Sunday, May 18, 2008

Paris, Finally

Yeah, I know. I KNOW. I've been home from Paris nearly a month now. Sorry dudes, life majorly got in the way. But now, I have finally downloaded all the pics from my camera (though there are a few on my camera that I need to grab too) and they are in my Paris album on Flickr now. All 259 of them from my camera (plus the 4 I emailed from my phone). Man did that take a while to upload!

So I really need to give highlights of my trip, I'd be here for hours typing if I went into much detail!

So we landed in Paris on April 16th. We went to our hotel, I showered and changed, and we proceeded to walk to the Arc de Triomphe from our hotel.


(I think it was day 3 before my mil dared to brave the Metro. Ugh.) We didn't do a whole lot, we were crazy tired from the trip and basically we ate lunch and dinner and walked a lot and went to bed.

Day two was back to the Arc de Triomphe (this time we took the bus, woo)

and the Champs Elysee, then to the Eiffel Tower (yes, we walked),

then onto the Batobus boat tour down the Seine (thank god, no walking),

then to Notre Dame (beautiful but walking involved)

and back onto the Batobus before a taxi ride back to our hotel for dinner.

Day three was the Louvre. Wow. The Louvre.

I don't have nearly enough photos of this place. My stupid self didn't think to check and make sure my battery was actually charged before going there so I didn't take as many pictures of the museum as I wanted to. Thank goodness I was able to take a picture of this statue:

This one I want to remember always. This is Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss. It took my breath away. I love everything about it, and normally I'm not a huge sculpture fan. Not anymore. This was simply amazing. (I wish I had snapped some photos in the Louvre of the Napoleon III Apartments, these were beyond ostentatious to say the least.) I got a pic of the Lacemaker painting and Madonna of the Rocks (yes, I got all Da Vinci code geeky).

Of course, I saw the Mona Lisa (as I said to my mil, you don't go to the Louvre and NOT see the Mona Lisa):

I was in the Louvre the entire day (most of it by myself, hooray), and I loved every walking minute of it. I would give anything to go again!

Day four was a bus tour aboard the Open Tour line(I think that was the name of it, I'm lazy and don't want to look this up atm, and I didn't take a picture of it but I took plenty aboard it) and Sacre Coeur:

Day 5 (Sunday) started off with the Rodin museum (this was about the only time we had to break out our umbrellas, we really lucked out with the weather):


(I look annoyed here because I was amazed at the lack of knowledge by my mil that cameras can be turned sideways to include tall objects in a photo. And that shoes are not a requirement to be included in all photos.)

It was interesting, but I'm not an art aficionado by any means and it wasn't as moving for me as the Louvre was. Interesting, but not as breath taking for me.

We also saw Musee de Cluny, the medieval art museum:

(This was outside the entrance to the museum. There wasn't really an easy way to take a photo of the front of the museum that would have been recognizable.)


I don't recall why I took this picture of Jesus on a donkey. It amused us at the time. It's sort of campy compared to how he's represented most of the time. I was probably delirious from the 5th day of thousands of miles walked in Paris. Who knows. Anyways, the most interesting artwork for me in the museum was the tapestries of the Lady and the Unicorn. Beautiful art and very amazing for all 6 tapestries to still be together (the 6th is not in that photo as it is on a wall behind the curved one.

Day 6 was our final day in Paris and I spent it alone shopping. (woot!) I hit up some street merchants and got some fabric for the OCK as a birthday present as well as some trinkets for the people at work in my department. I hit up Le Bon Marche's craft department on the third floor (yes! crafts! in a department store! I was so amused. It was fantastic, though I did not have the nerve to Kinnear any photos. Ah well. It was a lovely selection of beads and buttons and fabric and yarn and stitchery kits and quilting supplies oh my!)

And I made my way to La Droguerie. Dude. I died and went to heaven here. I have only the front of the store to show right now as the rest of my photos are on my phone. I'll have to upload them and tell you more about La Droguerie.

Besides having the cutest store front, it is an AMAZING store inside. I totally Kinneared the interior photos. And it shows. But I have photographic evidence of the cutest and most wonderful yarn store. And that is good.

I had such a great time in Paris. What an amazing city. Around every corner there was something amazing, whether it was a lamp post:

a bridge:


a garden:

a fountain:
There was so much beauty to be had. I had a fantastic time and I sincerely hope I can go again some day. Preferably sooner rather than later.

Oh, I nearly forgot to mention that my Paris socks I knit for my mil actually made it to Paris. I took this photo as we sat in the garden that is behind Notre Dame:


Sorry for the image heavy post! I hope you enjoy a peek into my trip. More photos are here on Flickr. As I have time, I'll edit them to have descriptions.

5 comments:

smariek said...

It's been aeons since I went to Paris. Seeing all your beautiful photos makes me want to go again. I loved the Metro, it was so efficient for getting around, however when I went it didn't seem very friendly for the disabled. Perhaps we take these things for granted living in the US (sidewalk ramps at street corners, elevators, etc). Of course I understand the Metro is a very old system from 1900 and it would be a challenge to update it.

Cindy/Snid said...

Sounds like an amazing trip. thank you SO much for sharing all of your photos. I will have to make time to look at all of the Flickr ones. I need to get to France of these days...

Abigail said...

I meant to tell you my Louvre story when you were talking about Paris. I went to Paris with a trip from my high school and I got separated from everyone else in the Louvre with one other person so we basically ran through looking for everyone and the other person would randomly point and say, "hey, the Mona Lisa!" or something. So yeah, I didn't really get to see it. :)

I should go back.

Margit Sage said...

Looks like an amazing trip!

Kalli said...

Wow! looks like you had an amazing time and got to see a bunch of stuff!