Seine River - 4 shots
Versailles Palace - 17 shots
Versailles is so large you cannot get the entire building into the shot without being in a helicopter 1/2 mile back.
The former Palace was the building the Louvre is in today. Louis and Marie decided they wanted their own little place in the country. Not too shabby!
The Royal Family had their own cathedral. Why go to church with the common man if you can tax him to death and build your own cathedral.
The hall of Kings
Dozens and dozens of rooms dedicated to displaying the Royal Art.
Typical ceiling in the Palace.
The Hall of Mirrors
King Louis XVI's Bed. If he felt tired that day he also held court from his bed. Upper View of bed.
Lower view of bed.
Hall of Prince's. This was the main hallway leading to the Royal Prince's Quarters. The 20+ works of art depict all the famous battles fought on behalf of France.
Musee D'Orsay. Once the Paris Railway Station is now one of the most famous centers for art - especially for impressionistic artists.
If I remember correctly, this was painted by Renoir "a Sunday Afternoon in the Park."
Self portrait of Claude Monet
Van Gogh - self portrait
Anne & Lisa on the Port Royal Bridge with the Musee D'Orsay in the background right.
Venus De Milo and two local chicks.
The famous statue of "Victory" in her winged glory standing in a boat.
Former Royal Palace now known as the Musee Du Louvre. The glass pyrimide was added as a new entrance to the museum. Below the huge courtyard there is a shopping mall.
The Musee Du Louvre is so large it is said it would take two weeks to see it all. Is now a huge, spralling "U-Shapped Bldg." but was once a square shape. One section was distroyed.
View of two Crowns worn by Louis XVI and Napoleon. The two babes in the backgroud were trying to figure out if we could get the crowns into our luggage?
Interior decore was breathtaking. Perhaps it was the curb appeal the made the Royal's decide to build in the Suburbs of Versailles?
Famous picture of the corronation of Napoleon. Notice the Pope seated behind Napoleon - he looks a bit peaved doesn't he? Napoleon just grabbed the crown and is depicted as crowning himself King and Emperor!" True Story.
For those of you who may have read the Da Vinci Code we would be standing on top of the room where Mary Magdeline was buried. P.S. We wore a Pedometer and walked 27,000 paces in Paris and never found the "Rose Line" Good mystery novel, but make believe history.
Just opposite the Louvre is a miniturized Arc De Triomphe Du Carrousel. Depicts the 1st and 2nd century history of Paris as part of the Roman Empire.
Paris Opera House
The Obelisque. A gift from Egypt to Paris. A nice view of the Eiffel Tower in the backgroud.
Picture an Oval Room approx. 65 feet long and 35 feet wide. All the wall space had a work by Claude Monet called "Water Lillies." From up close is looks like a child painted blotches of paint. From 20 feet back it is a muted masterpiece of tranquility.
A view of one of the water lilly flowers. Doesn't look like much, but see the picture several blocks back. The entire oval room had four huge paintings in a "surround view" as if you were standing in a pond. Without special photographic equipment you can not capture the beauty of this masterpiece.
The Musee De Orangerie also has several of Renoir's famous works.
The real arc de triumphe
A view looking down the Champs Elysees
Point Du Hoc - Inbetween Omaha and Utah lading beaches (D-Day) was a German Stronghold thought to have had 155mm cannons targeted on Utah and Omaha Beaches. The day before D-Day the area was carpet bombed, but it did not distroy the facilty due to 15 ft. thick steel reinforced walls. Made most of the Germans deaf or addled.
Huge bomb craters. The 15 foot thick walls and ceilings underground made this fortification virtually impregnable. This one seems to have been distroyed. Most survived
The spire in the background is on the edge of the 100 foot cliff and is a memorial to the 225 U.S. Rangers who scalled the cliff 's vertical face in the early moring hours of June 6, 1944. One hour later only 70 remained alive. The English Channel is in the background, but is hard to see due to cloudy / foggy conditions.
