Versailles

 

Welcome to Versailles! The great palace of Louis XIV, basically a temple he built to glorify himself, was meant to "wow" the court and the people of France. It still wows. WOW.

 

The gardens and grounds go for miles. The fountains, the Grand Canal, it is really tremendous. Louis XIV called himself "The Sun King" so I guess that is why he has a great fountain of Apollo, the sun god, and his chariot rising from the sea.

 

Versailles was also the home of Louis XV, Louis XVI, and Marie Antoinette. We visited the Grand Trianon (Where the Louis's went to get away from Versailles) and the Petite Trianon, where Marie Antoinette went to get away from Louis. I have been kind of obsessed with Marie for many years, I've always wanted to visit her little palace and hamlet village. To say I was excited to be here is a huge understatement.

Marie Antoinette's portrait at the Petite Trianon.

 

 This "Temple of Love", just a beautiful gazebo with a statue of Cupid in it, is another feature of Marie's idyllic getaway. Remember that she lost her head to angry starving peasants when she was in her 30's, in that context her Trianon fantasy world is even more surreal. It's like she didn't notice that the world around her was on fire.

 Marie Antoinette didn't much like the formal court of Versailles, Le Petit Hameau (The Little Hamlet) is where she went to get away and pretend to be a peasant--a well fed, well dressed, sweet smelling, rich peasant.

 

It's like the swan wanted us to take a picture of him!

 

 

There are still farm animals: goats, sheep, bunnies, chickens, and cows living at the Hameau. But you know what she really needed? A dramatic, romantic rocky cave with a water fall...

 

Oh, perfect! A man made "Grotto." How have I gotten by all my life without one of these? All this opulence is pretty amazing, but the big palace, Versailles itself, out does all the rest.

Just an awesome fountain we found...

 This palace is massive. It makes the most worldly and sophisticated of us gawk like back country bumpkins. Every palace built since Versailles has just been trying to copy this kind of grandeur.

 

As we walked down a gallery full of statues Lee recognized this guy! Lhopital is mathematician whose discoveries are still taught today.

 

Louis XIV's Chapel in the Palace

 

 

 

And, of course, there is the famous Hall of Mirrors. Considering how rare and expensive mirrors were in Louis's day, this room is especially remarkable.

 

It was a day full of the most beautiful palace the Baroque era ever produced. Mind Boggling. I mean, I couldn't even dream something like this up.

The Perfect Way to Spend Your First Day in Paris

The Gorgeous Cluny, ignore the construction...

I am going to go ahead and pat myself on the back for planning this part of the trip very well. Well done, Me!
Anyway, we went to the Cluny Museum first thing. It was about a block away from where we stayed at the Hotel Marignan and happens to be a smaller museum that sells, and participates in, the Paris Museum Pass. Pick up one of those and you can skip ticket lines at a bundle of monuments and museums: it covers your admission and lets you go straight to security. There were maybe 2 other people at the Cluny as we got there right as it opened. We spent a short time there before moving on to our next sight and came back another day, but we took a couple photos...



The Cluny lets you see some stained glass up close, usually the windows are much farther away.

We made the 5 minute walk from the Cluny to...NOTRE DAME! (Pronounced Noh-Truh -DAAhm) The greatest Gothic Cathedral, arguably, in the world. Notre Dame means Our Lady (referring to Mary) and she is quite a lady, probably my favorite spot in Paris was right here next to her on the Ile de la Cite.

You may notice the soldiers behind me, evidence of the heightened security here.

We got to know Our Lady very well. We climbed up her towers and met her many gargoyles. None of them dance or sing, sorry Disney fans. I've heard from multiple sources about how long and slow the line can be to get up into the bell tower, but we got there shortly after the tower opened and only waited 20 minutes or so. All you Paris travel junkies know how good that is, and it is only the beginning of how minimal crowds and lines were for us.

 

Protective nets to keep us from jumping a la Quasimodo.

