I was going to say that waking up and only having to get myself ready felt very strange, but truthfully, I’m not much of a morning person so I usually holler “everyone get dressed!” as I head to the shower and then, “Can someone put some clothes on Camille?!” as I rummage around for something to wear. The boys are so good at finding her shoes or making sure she puts her t-shirt on the right way that I don’t have to do much of anything before we leave the house except find my car keys. So it was a pretty typical morning for me — until we headed downstairs to breakfast and ate a feast of chocolate croissants, cheese, cold cuts, yogurt/fruit, coffee . . . the breakfast of champions.
First we headed to the Eiffel Tower — only a few blocks away from our hotel
Coming around the corner was like seeing the pyramids in Egypt for the first time. It was so much larger than I expected.
Everyone stopped for photos
Waiting to climb the stairs to the first level. The lines for the elevator are long and the wait can be hours, but by taking the stairs we waited less than 20 minutes to get our tickets and head up. The one leg in the background gives you an idea of how expansive the structure is. It’s not only tall, but wide.
Amy has a fear of heights, but she bravely made it up all 360 stairs. Almost there!
Wow.
View of the river Seine.
We walked around the first level and took plenty of pictures and picked out various landmarks that we were planning to visit later. We then decided that since 1/2 of our group did not do heights, that we wouldn’t torture them any further and would head back down. Besides, I need to save something new for my next trip, right?
The grounds around the ET are beautifully groomed and the cherry trees were starting to bloom. We all wore jackets and scarves in anticipation of cold weather, but it was a beautiful day. Notice my Eiffel Tower section in My Favorite Things scarf? Now it really is one of my favorite things.
From life to death. A few metro stops away are the catacombs where 6 million human remains are stored. Yes, they are real human bones. They are all stacked like wood with like bones together. I was disappointed in my Anatomy recall that I couldn’t say whether these were tibias or femurs or ulnas — back in the day I could have named every curve and crevice of all of the different bones.
The tunnels were formed from rock mining and then when there was an outbreak of disease from improper/overflow burial of dead bodies, they used the tunnels as storage for old bones. It took 30 years to transfer them all. They are stacked 6 feet high, on both sides and it goes on and on and on.
The laborers stacked like bones together and then interspersed the skulls to create designs. I saw hearts, arches, circles and crosses. I wonder if they were bored down there with the repetitive stacking of bones and got creative to keep things interesting?
After the dead things we went to view some beautiful things at the Orangerie museum.
It’s fantastic how you can see the Eiffel tower from so many different places in Paris.
 |
| photo from Google images |
The reason this museum is worth a visit is because it has 8 huge canvases featuring Monet’s water lilies.
Policemen on horseback on our way to the Louve
The gardens are beautiful even in winter. There were kids (and adults) with radio controlled boats on the pond.
We realized it was almost 4pm and we hadn’t eaten all day — too busy feasting with our eyes, I guess.
(A crepe with goat cheese, walnuts, apples and honey. Mmmm, Paris.)
Our last stop of the day was to tackle the Louve. I read somewhere that if you spent just 10 seconds per piece, it would still take a year to see everything on display. I overheard a guy in line say it takes a month’s worth of 8 hour days to see it all. A few websites said it takes all day just to walk the hallways of the Louve without stopping to look at anything. All that to say it’s enormous.
We visited on a Friday night when it stays open late to beat the crowds. There were still plenty of people in the museum, but no lines to get in and we were actually able to get up close to the Mona Lisa without effort.
A friend went during the fall and said she could barely get into the (palatial sized) room to view it. She had to settle with holding her camera over her head and snapping a photo over the masses’ heads.
We only went to one floor of one wing, but that was enough for me at the end of a long day. Near the Mona Lisa were several of the ancient triptychs (the paintings on wood that were the early forms of Christian art) and tons of Renaissance Biblical art. Mary and baby Jesus, the disciples and Jesus, Jesus crucified . . .
Instead of being awed by them, I was surprisingly annoyed. I went through a semester of art history gazing at slides of these same works, learning about the artists and their techniques and was thoroughly impressed. But this time, all I could see as I looked at every single one of those paintings is someone who didn’t look like Jesus. A woman who bore no resemblance to Mary. Disciples in lavish robes with gold trim. Very, very, very white cherubic baby Jesus’. Jesus was more likely a scrawny, black haired, dark eyed baby like the adorable ones I see every day and Mary was far from a European goddess with cleavage.
I know these famous artists only painted what they knew, but instead of being moved, I was distracted. “Fake, fake . . . right, like Mary had blue eyes and blonde hair . . . fake . . . love those Greco/Roman style pillars in “Jerusalem” . . . sure, Jesus would have sat on huge expanses of green grass . . .” It sounds cynical, but I was looking for Jesus, and not seeing him at all.
I thought maybe I was being too critical until I met up with the other women in my party and a few of them had had a similar reaction. Something about living in the Middle East has changed us and our perspective on biblical history to where it seems natural that we would see a Jewish Jesus instead of a European one.
The Louve is a huge, U-shaped building. I’m on one leg of the U, looking across to the other. I can’t imagine how anyone could cover all of it in any length of time.
Since she was nearby, we stopped at the Venus de Milo on the way out. She isn’t any more beautiful than the thousands of other sculptures on exhibit, but she’s famous because no one knows who created her — she was found on an island and was the only piece of it’s kind.
My friends, who are better mothers than I am, brought “flat children” with them and took photos at each of the famous sites so their kids could say they were there too. Sorry kids, this trip was all for me!
The museum not only houses beautiful works of art, it is a beautiful work of art. These paintings and carvings are on the ceiling.
We ended up at the famous pyramid out front. We were so tired we passed on dinner and ate cheese and baguettes in our hotel room before calling it a night.