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Published: October 30th 2005
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tour eiffel
the bottom, lit at night A little late in the posting, but on Wednesday the 19th I headed to Paris. I met Christine, a friend from her program, and a friend from Bowdoin who was spending the semester in Paris. There were also two friends of a friend to make a group of five people which was together at different times throughout my time there.
Basically Paris is amazing! A beautiful city. I did just about all of the touristy sites and had lots of crepes.
The first site we went to was Musee d'Orsay. With all my travels I can actually say that I've been to a lot of museums, but none of them had the feel to them this one did. The atmosphere was wonderful. The museum is housed in a one time rail station and has a truly distinctive personality. Has a huge clock on the wall that stands out in a very good way. Plus, it also has an incredible collection of impressionist paintings. Monet, Degas, Van Gogh. I particularly liked the Van Gogh's and some of the "neo-impressionism" (pointillism/divisionism) such as Man at the Helm (Theo van Rysselberghe). I really enjoyed this museum, and was of very manageable size,
tour eiffel
doing its hourly flashing - lasted for about 5 minutes unlike the Louvre.
Out of order, but staying with museums, we went to the Louvre. HUGE! I had no idea it was so enormous. Saw the Mona Lisa and other Leonardo works. My favorite paintings however were the Raphael's. But, my favorite parts of this museum weren't even the paintings. There were amazing collections on Oriental antiques, Egyptian antiques, Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiques, and Arts of Islam. Walking through these sections was definitely my favorite part of the museum. I feel the people who skip straight to the paintings are definitely missing a lot. Was there for over four hours, and left still having not seen a huge amount of work. Honestly it was just too much. Incredible art, but its impossible to experience it all at once. Some of the most amazing works I have seen yet, but certainly no where near my favorite museum I have been too. By the way, you always here the Mona Lisa is a big disappointment, but I really enjoyed it.
My favorite part of Paris though had to have been Notre-Dame. The inside is absolutely stunning. It is open to tourists during services, so when we walked through gospel
singers where singing. I won't pretend to call myself religious, but the experience inside was absolutely amazing. To note, it was a similar feeling inside St. Peter's in Rome. It is impossible to be surrounded by such faith without being touched somehow. We also climbed to the top of the towers where we got a fantastic view of the city. The highlight here though was definitely the gargoyles and the other carved decoration.
On Thursday night the group of us took a riverboat tour on the river Seine. We saw the Eiffel tower (tour eiffel) lit at night. Every hour on the hour they also tour on flashing lights on the tower. We went back to see the tower during the day, but didn't go up. We also saw the Arc de Triomphe and the Sacre-Coeur at Montmartre. The latter was truly impressive, definitely a highlight. Walked around the Moulin Rouge area one night which was fun. Another day had lunch in the Luxembourg Gardens which was relaxing. It was also really nice to be with two people who were studying in Paris just to be able to walk around some of the city with.
Also, I had
nothing but perfect experiences with police and locals asking directions. Everyone went out of there way to be helpful. The two people staying in Paris spoke of a definite anti-American bias, but I experienced nothing of the sort.
Hope everyone is well.
Take care.
au revoir!
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