The next day we woke up to some bad weather, so we decided it would be a good chance to see some museums. We planned to see the Musee d'Orsay in the morning, and the Musee du Louvre in the afternoon.
We were quite impressed by the Musee d'Orsay when we arrived. It was housed in an original train station from the 1900s. It houses France's national collection of sculptures, paintings and other art pieces produced between 1840 and 1914. There is quite an amazing collection of impressionist, post-impressionist and art nouveau pieces.
We hired audio guides, and spent the next 4 hours devouring each piece in detail. Loren was in heaven here amongst so many incredible paintings by so many of the greatest artists in history. There were paintings by Monet, Renoir, Picasso, Sisley, Degas, Manet, Gauguin, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Matisse. Incredible!
The impressionist painting were among our favorites, and there were just so many to choose from. We saw so many famous paintings that we had only seen in books. It was very exciting for us.
We both really enjoyed looking at portraits that various artists painted. It's interesting to see how many variations in style portraits can have. Some of the most realistic were our favorites, but also some that don't look realistic in terms of photographic likeness, but were just so incredible in the way they captured the person. Some of Van Gogh's portraits really stood out in this way, including his self portraits. Artur's favorite artist was Toulouse Cotrec who was painting portraits of prostitutes.
One of Artur's favorite exhibits was on the Opera House. It was a full section displaying models of the Opera House, with cross sections so you could see the different rooms inside. It was so beautiful, we wished we had been able to see the inside. There was also a model of the Opera House beneath the floor, and you could see it through glass.
We spent much more time than we had anticipated at the Musee d'Orsay, and by the time we left, we didn't really feel like seeing the Louvre. We sat outside and had some lunch, and fed the pigeons. We decided to leave the Louvre for the next day, even though we were leaving that day. We would try to visit in the morning, and leave in the afternoon.
We wanted to avoid the queues at the Louvre the next day, so we went to try and buy the tickets today. We couldn't figure out how to get inside the glass pyramid though. We knew we could buy tickets inside, but there was a huge line outside the glass pyramid. We knew you could enter from elsewhere, but we couldn't find the entrance. We gave up eventually, and decided to buy them online instead.Notre Dame Cathedral and Ile de la Cite
Next we decided to see the Notre Dame Cathedral. We walked from the beautiful Hotel du Ville, to the Ile de la Cite. This island is where Notre Dame is located, and it was site of the first settlement in Paris, around the 3rd century BC.
Unfortunately, the church closed just before we go there. We just had to make do with admiring it from the outside. There were some park benches facing the churcch, so we sat down and studied the church. It was quite pretty, and it looked quite a lot like the replica that we saw in Vietnam. Artur stared longingly at the towers, wishing we had been able to climb them.
Notre Dame was built on the site of a former church, and a thousand years before that, there was a Roman temple. It was completed in the 14th century, and it had some famous portals with very colourful statues. The statues were used to teach Old Testament stories to the illiterate. It was the Bible for the poor people. Amazingly enough, the distance from Paris to all other cities in France is measured from the square in front of Notre Dame.
After seeing the church, we wandered around the island. We came to the very end of it, and found the famous Pont Neuf. This bridge is in every romantic film set in Paris. Loren recognized it straight away. It seems to be where everyone meets and kisses in the films. We made the most of being in one of the most romantic places in the world.Centre Pompidou
Next we headed across the bridge, to find the Centre Pompidou. It was just as modern and unusual looking as it was in the pictures. It is built in the middle of a square with old traditional Parisienne houses, so it stands out quite obviously.
The Centre Pompidou was one of the first buildings to have its insides displayed on the outside. The staircases are built on the ouside of the building, and have transparent walls, like most of the building. The building houses modern art exhibitions, and at the time we were there, they had an exhibit on architecture. Artur was interested in seeing it, but we were starving, and not prepared to give up our meal for two hours in a museum. We could have come back, but we probably would have only had an hour or less.
Out the front of the Centre Pompidou, there was a big crowd of people singing. At first we thought it was a church group, but then we realised that it was a gathering for Peace in Georgia. Georgia had just been engaged in war by Russia, after some strategic manipulation on Russia's part, to take over some of their land. People were gathering and singing Georgian songs, and calling for peace.
We left to find somewhere to fill our hungry bellies, and we settiled on one of the many restaurants offering set menus. It was a really nice place with lots of outdoor seating. We sat in the inside terrace, which had glass walls. Unfortunately, our table was buried behind several tightly packed tables, so it was hard to access a waiter, or for food to be brought to our table. It was a great dinner though, and we felt much better.
Trocadero
After dinner, we went to Trocadero, to see the Tour Eiffel by night. We were entranced from the moment we saw it. The whole tower was lit up in blue lights, then suddenly the lights started to flash and twinkle like glitter. It was so pretty, and the colours kept changing while it glittered.