Even on a hazy day the view was pretty fabulous!

  And we climbed up and met the bells. While we were up there, the bells in the other tower started ringing, which was awesome. Sorry, this video isn't great, but you can hear the bells!

I guess it was a bell like this one in the other tower that we heard ringing.

I am a little Gargoyle obsessed. I just really liked that this eagle is, like, eating grapes or something. I  loved getting up to close to them, seeing the details, naming them...

I call these ones Herbert and Sam.

We climbed up on top of the bell tower as well, as if the views weren't good enough before, and we got the full 360 of Paris.

 

 Yes, we saw Notre Dame top to bottom! Outside...

and in. I am a nut for stained glass. Notre Dame's Rose window is among the largest you'll find anywhere.

And we wander around the back and check out Our Lady's flying buttresses. She looks good from every angle. This is going to be a super long post, by all means keep reading for the world's most beautiful windows at Sainte Chapelle:

This stunning little chapel was built to house the Crown of Thorns, a relic of the Catholic Church. The is, hands down, the greatest stained glass I have ever seen, glorious colored light from every side.

Pro tip: The camera will probably pick up more color through a window that is not getting direct sunlight. look at all those blues and greens

And on to our next stop...

The LOUVRE! It wasn't hard to find what was once the largest building in the world, but it took a while to get to the entrance. It's big. Really big. Really, really big.

The Napoleon III Apartments: Lavish and large.

The now enclosed courtyards of the Louvre hosts hoards of great Greek (and imitation Greek) statues.

Winged Victory, one of the big hits of the Louvre, does not disappoint.  And here is the world's most famous face! I was a little star struck. She isn't big, but she is beautiful. This is as close as you can get to her these days. I guess her theft back in 1913 left the French feeling very protective. She was moved something like 7 times during WWII to keep her out of Nazi hands, her caretaker almost died for her. This is the part where I make an obligatory comment about her smile.

Surrounded by masterpieces, how does one handle all of the art? All of the history? Well you enjoy it, brag about it, then you go back to your hotel and eat macarons.

Lee and Michelangelo's Slave

I wondered if the Louvre would live up to the hype or if I would be one of those people who left thinking they'd just spent all day being bored by old stuff. If you are one of those people, then I am really sorry you went to arguably the greatest museum of ancient-romantic era art and couldn't find anything that took your breath away. I am sorry that the grand scope of human achievements bores you. Go home and read a book.

 Learn a little about the how Michelangelo discovered figures in enormous marble slabs without creating models or sketches to copy from. Or how Rembrandt did one of his famous self portraits using the same brush for every stroke: every texture--hair clothing, skin--were created by the artist without the assistance of different sized or shaped brushes. Study French history from Louis XIV to Napoleon Bonaparte, the turbulent bloody times that led to this museum being the first of it's kind being open to the public. And make sure you explore the more recent events that led to the theft of over 4 million pieces of art by Nazi leadership. A significant portion of the art at this museum was hidden away to protect it from bombs, looting, and calculated theft during WWII. Much modern art--"degenerate" is the term Hitler used--was burned. Masterworks that will never be seen again. If you knew just how close this all came to being rubble and embers, how close we came to losing the greatest cultural artifacts and sites in Europe, maybe you wouldn't yawn your way through the Louvre. People made incredible sacrifices to keep this art safe, it was worth risking their lives.

If you don't enjoy this incredible collection, don't blame the art or the curator. It's not them, it's you. It's okay to not know about all this, I didn't. But before I visited one of the worlds greatest museums, I took the time to learn. I researched the crap out of this trip with the help of good guidebooks, the internet, and my library card, so that I would get more out of my trip. The time spent in preparation was well worth it if it meant that I could chuckle at the look on the Pope's face as Napoleon crowns himself.



