Paris

We were lucky to cross paths with my niece Sierra, who is spending her summer travelling through Europe.  She spent one night with us before heading off to Salzburg to visit more family.  We hope to meet up with her again later in the summer.

Supper with Sierra à Paris.

Cedar and Sierra just missed each other as Cedar arrived later in the day.  Cedar had an extraordinary 10 days in Switzerland and would now rather continue on her own than hang out with her family!  

We are happy she has arrived as we can now see the two big sites that we've been saving for her!  The wait for the Louvre isn't too bad and we get inside after about 20 minutes.  We follow the signs toward the Mona Lisa as we want to ensure we see her before we leave.  We can tell we are close by the huge crowds pushing into a room about the size of a tennis court.  The room is packed with people and everybody is pushing towards the painting.  I give up after getting a glimpse of the painting and hand the camera to Jasmine.  Jas perseveres and manages to get a close up photo of the world's most famous painting.

Can you see the Mona Lisa, way at the back of the room?

Getting closer ...

Voilà!

Practicing their Mona Lisa smiles (this one's for you, Aunty Maria).

Incredible artwork everywhere we look.

Cedar pretending to hang out with Napolean in his apartment.

We spent the afternoon on a guided bike tour of Paris.  It was great to see some of the lesser known sites.  

Jim Morrison's Paris apartment.

This last photo is of a mosaic Space Invader that an anonymous graffiti artist has done all over Paris.

Lover's bridge where couples write their name on a lock, attach it to the bridge and throw the key in the Seine.

The next day we finally visited the Eiffel Tour.  It was a fun walk up and the views of Paris were breathtaking.

Waiting in line.

The long walk up...

On the second level.

Our last day in Paris we took the train to Versailles.  Cedar was excited as she is interested in Louis xiv and Napolean and they both lived here.  After a long, hot wait we finally got in.  

After watching Les Misérables on the airplane I can't stop imagining the bitterness the French people living in such poverty must have felt compared with this extravagance. 

Approaching the palace.

Louis xiv

We spent a long day wandering the palace grounds of Versailles and finally headed back to Paris at 8 pm.  The next morning we got up, cleaned our apartment and headed to the train station for our first TGV train trip to our next destination.

A week in Paris

Wow, Jas and I arrived in Paris on Thursday and after a 30 minutes métro ride we found our apartment.  We slept for a couple of hours and then began what turned out to be an action packed week.  Cedar wasn't going to join us until later in the week so we saved the "big" sites for her arrival. Our apartment was in the 2nd arrondissement, on a pedestrian only street, so we spent many hours exploring our neighbourhood.  We decided to visit the museums by starting with the present and working backwards in time.  We first visited the Centre Pompidou, the modern art museum which houses art from 1905 to the present. 

Jas waiting for the museum to open.

We then spent an afternoon wandering through the Musée d'Orsay where we really enjoyed all of the Impressionist work.  I can understand why teachers in France can visit museums for free as the artwork inspired me to include more art in my teaching!

We spent a couple of hours wandering through the gardens at the Musée Rodin which were designed by Rodin himself!

Le Penseur ( The Thinker)

We finally made it to the Musée d'Orangerie, the museum designed by Claude Monet to house his incredible 'Water Lilies' set of paintings.  There are eight paintings that show the passage of light from morning until night on the pond.  They are housed in two huge oval shaped rooms, four in each room.  Unfortunately, we were not permitted to take photos in this museum.