Paris: City of Art

by Rosemary

The Louvre is the world's largest art museum. It wouldn't be possible to see it all in a day, or even a week. Most people coming here have a few things in mind, and the one thing nearly everyone is looking for is Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa." Paper signs throughout the museum help them find the way.

It isn't possible to get close to poor Mona. She's behind a big sheet of bulletproof glass, and a railing keeps visitors several feet away. If you can work your way to the front of the crowd to get a look and snap a picture, Mona is obscured by the reflections of all the tourists ogling her and aiming their cellphones.

In the meantime, the museum has other paintings by da Vinci, hanging in the hallway where you can walk right up to them. This painting of John the Baptist has a familiar look.

Another crowd-pleaser is "Venus de Milo." Somehow we managed to snap a photo that looks as though no one else was there, but there were actually hundreds of people crowding around.

The Louvre was once a royal palace, and it still has those impressive ceilings.

The Louvre was renovated in the 1980s, and a new entrance, the "Louvre Pyramid" designed by I.M. Pei, was added.

The many hours we spent at the Louvre were just the beginning of our art tour. Our next museum was the Orsay, a former train station that now holds one of the world's largest collections of impressionist and post-impressionist paintings, as well as many other works by (mostly) French artists.

Vincent Van Gogh and a starry night.

For something completely different, there is the Pompidou Centre, a repository of modern and contemporary art. We liked this one:

"Chopin's Waterloo" by Arman

Unfortunately, the Pompidou is mostly about the kind of thing that convinces people modern art isn't really art. It seems that museums never get tired of insulting our intelligence with things like this:

It doesn't matter who painted it or what it's called.

The Metro station near the Rodin Museum contains a preview, reproductions of two of Rodin's most famous sculptures, "The Thinker" and "Monument to Balzac".

The Rodin Museum is housed in the former Hôtel Biron, where Rodin had his workshop for several years. There is a large sculpture garden, and the rooms contain most of Rodin's works, along with his collection of impressionist paintings and other items. Rodin often made many copies of the same sculpture, sometimes in different sizes or groupings. A small version of "The Thinker" appears near the top of "The Gates of Hell," as do many others of his notable works.

The Petit Palais may not be as well-known as some of the other art museums, but it houses an excellent collection of paintings, sculptures, furnishings, and art objects.

After more than 250 years, this ornate clock still keeps accurate time.

We took some time to relax, sitting in front of this Claude Monet painting of sunset on the Seine.

We took a day trip to the Palace of Versailles, once the principal residence of French kings (a long line of guys named Louis). After the French Revolution of 1789, most of the artwork was moved to the Louvre, and the furnishings were auctioned off. Restoration of the palace started in 1892, and is ongoing. The museum has spent a tremendous amount of money to repurchase as much of the original furnishings as possible. Versailles is a hugely popular tourist destination, so crowded that at times it is difficult to move through the rooms.

Hundreds of tourists line up, eager to get inside.

The apartments are lavishly decorated.

The crowd slowly makes its way into the Hall of Mirrors.

This is how the French royals liked to see themselves.

The gardens of Versailles cover nearly 2000 acres and include formal gardens, groves, lawns, fountains, and sculptures.

Back in town, art was on display seemingly around every corner.

"Triumph of Silenus" by Aime Jules Dalou in the Luxembourg Gardens.

The gate to the Palace of Justice.

Charles de Gaulle, strolling along the Champs Élysées.

The Arc de Triomphe (under renovation, like so many structures we saw).

"La Marseillaise" by François Rude, a sculpture on one of the Arc's pillars.

Nymphs on the Pont Alexandre III.

The goddess Victory atop a pillar at Place du Châtelet.

Fontaine Saint-Michel.

Stained glass dome in the Galeries Lafayette Haussmann department store.

Capital of a pillar in the church of Saint Germain des Prés.

Statue of Voltaire, somewhere near the Left Bank.

Sainte-Chapelle, completed in 1248, still has about two thirds of its original stained glass.

Carvings inside Notre Dame cathedral depict scenes from the life of Jesus.

We were surprised to see that the stained glass windows inside Notre Dame can be opened for ventilation.

We spent two busy weeks in Paris. Perhaps we'll have the chance to come back someday soon to enjoy even more of this great city.

Walking Around Paris

by Rosemary

The architectural style of Paris is immediately recognizable. The underlying color palette is beige, cream, and gray. Baroque, Neoclassical, and Art Nouveau blend perfectly with the ubiquitous Haussmann apartments of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. All around, we see gray roofs with dormer windows and clustered chimney pots. Perhaps the most immediately identifiable Parisian feature is the decorative iron work on the windows and balconies.

Of course, the city's most well-known bit of ironwork is this:

Built for the 1889 Universal Exposition, the Eiffel Tower was scheduled to be torn down in 1909, when the license to keep it standing expired. However, it was kept in place because it had proved useful for radio communications and science experiments. Its growing popularity eventually made it a beloved symbol of Paris. When we visited the city in 2010, it was still possible to walk right up to the base of the tower and wander around the plaza below it. Sadly, there is now an ugly metal fence around the tower, and visitors must line up to pass through security checkpoints. Construction is underway to replace the metal fence with bulletproof glass.

Hundreds of people waiting to get near the tower.

While that special blend of architecture defines central Paris, not every part of the larger metropolitan area has it. We stayed in La Défense, a business district on the western edge of the city. Its glass and concrete skyscrapers could be in just about any big city in the world.

The most unusual structure in La Défense is the Grande Arche, a 364-foot-high monument and office building that opened in 1989 as part of the celebration of the bicentennial of the French Revolution.

The arch is at the west end of the "Axe historique" (historical axis), a straight line of monuments and historical buildings that runs through Paris, with the Louvre at the east end, five miles away.

Looking toward the Arc de Triomphe, three miles away, from the top of the Grande Arche.

We were told that the Grande Arche is so big that Notre Dame cathedral could fit under it. It would be an odd sight, the plain concrete cube juxtaposed with the church's elaborate gothic design.

Construction on Notre Dame began in 1160 and was completed by 1345. In the following centuries, the cathedral was occasionally subjected to vandalism, harsh remodeling, repurposing, and restoration. During the height of the French Revolution, extremists mistook the statues of Biblical kings on the church's exterior for French kings, and beheaded them. The statues were eventually replaced. What no one knew at the time was that someone had rescued the statues' severed heads and buried them for safekeeping. They were discovered in 1977, and now reside in the Cluny Museum.

Notre Dame is known for the fanciful creatures perched high on its galleries and gutters. Some are gargoyles, serving as waterspouts, and others are grotesques or chimeras, whose only function is to decorate the building and perhaps watch over the city below.


These critters occupy many of the medieval buildings in town.

Atop the St. Jacques Tower.

One of many on the Sacré-Coeur basilica.

Another reminder of medieval times can be seen underfoot. Cobblestones have been used to pave the streets of Paris for the past 1000 years. In the 1850s, city planners began replacing the stones in some areas with more modern materials, but they still constitute about two thirds of the streets. Every year, tons of them are dug up as streets are rebuilt or paved. In the past, they went into landfills, but the city now sells them to contractors. One entrepreneur bought five tons of them to resell as souvenirs. We walked over many miles of these stones during our two weeks here.

Next: We look at art.

One Year Later

Here we are, enjoying a dinner cruise on the Seine.

In Spring 2017, we sold our house and most of our possessions, packed a couple of suitcases, and hit the road. We have spent the past year traveling around the U.S. (and a little bit of Canada). The second half of our grand vacation will be a trip through Europe and the U.K.

Our first stop: Paris, France. It's a great start.