Point Du Hoc is inbetween Omaha and Utah beaches - the prime U.S. invasion beaches. There is no beach, just a 100 foot cliff below the point. This is the remains of one of three radar sites on the point.d
You can't get too close to the overhang, but this distance view shows the 100 ft. vertical climb the Rangers had to make. We were told it took them 30 minutes to make the climb in order to attach those 155mm cannons. Sad thing was they were not there. The cannons were found three miles inland in a storage barn. All those Rangers died in vain.
The American Cemetary just above Omaha beach. For those of you who saw the movie "Saving Private Ryan" this is the walkway were the now aged Private Ryan and his family came to visit Captain Miller's Grave Site in the cemetary up forward 50 yards and to the left.
Approx. 10,000 U.S. Soldiers are buried in the American Cemetary here above Omaha Beach. There are no words to describe how one feels when looking at this sight. It is very hard not to choke up when walking these grounds. The cemetary is officially a part of the United States - a gift of the land from France for the sacrifice our men made liberating their country.
A memorial to our fallen troops who died during the invasion and months later.
A 25 minute trip down the coast from the Cemetary to a town called Arromonches we find site of the "floating" cement structures the English troops called Mullberry Harbors. Valves were opened after they were toed from England and they sank in order to create a dock. Steel plateforms linked the Mullberries so unloaded tanks, trucks and cannons could be moved onto the beaches.
65 years have taken its toll on the Mullberries. Many destroyed by the nasty storms that are frequent in the English Channel. Originally there were two Mullberry Harbors (one in Omaha beach the other here at Arromonches), but a freak storm a few days after D-Day destroyed the U.S. harbor at Omaha. This one is on Gold beach where the Brits, Ausies and Canadians came ashore.
Canadian Cemetary about 5 miles south of Arromonches. The Canadian Soldiers were marching toward Caen to liberate it along with Brit's and Ausie's when they were ambushed. The 2,500 Canadian's were buried where they were struck down.
Front view of the Canadian Cemetary.
Canadian headstones were simple pillars with the soldier's name, rank, division, date of death and age. Notice the Canadian Maple Leaf engraved in the stone.
On Ash Wednesday Anne and I were on our own doing a walking tour of the old Central Part of Paris. We stayed at a French Hotel just 10 minutes walk from Notre Dame.
Notre Dame (Our Lady in French) Basillica is absolutely enormous and enormously beautiful. Notre Dame actually sits on an Island in the middle of the Seine River.
Central Portal Entrance to Notre Dame.
Monstrous sized stained glass windows are on the left and right of the central nave of the cathedral.
Notre Dame Cathedral was begun in the year 1,100 and took 200 years to build. Notice the "flying buttresses" necessay to support the walls and weight of the roof.
The George Pompidou Center (Musee of Modern Art) also a short 5 minute walk from our Hotel. If you don't appreciate modern art you may also not appreciate the building itself since all stairways, escalators, heating and cooling pipes and all other services are attached to the outside of the building. Strange!
Life in France is fundamentally different than in the U.S. Parisian's are a mix of big city New York and layed back country. Enjoying life is a focal point in French life. Sidewalk cafe's are everywhere and open every day winter, summer, spring or autumn.
Typical Fruit Store in Paris. Few large grocery stores as we know them exist in the central city.
You can generally sniff your way to the local Fromagerie (cheese shop). Some call the smells "the feet of angles." You get the point, but oh - the taste.
Bakeries actually still exist in France. Store bread in the U.S. can not compare to the various breads from the Patisserie. Bread, Cheese and Wine - and a few friends. Life doesn't get any better than this. I know they weighed my luggage, but I am surely happy I didn't get weighed (before vs. after) and charged for excess weight before I boarded the flight home. Had the cheese, bread and wine at every opportunity, but not necessarily in that order.
Typical flower store.
The Moulin Rouge (Red Windmill).
At the Rodin Musee. An outside version of the famous "Thinker."
Rodin's "Thinker" The original work.
Eiffel Tower
A perfect end to a week of touring Paris was by boat on the Seine. 27,000 paces walked = approx. 15.5 miles of walking around Paris in six days. Wear comfortable shoes when you come.
