photos taken w/the fancy new SLR Camera (that I haven't a clue how to use)
even tho I didn't actually physically take these, many of them I said: "Hey, take a photo of that?!"
Spirit of Liberty seems to be battling the storm...
as it is Election time in France - under her Bastille Place will be full of action all week, the Paris Marathon will pass by, a band will set up to play for the Unity Cause & all before the runoff elections over the weekend with local folks wondering will we really elect a Socialist President?!
Breast feeding in public places--really...thought that only happened in Norway?!
(lol?! again I didn't take all these photos & I did 'not' say "Hey, take this one...")
Finding the road blocked due to the Paris Marathon we took another street & found this in a sqaure... great photo for a Caption Contest I'm thinking...Come fly with me...Hold on you move too fast... Ah, what old song to use then to go with this image/idea...
Street Art/Graffiti...above--sticker/paper art (she has a wreath under her so am wondering then was she a real somebody & someone has remembered her with a wreath...) And below--the (in)famous PacMan Space Invaders Graffiti square seen all over the city of Paris up/down/all around, just look & ye shall find one...at the bookshop/library in Pompidou Center there was a book of Graffiti with one of these on the cover, I so should of bought it--no matter it would be in French (just to find out & to have more photos of Street Art Paris as well...sigh...another time...)
Paris Marathon - we saw so many more interesting runners than this walking down this street...
one man in particular wore a smooth perfect white wig like you'd think a magistrate might back in the day & a long poofed/ruffled blouse like a period costume in satin maybe, then underneath only bare hairy legs & running shoes to complete his Marathon ensemble (he was running very well too, no slacker there--was not just in it to show off his costume...) Some teams passed with matching colors & flags or whistles...On the sidelines were spots of people with plastic hand clappers, one such group standing on a sidewalk bench cheering runners on in French & plastic clapping noisely...
Citadines 3rd floor views from the room, out the sliding glass doors past the balcony over to the next grande buildng across the center park made of cement that again goes over the underground canal (Canal St. Martin I think is the name) going in the direction of the Bastille (we will ride on a canal boat on it & under the park later) - the Place de la Bastille at the far end of Richard Lenoir as seen from leaning over from the balcony of the Citadines Apart'Hotel looking up the street...
Place de Vosges - a lot of history here...last we'll visit Victor Hugo's apartments (his city house, not his country house--the man must of been High Priest of Tchotchke/KnickKnacks/Kitsch...of his time - or whatever else do they call this kind of flea market collection in French?!)
Hotel Sully, St. Germain--do you know how many models in French magazines have been taken on/behind/in front of this same architectural detail mounted in the garden here...(Well, at least one--I did see one in a fashion magazine picked up, so was pretty funny...after I'd stood behind it, wondering why & how many 'other' people must of done this pose?!)
this paddle info/historical signs are all around the landmarks in Paris, if could only translate them with an app on my smart phone maybe (but no matter the smart phone was 'not' working, as found out it was 'not' a global phone afterall & so had to break out the leftover phone bought in Norway & buy is a temporary Orange chip while passing thru Les Halles in search of a phone shop...) So we thought take a photo & translate later or remember it like a street sign--this one for Philip Auguste, there is a street/rue named after him near Pere Lachaise Cemetery I know of, is about all...(Oh wait--a Google read later--he was the First King of France, Philip II)
It's a library of some sorts now--at least they've kept it up from the outside (for us tourists, but no--I would of liked, if I'd known the language, to go inside for a peek/read round...)
sky view on a good day...looking across the Seine to the capital dome in the center - at the time we couldn't remember what it was, found it later in a guidebook, now of course I can't find it again...no wait--The Pantheon, that's it, but we didn't go there (not this time, can only do so much in so little time...how could anyone tell me a week is enough to see Paris--Uh, No, No it's not...)
Notre Dame on a off/on again dreary day, so looking a bit more ominous - we did not queue up to go into with the throngs & once again did not walk up the stairs for the view from uptop...instead we passed by the back garden, the side with the profusely pink flowering trees, statue of Viking looking fellows & to the front, forgetting all hopes of finding any lines in the pavement leading us on a Da Vinci Code adventure...
