On the high speed TGV train from Geneva to Paris
On the TGV
Bryan, taking pictures of how *fast* the train was going... or trying to.
Arrival in Paris' Gare de Lyon, in the southeast part of Paris.
Gare de Lyon
Our HOTEL room! (Booked at the tourist center at Gare du Nord)
The “living room” part of the hotel room
The bedroom -- the DOUBLE BED! Blessed double bed!
How we got up to our hotel room
Sacre Coeur, from the window of our hotel room
Sacre Coeur from the hotel window
Zoomed out
We took a stroll up through Monmartre and here's Sacre Coeur!
Bryan, enjoying his first Parisian baguette with jambon et fromage (ham & cheese)
The view from Sacre Coeur of Paris -- look at that haze!
This is about as far as we wanted to get to the Moulin Rouge. (Don't walk along the sidewalk -- walk along the median in the middle of the road)
Look at that face! Eew, Bryan, what are you thinking?!
That's as big as the beer gets in Paris. Sigh.
Sacre Coeur at night from the hotel room -- this was the best shot we could manage! :(
Breakfast! Oh, joy. (Naturally, we've finished eating it. It was good.)
On Ile-de-la-Cité, this is the Palais du Justice. The steeple to the left is Saint-Chapelle, which you have to enter to the left of the gold-tipped fence, along that street.
Notre Dame!
The famous rose window, which, naturally, is near impossible to get with the sheer number of people in Notre Dame shuffling and trying to get their camcorder in your way...
The view from the bottom -- the gargoyles are the spouts, and the “chimeras” are the dudes sitting on the ledges
Waiting on line to go to the top of Notre Dame. Yay, Museum Pass!
Esmeralda's prison cell when she was granted sanctuary in the church. Yay, Victor Hugo!
The grate.
Ile-de-la-Cité from Notre Dame's first level. See the Seine?
Eiffel Tower! Hôtel des Invalides, and such...
Chimeras! (They only date from the restoration of the cathedral, initiated by Victor Hugo in the 19th century)
Saint-Chapelle's steeple
Sacre Coeur
Looking at the inner part of Notre Dame
The inner section of the cathedral
Climbing to the bell tower
Bryan by the big mama bell
Pretty neat, eh?
At the top -- the haze is pretty bright. (Bryan is also splayed back against the far wall, because he's anxious about the height)
The other tower of Notre Dame
Walking on the left bank on our way to the Musée d'Orsay
Our new hotel in Paris -- the one we reserved online
The Musée d'Orsay's famous clock in its entrance hall
Monet
Degas!
Van Gogh
The famous self-portrait
Degas' famous ballerina sculpture. Yay!
Recognize this?
The roof of the Musée d'Orsay, from which you can see the Louvre -- that building across the Seine. Yeah, it's huge. That's the end of it. It extends all the way down off to the east.
We actually saw this painting on a scaffolding cover in Florence -- ha! It's not in Florence! How misleading...
The Musée d'Orsay's main entrance, right by its métro stop
The Jardin des Tuileries, facing Place de la Concorde with its stolen Egyptian obelisk. (Place de la Concorde was where they had the guillotine set up. Hehe.)
The arch (Arc du Triomphe du Carrousel) and the Louvre behind it
The Louvre
The bottom part of the pyramid (located not under the upper pyramid but actually under the Jardin du Carrousel, near the entrance by the Arc du Triomphe du Carrousel)
Winged Victory
The Venus de Milo
The Louve itself, formerly a palace, is just as impressive as the artwork it holds.
See what I mean? That's the ceiling.
Versailles! Inside the chapel where the royalty worshipped
Joan of Arc (Jean d'Arc)
The theatre inside Versailles
The queen's bedchamber
The famous Marie-Antoinette portrait, with her kids
The famous gardens (you have to pay extra to have the privilege of walking in them)
Napoleon I
Scaffolding! BAH! (This is why there isn't a good front-facing photo of Versailles -- we'll have to go with what I took last year.)
Diana the huntress
The fountain of Neptune
The Petit Trianon
See? It's reeeeeally tiny.
The Grand Trianon's garden and front entrance
The Grand Trianon's “backyard”
Walking from the Grand Trianon to the Grand Canal
The Grand Canal and one of Versailles' gardens' many fountains
The view from the rear
Facing the other direction (I'm facing the palace, so to speak)
Windy! Tired!
WHOA! Saint-Chapelle. We weren't so good with the transitional photos, were we?
