Arc de Triomphe! I decided to come here first because I didn't want to go to the Eiffel Tower until it was dark and this symbolizes Paris to me because I remember in the Mary-Kate and Ashley movie Passport to Paris they drove around here... it is the most insane round about ever, there are no lanes or anything close to order. My friend Thibaut said your best bet when driving here is to close your eyes and pray... that might explain the chaos.
tiny people on top... i didn't realize how big it is... big enough for napolean's ego i guess.
yay!
Crepe nutella-coco-banane! so yummy, my first stop in Montmartre
Sacre Couer!
really pretty
WHEN i come back next summer (not if) i plan on lying on the grass here to enjoy the sunshine.
but too much sun makes for a bad picture.
from the terrace in from of sacre couer
yay! my first glimpse of the eiffel tower, this was as zoomed in as i could go but i kind of like how the trees sort of frame it.
Le Chat Noir was a cabaret in the 19th century so there are a lot of restuarants named after it
from the back and less white side
can you imagine going to mass there?
old school sign
streets in Montmartre
art.
Moulin de la Galette - the last windmill in Paris
again
YAAY!
oooh aahhh
i took a bunch of the tower and its parts.
waiting in line for so long
looking down the elevator shaft
Sacre Coeur
Arc de Triomphe
St Michael's Fountain... shows him killing the some sort of devil figure, apparently to the french it is a symbol of the french conquering... for example when fance 'conquered' brazil in soccer a few years back they had a big party here... someone climbed st michael drinking a bottle of wine and yelling vive france! ..naked. and he got arrested.
Notre Dame! Apparently it was started sometime in the 12th century and finished a good 200 years later. Those big round glass windows I was told are really old..and the hunchback resides in the tower on the right, I even saw him ring the bells (ok that might not entirely be true). Also, Victor Hugo wrote the book The Hunchback of Notre Dame because after hundreds of years the church needed some work and he did not want it to be torn down (because it is the greatest example of gothic architecture in france) so he used the book as a means to inspire people to repare the church. Hugo was apparently angry that the english translation was titles the hunchback of notre dame because to him the book was about the church, not the love story.
Point Zero des Routes de France... the centre of paris from which all routes were measured. Our guide pointed out that many say paris in the cultural capital of the world so technically you are at the cultural centre of the world.
big very old window.
which one of these is not like the other? (i'll give you a hint, look at the heads)
Gargoyles sticking off the side.
Flying Buttresses... so apparently gothic architecture is all about letting in light and the walls of the notre dame were too thin because of all the windows so they started to fall outwards. the solution at the time were the flying buttresses (arches) to hold the walls up. also, the bell inside that tower is too heavy to be rung, weighs 5,000 lbs.
gardens behind the notre dame
charlemagne statue.. apparently he was about 7 feet tall, rather large with a big gut and a super high voice... and was responsible for the revival of art, culture and religion through the catholic church.
the old nazi paris headquarters... apparently is now used to house the police i think?
the only visibly scars paris received from WWII... apparently some guy was trying to shoot at the nazi who was standing in the window... said guy cleary had a great shot.
Ring down on the banks of the river seine... when vikings used to terrorize paris they would tie their ships to these, on occasion parisians would tie chains across the river to destroy the viking boats (they apparently forgot that viking ships did not have sails so that plan didn't work out too well) you can also rub them for good luck.
Faces on Pont Neuf Bridge.. some say they are to ward off evil but I was told (and like this story better) that King Henry IV held a big party on the bridge and after they ran out of champaign they decided to bring on the wine... so everyone got really drunk and the king being responsible (for once) saw how hilarious everyone was and decided to go get his artist friends to sketch the drunk nobels... and then put their heads on the bridge to remember them all. looks like this guy needed a toilet.
he had some good looking friends.
also known as the original facebook.
Plaque commemorating Jacques de Molay, the last official grand master of the knights of templar who was burned here at the stake because the king couldn't afford to pay off his debts to have so had him tried for religios crimes instead. after that no one went around the area for about 200 years.
which was perfect for the king henry IV because it gave him a nice private place to take his many ladies.
sexy king henry iv (as our tour guide called him) apparently 25 people attempted to assasinate him.. the 26th succeeded.
guess where? the artist who designed it said he would design something so amazing you would not even be able to see it... however the structural integreity of the glass wasnt what he planned it to be and this is the result.
the original international time line before london moved it.. the rose line i believe?
i forget who this is a statue of but they were worried his nose would fall off so they threw a net over him... 2 years ago. “the french aren't lazy they just like to take their time”
metro stop by the palais royal to commemorate some anniversary of the metro stop.. supposed to symbolize day and night.
gardens of tuilleries .. i think.
this is just an example of the old streets in paris, how they used to be very narrow.. until people realized the french liked revolutions and grande boulevards were built because they are more difficult to build barracades across.
a priest who was famous for helping those come back from infectious diseases, problem is when you are always around people with infectious diseases you tend to catch them.. so he did and isolated himself in a little cabin in the middle of nowhere (the is a dog with bread in its mouth to his side) symbolising that he taught a dog to bring him food so he could nurse himself back to health.
chocolate fountain!!
i forget what garden or park ths is, but look at those two rusty colourd things in the centre... paris hired some artist to break up that space and that's what happened. parisians arent exactly fans.
so they put their foot prints all over it
the obelisk napolean stole, place de la concorde
i guess it took a lot of work to steal the obelisk and drag it all the way to france so he put directions on its side in case it ever fell over, people could put it back up.
i completely forgot who this guy is, but i found him interesting at the time.
Under the arc de triomphe..in the centre of the flower in the very middle there is a camera.. we found that out at the top.
so many stairs!
looks outraged.
thibaut and me
king of paree
ducks by sunken table and chairs in the luxembourg gardens
i think this is the luxembourg museum
gardens
elevator ceiling at the hostel.. thought it was cool.
oops! (that it what the hostel was called)
louvre
the line... ughh
mary magdeline.. i usually expect saints to have clothes on
out in the courtyard.. angry animal fountains?
michelangelo's... dont remember.
angel of victory
no head..
see what i mean about the crowds!
i guess you rub the big toes for good luck, the baby is cute.
there she is.. behind bulletproof glass and crowds of people... apparently someone through a rock that took out part of her elbow so that isnt her original elbow....personally i can't even see her elbow.
HUGE i can't imagine how you could go about painting somehting so big
Where the jewels are
crowns
this was a mosaic made of the tiniest little pieces
venus de milo
little kid fighting a goose
empty dress
Napolean III Apartments
this makes me excited to go see versailles whenever i do make it
cool chairs
it amazes me that they didn't sleep in massive beds.
i thought it was cool how the elevator is in the middle of the stairs
the opera.. where the phantom lives, a canal used to pass underneath but they had to fill it in to stop flooding.
walking down the champs elysees... don't worry mom this was when i crossed the road, i wasn't actually walking down the middle of the road.
Lauduree!
so many cakes and macarons
chocolate, black current violet, salted caramel, berries, vanilla, raspberry, citron, rose and jasmin mango.. yumm
