Thursday, May 3, 2012

Paris Day Eight

Bonsoir.  Day eight has been kind of a hump day for us with bouts of low energy.    This post may be more pictures than words as the bed is in my view.  Also, I must say it is a little stressful to get home late and try to do a blog post that doesn't overuse adjectives and is spelled correctly.  This audience has high expectations of simply trying to keep in touch!

We slept hard last night and got up and were out the door by 10 AM.  That doesn't sound early, but I haven't fully adjusted to the 8 hours, only about 5 hours.  That means most often I am up until midnight or 1 AM and sleep until 9 or 9:30 AM.  That just makes it easier to adjust when I head back!

We headed directly to the Musee de Louvre this morning.  The amount of people was amazing.  There are definitely more people this week, apparently May started the serious tourist season. 

On the way we passed this sculpture of Joan of Arc.



The Louvre has a large glass triangle sticking up, here is the top of it from the ground.  This is actually the entrance.



Here is the view from below, pretty cool.



The Louvre allowed people to take pictures without flash, but people just ignore the rules.  I think they should act like ski hills and if people go out of bounds kick them out!  To show that I'm not exaggerating about the people here was my view of the Mona Lisa... no flash!




I did enjoy the sculptures area of the Mona Lisa, including the Marly Horses by Guillaume Coustou.



After the Louvre, we stopped for a cafe in the Tuileries Gardens.



The Museum de l'Orangerie was next.  We enjoyed this museum.  This museum showcased Claude Monet's Water Lily series.



After the Musee de l'Orangerie, we walked down the Seine toward Ile de la Cite.  A pretty walk.



Here is a view of the end of the Ile De La Cite and the bridge, Pont Neuf.  This is an island in the Seine and Notre Dame and Ste Chapelle are on this island.


We were headed for Ste Chappelle, but the line was too long so we walked up to the Jardin du Luxembourg.  jardin = garden  The gardens were beautiful and so full of people.

Statues everywhere with flowers.



The Palace of Luxembourg is on one end,



and the rest is structured garden.  Some areas have ponds with fountains; some grass people can sit on and was covered in people and other grass has chairs all around it.  There are tennis courts, boci ball courts, people everywhere sketching and drawing, and a huge kids area.





After the gardens we found a very nice Brassiere (bar and restaurant) to eat a simple dinner, that consisted of a nice French beer  and a Salmon Tartine and salad for me.



Tonight we took the metro home.  One still has quite a few stairs on each end of the metro and another 4 blocks, but it was better than the 1 1/2 miles added onto our already high total for the day.  Au Revoir.

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