Classic Art Deco Metroplitain/Metro signs, lamps, rails...
adore Paris for the fact they keep these & have to then specially make lamp replacement parts or bulbs to keep this 'illusion' up as well, plus that old post street lamp & all the other styles there are in town - which I've read is some project to keep track of (read that in Paris, Paris by David Downie - among many another thing & Oh so wished I'd brought my copy with me to take on Walking Tours?!)
Over the river...across the Pont au double, I think - after looking all the bridges over the Seine in Paris up on Wiki...to get to the other side & a stroll past the Hotel de Ville/aka City Hall - with everybody who was ever anybody at the time I'm thinking in niches all over it...do like the clock tower & what think is Zeus overhead presiding (at the time passing it though we didn't know what it was or where we were - we were just wandering & snapping photos...)
see/read more here...
(bummed now as I read that we didn't queue up & go inside to see this courtyard that's looking rather Escher-ish from the photo on Wiki of the City Hall's courtyard...)
Stravinsky's Fountain - next door to Pompidou Center & Dali-ish street art/wall graffiti & church of Saint Merri (which I keep wanting to write as Merry...) - then of course the water fountains though after the composer Igor Stravinsky Rites of Spring & could instead be looking rather Dali-ish or Picasso-ish they're by 2 sculptures I've not heard of--black mechanical pieces by Jean Tinguely & the colored ones by Niki de Saint Phalle (per Wiki)...just love they all work, move, spray water - it's just at the time we're there they're not all working it seems...still a fun colorful courtyard (& 'if' the church were Saint Merry that would be fitting to have such a fountain out the door right?!)
All 16 sculptures are listed on Wiki as follows...
See how many you can guess - am thinking we got The Firebird, Death, The Mermaid...
(here & I must of gotten Love earlier with my Point & Shoot, as they were the big red lips?!)
Inside Saint Merri - there was some modern art on disply, so you'll see the giant oragami swans hanging from the rafters...the sun symbol is explosive over the altar & am surprised the stain glass came out (it's a hard one to capture with the light/dark going on) - this panel looks to be of a special monk, could be Saint Merri but when you see bald monk in brown robes at first you think Saint Francis of Assisi
more on Wiki following--we did not know the oldest bell in Paris was in here either, until reading later...ah, for the smart phone not working I would of known (as who's standing there reading a guidebook in hand...)
walking on - pass a small park full of architectural details, did not make a note of where this is so can't say, like the Druid Nature look to the lady in the vines...the 2nd symbol we know from visiting Fountainebleu is a dragon with a crown & represents one of the emperors who lived there...but this piece of archway is in the middle of a park on a walk on the way to find Picasso's museum--a closed museum, that nowhere is it written until you get to the door & see it posted beside it that there is renovations going on until Fall (Fall of what year will be the next question...)
Madame Eiffel (I call her) - which you can never have enough photos of (day or night or in the rain) & then a long walk around the corner, an Art Deco wonder...
including the courtyard, where I am as well rather Art Deco-ish or the very least Parisian looking in all black in the rain after being blown from the Champ de Mars in the rain, just having velcro'd my umbrella...April in Paris, who thought that was romantic?!
Tuileries Gardens - views from Tuileries - Place Concorde, Eiffel Tower - in the Tuileries Gardens at L'Orangerie Art Museum - Rodin's sculptures on the lawn outside there - continue on through the Tuileries & the modern art sculptures are all in the squares along the walkways on either side (which I don't recall from previous visits to Paris...) - The Louvre - the petit arc de triomphe or Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel - one of the ends of the wings I think for The Louvre with the Art Deco Metro sign/lamp posts again in the foreground...
Note: there is a tour I've just heard about on a live streaming radio from Pauline Frommer about - Context Tours where a professor/PhD type will tour guide you on a walking tour, now this is one I would of liked to have known about before this trip because we would of taken them up on the one thru the Tuileries to talk about the modern art there (& if it included the L'Orangerie then even better...)
Read more here, go on & one & tell us all--how did it go...