We found somewhere on the steps to sit and admire the display. We were very lucky to arrive as the lights started, because it only happens every hour or half an hour. Loren was much more excited by the Eiffel Tower this time around, because it looked so much less like a radio tower. It was sparkly and colourful, which made the structure look so much more magical.
On the other side of the steps at Trocadero, there were huge groups of people gathered around a team of breakdancers. The show was great and funny, and the tricks were spectacular. We had a great view from above. Soon we decided to head home. We were fairly exhausted from another long day of sightseeing, and we had another long day ahead of us. So we headed back to the tent, and collapsed.
Musee du Louvre
The next morning, we scraped ourselves off the mattress for a half day of sightseeing, and a long day of travel to Amsterdam. We had tickets booked online for the Louvre, so we packed up our things and drove to the metro station.
First we had to pick up our ticket from Fnac, the major french bookstore. We took the metro there, and then struggled to find someone willing to serve us. Everyone that we approached told us to go to another desk. Eventually we ended up back at the first desk and demanded that someone serve us. Finally we got our tickets, and raced off to the Louvre.
The Louvre building in an enormous U-shaped building, with a big courtyard filled with the glass pyramids, and an underground world beneath. It used to be a Palace, and was built like a fortress. A good place to store the prize art pieces in France.
When we were here before, searching for the entrance to the carrousel, we admired the glass pyramids, and the fountains all around them. There was another huge arch opposite the Louvre as well. This time we entered the Louvre via the metro. We arrived underground, and found the huge underground shopping centre, restaurant complex, and welcome area for the Musee du Louvre.
We discovered to our frustration, that tickets were being sold from machines around the welcome area. We had read that this was the case, but we didn't know if it was still in practice, or how to get inside. Consequently we wasted a lot of time buying it online.
We headed straight for the entrance, dropped off our bag and studied the map. The Musee du Louvre is like a city, so we had to choose the best places to visit in the short time we had. We had only 3 hours, so we made a game plan and then tackled the huge museum.
The first place we headed was the place that displayed Davinci's famous 'Mona Lisa'. We figured we'd get the must sees out of the way first, and then continue on to see the other exhibits. There were a lot of amazing paintings to see in that section, so we took our time admiring them all.
Eventually, we made it to the big room dedicated to the tiny picture of Mona Lisa. The crowds in the room were ridiculous. Everyone was squashed around the painting, trying to see it from a distance. There was a metal barrier marking off a distance around the painting, but they had put another rope barrier even further away. So even when you made it to the barrier, you couldn't see much.
It was a bit disappointing really. It was hard to see anything more than you would have already seen in photos. The barriers kept you from seeing the important and interesting details and brushstrokes. As a result, we weren't all that thriilled by the painting. We have no doubt that it's a great painting, but we couldn't tell you anything about it that you wouldn't know from seeing a print coopy of it.
Next we went to see the famous 'Venus de Milo' statue. It was in a big section of Greek and Roman sculpture. It was a beautiful Greek sculpture of a lady, and by this point, her arms were missing. The crowds in front of this one made it hard to take photos Thankfully, the size of the sculpture meant we didn't have any trouble seeing it though.
We had a look at the other sculptures in this exhibit, and we found another famous one of a discus thrower. It was probably from the same genre of statues that the Apoxiomen statue in Split was from. The statue depicted the discus thrower in mid-throw or swing, and he was probably an olympic athlete.
Egyptian Exhibit
Now that we had seen the the two most famous exhibits of the musuem, we went searching for the others that interested us. We wanted to see a collection of paintings that was on display on another floor, but the elevator wouldn't take us to that level. We figured out eventuallly, that the exhibit is closed on the day that we came. This was unfortunate, so we missed out on that one.
Loren was interested in seeing the collection of Egyptian artifacts that were on display. We found our way there, and saw lots of amazing pieces. There were several mummies, and lots of coffins. There was even one room full of coffins standing on one end. They were all of various sizes, and some of them were made to fit inside each other, like a Russian doll.
There was one room with a huge sphinx sarcophagus on display. It looked like it was all made of stone. There were lots of displays of tiny sculptures and much larger ones of gods. We found some of the small ones of animals very cute.
There were slabs of hieroglyphics on display, which were very interesting. There was even a transplanted room, with walls coveredin hieroglyphics. The stone walls of the room were rebuilt inside the museum, and you had to line up to get inside, as it was pretty tiny in there.
We struggled to find our way out of the Egyptian section of the museum. There were signs leading to the exit, but they seemed to lead in circles and continue forever. The only way you can get out, is by the way you came, and inside the Louvre, that means a very long walk back. We eventually found our way out, after a bit of frustration.We decided to have lunch inside the restaurant foodcourt inside the shopping complex. We found a place selling french food, so we ordered the menu of the day. The food wasn't amazing, but it was what we needed. The desert however, was spectacular. It was like a little chocolate souffle with melted chocolate inside.
To see the photos from the post in slideshow mode, click on on the link below:
Paris pictures
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