France 2008: 4 days in Paris

Our first 4 days in Paris have been a whirlwind of sightseeing. Monday we went up in the Arc d'Triomphe and took a stroll down the Champ d'Elysee, finishing up with an evening/nighttime trip up the Eiffel Tower. The dusk light really showed off the beauty of Paris.

Tuesday we went up to the top of Notre Dame to check out gargoyles and hang around Quasimodo's haunts. A few hundred winding steps to the top later, we were rewarded by gargoyles up close, and the view of Ile de Cite and the rest of Paris. If you imagine those gargoyles, at night, during a rain and lightning storm, spewing water from their mouths, it's pretty easy to figure out what an intimidating presence they were for the peasants. After returning to the ground, we happened into Notre Dame as they were doing their noon mass and got to experience the amazing acoustics of the singing and organ in that space.

After lunch, we went to Saint Chapelle, a church built to house the supposed Crown of Thorns, which the king purchased after a crusade. The commoners had a rather ordinary space downstairs in which to worship, but upstairs was awash in stained glass - over a thousand scenes rendered in large sheets of colored glass, which was unexpectedly spectacular.

Sophie, Pete and Marie hit the Musee d'Armie on the way home, a variety of artifacts from WW I and II, interesting also as it had the French skew on things of course. Mainly, that everything has been pretty much downhill since Napoleon militarily for the French.

Wednesday we did the art thing - the Orsay in the morning, and the Louvre in the afternoon. The Orsay was a little crowded, but the experience of seeing so many of the great impressionist paintings, was amazing. To see 5 of Monet's cathedral paints in a row let one really appreciate what he was doing in playing with light. We hit the high spots of the Louvre - the Venus de Milo, Winged Victory, Mona Lisa along hitting the major Italian (DaVinci, Raphael, Cimbue, Giotto) and French (Delacroix et.al.) works. The Louvre is just ridiculously large - one could live there and it would take months to see everything.

Thursday, Trish and Noelle took it easy, while Marie, Sophie and Pete returned to the Musee d'Armie to check out more of the suits of armor, and Napoleon's tomb. We followed that with a visit to the Rodin musuem, where we saw among other works, The Thinker. The garden of that museum was wonderfully peaceful - filled with trees, grass, flowers, fountains, and scattered amongst all of it the twisting, muscular sculptures of Rodin.

So, we've been doing a lot here. Enjoying too much good food, including the boulangerie (pastry shops) in the mornings. The weather has been nice, but a wee bit on the chilly side (high 60s and spits of rain almost every day). The days are *long* - sunrise happens I don't know when (6ish?) and there is still enough light to see well at 10:15 at night.

In the next couple of days we're off to Versailles and then some more wandering about town, and then Sunday we pick up the car and drive off to Normandy.