(Ok, did take note they're not cheap walking tours--but am hoping they're worth it...think my friend living there is in the wrong business, I'd say How 'bout the Walking Tour biz?!)
use to be an old meat market - a nod to that past with the cow mural further on inside the park where some were playing soccer or football it's called while in Europe...
but it's the Science Museum that is a wonder - this enormous silver marble (read it's an IMAX) - didn't go inside to get the view inside looking out but adore all the reflections from the outside if even possible...
there are trails inside the park, going from one 'folly point' to the next - that was one thing but then there is the boardwalk along the canal that goes a long/Long way...
what Wiki has to say about it all...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parc_de_la_Villette
walking along the canal, thought it was all the Seine - to the Canal-a-rama boat, that had to redock further down rather than Parc Villette due to some delay at the port - which only found out as a French led tour left en group to go get on the Metro to make their way down to the pick up point after we had all waited a good half hour or more for it to show up at Parc Villette - meanwhile us Americans walked on down the canal for the canal view & a stroll wondering what to do next (actually we were none too sure what was going on & didn't expect to find the boat further down, we were trying to figure out how long it was to get back to the Bastille & if we could walk the canal boardwalk the entire way...then lo & behold there was the Canal-a-rama boat docked & we spotted the French tour group hustling to get onboard so having made reservations by phone already we hustled on aboard as well...)
Opps, spelled that wrong--it's: Canauxrama
(not Canal-a-rama) goes from Parc Villette to Arsenal - going under Place Bastillehttp://www.canauxrama.com/
But it's the underground part that's the most interesting...
actually all of underground Paris would be a long tour - there are the crypts, the sewers, the canals, the Metro or the trains (don't imagine you could do them all in a day either)
somewhere up above we go under the Bastille - also above there's a park & sidewalks & fountains & covered giant round air/light vents, like the many we passed under - hearing the guide mention all of this was cemented in over the canal at some point in time I think when Haussmann was doing his works throughout the streets of Paris
back out to the daylight, fresh air, warmer air - it was really Really getting colder & damper while underground floating on that canal water uptop of the boat (would not want to do that at night or in the dead of winter nor especially be 'in' the water or nearer it for any reason...)
tour guide story: there was a flood in Paris, the water came up about halfway up in the tunnels, you can see the white line up on the sidewalls still, you would not have been able to come in there in a boat, maybe a raft or a log (heaven forbid...) you just don't think about Paris flooding, Louisiana yes - of course - Paris no...
Fontainebleu Chateau & Gardens...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Fontainebleau
after figuring out how to get to the train station, then where to go to get the train tickets, then finding the platform we managed to get on the correct train & the right time to make it to Fountainbleau Chateau - after also a bus ride, getting on the right bus from the train station thru the village to the chateau (thou nervous we got off at the church, we were packed in like sardines on what looked like a regular city bus) - starting from the outside streets we wandered into a garden so unknow to us until later reading that we walked in from (Goddess) Diana's Gardens... (of course the fountain of her in the middle of the gardens gave it away)
Napoleon - a rather simple bust, considering all the other over the top-ness going on all over the chateau & his apartments...
the little royal Napoleon family
the royal empirial one (aka Napoleon) himself
looking rather god-like (who knew he had issues?!)
inside the wood panels there are china plates depicting scenes of/for the emperor of the time
as I've been forgetting it was not 'all' about Napoleon
a simple bedroom in Napoleon's time...uh huh--simple...
I can't begin to tell you how disgusted I was by the end of this walking tour thru the chateau
- what, mind you, started off as a meer 'hunting lodge' (the emperor's 'camp' eh??!!)
to think of all these wasted riches, that the poor just never knew about or benefited from at all...
(sidenote: I've read a story a long while ago about a weaver of tapestries who had a wife or daughter go blind making such wall hangings as these, either from the delicate needle work or the dying of the threads...) so at times I can wonder how can the people today preserve this or honor it all at all -
unless there's some of that 'never let us let this happen again' kind of thing going on...
or there is beauty in the things that someone else - an artist - made over years in some cases, as the emperor or his family did not make any of this but had it made & so if you go that roundabout way it was preserved then for all to see in the future (can we also by way of this then see maybe why there might be a lean toward having a socialist president voted in now...) end of rant...as I did pay to go in, got an audio guide & took photos, as a tourist & rode the train, the bus, to get here to wander round the grounds & the little house in the woods to marvel at this ornate time gone by...hmmm...whatever was I thinking - Hey, I skipped the gift shop (I refused to contribute another Euro by that point?!) end of Lagniappe rant...
where's a skateboard when I need one...