This was sooooo worth it. The photos can't even capture how gorgeous this was. And we SKIPPED THE LINE inside the courtyard because of the museum pass. The line outside is for security -- you can't skip it -- but with the museum pass you bypass the courtyard's line, which was HUGE.
Inside the gate of the Palais du Justice
Crossing to the left bank and walking down Boulevard Saint-Michel
The Jardins du Luxembourg
Palais du Luxembourg
The Panthéon
Inside the Panthéon
The replica of the famous pendulum erected in the 18th century here in this same pantheon to demonstrate the Earth's rotation by French physicist Léon Foucault. (The idea is the Earth actually is doing the rotating; the pendulum, hanging from the center of the Pantheon's famous dome, is suspended on a steel cable, and the ball is lead.)
Marie Curie's final resting place -- she's the only woman entombed in this hall dedicated to the “Grands Hommes” -- great men -- of France
Victor Hugo's grave
Alexandre Dumas
They live together! Victor and Alexandre, hangin' out...
In memory of Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Poet, romantic, aviator; disappeared during an air reconnaissance mission on 31 July 1944. (He wrote “The Little Prince”)
Bryan took this photo.
Outside of the Panthéon
Yay! Eiffel Tower!
Eiffel Tower!
Bryan's famous crazy shots (c)
Is he LOOKING at the CAMERA!? Not at ME?!
Yay, tram!
Going up the tram -- get a spot by the window!
Le deuxième étage! (The second floor)
It's 8:31pm; we started on line down below at 7pm. Argh.
8:49pm. But we're on the TOP!
They have these crazy wax replicas of the guys who built the tower in the 1880s... so weird.
The Champs de Mars, the “lawn” in front of the Eiffel Tower
That's the line. We got on at the point where it's at a right angle -- now it's extending down to the right. Yikes.
Aww. How romantic. Someone ruined the grass in the shape of a heart.
Sacre Coeur!
The Hotel des Invalides
I'm on the top part of the second floor, and Bryan's on the bottom part of the second floor. If I jumped from here, I'd splatter on the deck 10 feet below me. So don't worry!
On the stairs! Bryan was very, very tense and had to stop every landing to relax. I was hopping and making him go crazy with my disregard for the height. I like heights!
The mannequin sitting below the tram to demonstrate how it used to be from 1888 to 1899.
Sunset over the Trocadéro
The liiiine! Eew... (It's 9:34pm now -- see how bright out it still is?)
In the restaurant
In the restaurant. See the sunset?
Another mannequin
The tower! Lighting up for the evening!
Its lighting display on the hour in the evening -- it glitters!
The Picasso Museum
SCAFFOLDING!
The east end of the Louvre
Napoleon III's apartments, in the north section of the Louvre
Bryan being Napoleon
Such a cool shape...
See? Napoleon was really, really tiny... He could have fit well in the Petit Trianon.
Place de la Concorde's Obelisk
Pont Alexandre III -- Clearly, this is the Alexander Bridge.
Les Égouts de Paris! (The Sewers!)
Toilets in the sewer?
The Arc du Triomphe
Our feet are dusty, blistered, and tired. Ugh.
DISNEYLAND!
Hollywood in Paris?
SCAFFOLDING! (Hah, they're building the Hollywood Tower Hotel, aka the Tower of Terror in Paris. Hah!)
My glee at seeing a Narnia photo op.
I am the QUEEN OF NARNIA! BAHAHAHA!
“What do you want me to do to him, Bryan?!”
“I'm just going to do this.”
AVEC AEROSMITH! Ha, you know you're in Paris when those French prepositions shoot out at you...
The “set” of Dinotopia
Costumes!
A hippo-shaped bush
The “set” of Reign of Fire
A “Dragon” is hiding behind the steel
The Fantasia fountain
Lift those buckets!
“Main Street, U.S.A.? What the hell? Aren't we in Paris?”
Sleeping Beauty's castle down Main Street, U.S.A.
Yay! A parade! (And angry Disney workers in vests)
What Frontier? The French frontier? Who's out there on the frontier? Vineyard owners?
HAHAHAHA
Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum...
(That means “Sleeping Beauty”)
PRINCE PHILIP! GET MALIFICENT! USE THAT SWORD OF TRUTH!
“Go pose dramatically.”
The dragon in the basement of the palace.
SPACE MOUNTAIN!
Star Tours!
These are the destinations to which you may travel on Star Tours Airlines. Apparently.
“Hmm... I think I'll take this route to Yavin 4.”
X Wing!
The Lion King musical production!
Nala
Scar
Simba
I'm a pretty, pretty princess!
Arabian Niiiiights...
To be a size 10 again!
My knight in shining... polo shirt...
