Changing Places

Well, obviously the Mona Lisa, the Venus de Milo and Winged Victory are the most famous ladies of the Musee de Louvre.  They weren’t the ones I enjoyed the most, though. The Mona Lisa is very difficult to even get close to, with the crowds, and poor Winged Victory stands in the hall with people rushing by her everywhere. Poor Venus is damaged, of course, as is the Winged Victory, and that limits their enjoyment a bit for me. I cringe at the very thought of anyone damaging such magnificence, or letting it deteriotate due to age and neglect. It makes me sad, even understanding how ancient they are.

The ladies I enjoyed much more were those of the gardens, the lesser known works, and the gorgeous, stunning nude sculptures that are just about everywhere. This one had so much power and energy, I just had to copy her pose.

Grace, elegance and beauty, and with dogs, too!  The hound under her leg on the back was a nice touch.

The ladies who were painting, copying the masterpieces of the Louvre, were intriguing, too.

The Louvre is an exhausting place to visit — we were glad to go on a day when it was open late into the evening, and took a break mid-day to stroll the jardin de Tuileries and get sorbet:

visit the Musee de l’Orangerie, and wander some nearby streets looking at the haute couture shops, visiting Pierre Hermes and Michel Cluizel and just enjoying the beautiful day. Even so, we were quite worn out trying to take in as much as we could.

Many more Louvre and Musee de l’Orangerie photos are here.

Oh, and the Paris Museum Pass is the way to go here — skip all the lines for tickets and walk right in. With the two-day pass we skipped the lines the next day at the Musee d’Orsay and Musee Rodin too!

Nothing really says you’re in Paris like a view of the Eiffel Tower. It appears in your sights all over the city — I took a lot of pictures with it popping up in various places throughout the city. But your first view should be, well, spectacular. So, we waited until the first evening we were there (after hubby took a brief nap, in fact) and then took the Metro over to the Trocadero. That way you come up on the tower from around the side of the large exhibit buildings and suddenly there it is, all magnificent. Especially in the last light of the day, in that full on Paris evening blue sky.

It’s tough to take any shot of the Eiffel Tower that hasn’t been taken before. It is such a classic image. But still fun to see what you actually capture of it. We decided not to go up the tower — crowds were large and lines were long and we were very tired after a long travel day and sightseeing already. So we just walked around and enjoyed the views and the crowds, more observing the tourists than being one. I have an aversion to doing touristy things anyway, and the hawkers of small junk were particularly obnoxious here, shoving their wares in your face, which greatly annoyed me. So we got out of the immediate tower area pretty quickly, walking on down the Champ de Mars and enjoying the crowds. It seemed a lot of the younger crowd was hanging out here, drinking and playing soccer and waiting for the tower to go into “glitter mode”, as we called it, where twinkling lights on the Tower send everyone into seizures for the first five minutes at the top of every hour at night, which set everyone to cheering and singing. They were a happy crowd.

After that, we stumbled on through the streets to find a metro stop to take us back to the hotel and crash for the night.

Apparently we took our usual great weather to Paris and it decided to stay there — I haven’t seen the sun since we got home and I’m freezing… we only had one day of drizzle in our entire stay in Paris and several very warm days.

On the plus side, we’ll be in Scottsdale next weekend for a wedding — I’m sure there will be sun there and we can warm up again!

UPDATE: Of course, since I complained, the sun is now out. Yay.

“Fountain of the Observatory”, also known as the “Fontaine des Quatre-du-Parties-World” or the “Carpeaux Fountain”, for its sculptures by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux . It was installed as part of the development of the Avenue de l’Observatoire by Gabriel Davioud in 1867.

After we got our Berthillon glaces at the lovely little cafe, we walked on up the boulevard towards the Jardin du Luxembourg. The Fountain is the first thing you see as you enter the garden from the south. The sculptures are magnificent, as are so many of the sculptures around the city — one of the things that I found most beautiful in Paris, with so much art everywhere.

In the large garden itself, there are so many people playing, lounging, walking, playing tennis, children on the playground equipment, walking, eating, shooting wedding photos, or riding bikes with dogs in their baskets. We met this ex-pat with his dog “Yoyo’”, I kept calling the dog Toto for obvious reasons.

This was the couple having their wedding photos done. The ex-pat and I and several others were also taking their picture as well as their photographer.

So this was just the start of our first afternoon in Paris — wandering around this beautiful garden, seeing how the real Parisians live their lives and enjoying it the way they do. Paris is full of these wonderful parks, this one being the biggest and one of the most beautiful. There are more Jardin de Luxembourg photos in the gallery pages.