a simple little meeting room, a short boring little hall, an unassuming wooden door - that you'd enter I think before audience before the emperor, so you could like ponder what you were up against by checking out all the wealth in the walls/floor/ceiling/doors/out the windows...(in case you didn't notice before you even got to this point, if you were lucky enough to get to this point...& here we can just have a stroll in with our ordinary common clothes on and an audio headset upside our ear too...)
the 3 graces overlooking the room...
and the mural? at time point along the self walking tour, just another painted naked lady...
out the window/french doors, a garden, one of many, this may be the little koi/duck pond
one of the emperors had a dragon for a symbol, someone had bees, someone had fleur de lis & still another had a salamander--because? because supposedly they could survive fire & the emperor liked that idea (is it true? hmmm...should I Google it to find out, do I care, it is curious - when you'd wonder now-a-days if anyone in authority were being represented by a lizard of any kind...)
out the window, looking down to the courtyard - where you'd guess the carriages or horses would come in thru that arched gate under the shorter dome at the end...
feeling like a little old wooden hunting lodge now isn't it...
inside the private chapel for the emperor & his family, they'd come in to the top of the chamber while the lesser ones would be below, or so I think is what my audio tour guide told me in so many words...
the views out the windows as we're making our way around the U-shaped courtyard & building's interiors, apartments, bedrooms, chapel...
finally something that looks like some hunting was going on...yeesh...
seeing this again made me realize we never made our way thru the gardens to where the stables for the horses/carriages might have been - another time, but no--I don't imagine I'd ever go back, enough was enough at the palace as it was...
the little library - you weren't allowed to walk down the hall, nor peruse the books on the shelves either...would of liked to take the globe for as spin though...sigh...Nightime at the Museum revisited only at Fontainebleu Chateau, in the 'library' - come on, who will film that one for me?!
Poor Marie's (Antoinette) bedroom...when she'd get bored with palace life she'd go out to the country & play milkmaid with her ladies in waiting in her fantasyland/her disney/her playhouse/her faux farm out there in Versailles, another chateau in France you may have heard of - but her part of it was called Hameau de la Reine or the Queen's Hamlet...were all the royals full out nuts or what...in any case it seems at some point in their pretty little lives they all lost their heads (rolling, like off the guillotine...) A milking we will go, high ho the merry oh, a milking we will go...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hameau_de_la_reine
Napoleon sat here...duh...how short is that chair & then his feet on a cushion, surround by a swarm of bees, red/royal blue/gold...lots & lots of gold...
ornate ironwork gate, admiring the fleur de lis, when you stop to wonder where does this go & why can't we go there? to the wine cellar ??
church or is it a cathedral elsewhere in the chateau...
Ok, the theme continues, another naked lady - only this one is not in tapestry or painted but a sculpture (if I were to guess she may have been elsewhere in the gardens at some time in the past history of Fontainebleau...)
a mini model of the masterplan of the chateau, Fontainebleau...
Chinese influences surprisenly, passing outdoors on the way to the gardens from the courtyard, giant Chinese dragons on either side of a doorway which I always thought they looked like dogs...these two a bit bigger than the bookend types I've seen before, I could not have reached up to the ball in his paw...
koi pond, you can rent boats to paddle around here just like the royals did to pass the time on a hot day possibly, after say a hard day at riding & hunting in the dedicated (probably stocked) woods all around - but that's only available in the summertime...
more Greek/Roman influences, after Diana's Garden--here the spinning disc thrower
this looks to be the gilded entryway to the church or chapel or the receiving hall...
swan pond, not swan lake, next to koi pond - the kind you can paddle a boat around in...
which in summer month's you can paddle a boat, take a hotair baloon ride over the grounds or have a cuppa tea in the tearoom that wasn't open yet (it only being April, Spring - so said - & not Summer...)
last guardians of the gardens, looking Egyptian Sphinx like, only smaller & after everything else on the grand over the top scale in the inside of the palace it's a nice change
parked outside the garden gate, who's classic sports car could this be ??
back at the church in the village, a rather simple ordinary one after all the gaudy decoration going on inside the palace of Fontainebleau...here though there are still chandeliers that look to be stacked crowns...what I especially liked was the simple girlish statue next to the Madonna or is she Mary when she's not holding 'the' babe...no matter it's the peasant girl that must be important if not a saint to be given the honor of the space beside Mary...again inside a church, is it as bad as an aquarium, that lightness & the darkness when trying to set a camera & take a photo of a certain expanse of space or statue or stainglass windows...
