the bottom that had Voltaire, Rousseau, Victor Hugo, etc.

After the Pantheon, we strolled over to the Luxembourg Gardens. All of the trees were bright yellow and kids were sailing their little boats in the pond in front of the Palace.

After the garden, it was time for dinner and bed-another long but fun filled day.