walkabout series in the rain, going out to the Eiffel - Madame Eiffel to me - then back toward the Bastille with no particular plan except to go to Montparnasse Cemetery at some point along the way...did we take Bus 69? possibly or was it 59 - in any case it's the 'tourist bus' as it goes along the route from 1/2 way across town, in one direction then back the other (you can use your Metro tickets, which we have a pack of ten of them from the machine that we figured out once in English from our first trip out from the airport to the train to the metro to walking to the hotel...such is the 'way' of Paris - on & off something or another in the form of transport that's 'not' a taxi...)
Madame Eiffel...even in the rain she's elegant & interesting - she's just no fun to climb on & so we didn't, not this day, once again...
medusa & dragons & the Cavalerie--oh my...
Napoleon buried under the golden capitol...uh duh, where else but something golden...
these stations of the cross were a work of art, I'd never seen anything like them before in any church - which I've visited a few old ones along our travels through old Europe & even in Paris 3 times before...do not know what they're made of, painted on, the wood framing also is a work of art - the church caretaker for the day didn't know what they were made of either - no Google mention that I could find right off (where's an old geeser in a pew when you need one?!)
Saint Francois Xavier Metro & his church or cathedral & someone's namesake in the family...
7 photos taken in Montparnasse Cemetery & mostly those because I said 'take a photo--here/now' or there would be less...while I with my little eye & point & shoot & cell phone camera can take hundreds in just this 1 cemetery (we do not want to count the 3 visits to Pere Lachase Cemetery when counting photos in cemeteries...)
I was misled on what the Montparnasse Tower was (on 1 lil map it looked like it might be a windmill or a lighthouse...) & why you would want to go to the top of it for a photo of the view (other than Printemps it was on the list of the top such views in Paris to take a photo with a view...) but despite that the 4 tour buses parked on the curb kept us from going up to the top restaurant or roof to find out - I'd much rather wander around on the ground amongst the tombs & so we did...
guardian angel in the circle in the cemetery
the Pigeon's - the Pigeon family...yes they have a story, like a couple in their clothes in their big bed in a cemetery isn't a story already right?!
Wiki's short & sweet version...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Pigeon
Wiki about the artist - but the tomb doesn't rate a photo...
(taking note reading that this is a grave of a friend, which he did a few others tombs too--but he's also in here somewhere, which I didn't know & so didn't find him...this trip, 1st one to this cemetery - I need to return for a proper tour, of like all of them...Oh my would a week do then?!)
thru the gates to Luxumborg Gardens...earth being held aloft in this fountain from this end, the far end from the palace at the other gates the other end...a similar earth held up in hands I've seen in the D'Orsay Museum before, underneath mer-horses & very powerful water...to the front right a painted green turtle, while all the rest are regularly worn...at least the fountain is on, last visit in not only were they turned off the whistle was blowing & the guards were shooing everyone out the gates to lock up for the night - so this an improvement in more ways than one...
there was a theme to the statues in the park section behind the fountain, it looked like to me Oh how silly couples in love can be, let me count the ways...
the palace in Luxumborg Gardens & Lady Diana is once again on display as a statue with a dog & her arrows (or looks like from this distance behind the fencing...)
you could rent very large toy sailboats with colorful sails to put out on that closest pond to the palace - they were on display on a table, haven't a clue if all you did was put them in the water to the wind & wish for the best or what...
what I kept calling 'the grotto' - this fountain before a pond, the carvings on it are done as if it is a grotto in the rocks...there are exactly 3 ducks in a row in the pond - who refused to fly out of any of the scenes either of us were trying to shoot with our multiple of cameras...
St Sulpice (aka the church that they went into for making the movie The Davinci Code - am sure the cathedral advertises it as such too...am also sure there are tour guides that do...)
modern kinetic art in shadow black in front of the fountain, between the fountain & the church
sigh...the end of the walking tour with the 'other' camera, the good/fancy, SLR camera - that I still do not know how to use, maybe before the 'next' trip to Paris?! perhaps 'not' in April & 'not' in the rain & when I don't have to wear a scarf & raincoat everyday & the color black all the time too...
Aurevoir Paris?!
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