Danish for a Day

We are back from our Transatlantic travels and I am ready to share! I have a lot of photos and stories and travel tips, so I hope you are prepared for a dump of information over several blog posts. Let's start off with how great Paul was flying to Los Angeles.

We learned the secret to other people liking your kids: dress them nicely. We put Paul in a baby fedora, so everyone at the airport thought he was the cutest. Furthermore, he really was listening to our directions and being generally charming. He loved sitting by the window and was so excited when the plane took off, but I didn't really know how to help him with the pressure changes hurting his ears. I tried getting him to yawn and gave him chewy snacks, nothing seemed to help except just landing the plane. Good thing he wasn't going on the long flight with us!

Aunt Megan picked him up at the airport and Lee and I rushed off to catch our connection. Next stop: Copenhagen!

You don't want to know about the sights or smells of our 11ish hour flight. No, we didn't get any sleep, we actually weren't even sitting by each other. We arrived at our chilly destination around 11 AM and tried to clean ourselves up and bit and figure out money and transportation and food. Being that hungry and that tired makes everything very hard. Not speaking Danish was barely a hiccup. We got cash (bad exchange rate), got on the train (easy peasy) and a few minutes later found ourselves in the center of a new city!

 

We first visited Vor Frue Kirke: The Church of Our Lady. You can see it's short, rectangular spire behind Lee. This church is the home to Bertel Thorvaldsen's original Christus and the 12 Apostles.

 

I have seen so many replicas of this particular statue that I thought seeing the Christus in the space it was planned for would be a neat way to spend our layover. As an added bonus we also got to see all 12 Apostles as well! It was the original 12 plus Paul and, I believe, minus Judas. Peter is the statue holding keys, most of the rest of the Apostles are recognizable because, gruesomely enough, they are holding the implements of their deaths. Hey, we had to tell them apart somehow!

 

 If you do a little study of history and architecture (you really should before you visit Europe) Then you can get a good feel for the contrast between Protestant churches, like this one, and the Catholic Churches (we'll visit more of those in a few days). The minimal décor, the simple lines, the size of the space are all so well suited to the white marble centerpiece: the resurrected Lord with his arms outstretched.

 

 I was so tired and hungry that I was dizzy. Does it show in the photo? We made our way from the church straight to the buffet down the street and we ate. And ate. On days like this one I really love that overstuffed feeling. After many hungry hours it felt good to be full. That at least got us a little bit of energy so we could make our way through town...

Pictured here: "Town."

 

...To Vor Frelsers Kirke! (Church of Our Savior). We did a fair bit of wandering as our phone's GPS got confused, but the skyline of Copenhagen is dotted with Church spires, this one is very distinctive and easy to find. I found the sight in-SPIRE-ing. (Don't worry, I am slapping myself for you for that pun.)

 

Unfortunately the stairs around the spire (Oh yes, those are stairs on the OUTSIDE of the spire) didn't open until February 27th, and we were in Copenhagen on the 25th. That just gives us a reason to come back I guess! We went inside the church...

Lee and the Altar Piece behind him.

I wish I could have heard this organ play! I love visiting these big churches, they are all unique and the art in them is fantastic!

We liked strolling around the picturesque canals and harbors:

 

And checking out the unique architecture...

We also popped into the National Museum of Denmark for little while. We saw some medieval stuff, some Viking stuff...honestly I think I was practically delirious with exhaustion so I was barely able to take it in.

These are the best trumpets I've ever seen.

 

I love when museums use creepy mannequins in their displays. I don't know why, it just gives cracks me up.

And then it was time to head back to the train station, gather our bags, and go to the airport for the last leg of our flight. Even though we got a little lost and were completely pooped, I'd say our day in Copenhagen was successful. All the places we visited were free admission, we got a good, big meal and saw just enough of the city to know what we would might want to come back for. This was Lee's first time in Europe and my first time in Denmark, I think we managed quite well. We spent our wait in the airport on the phone with Paul, snoozing, and wishing we were snoozing. It was a clear night, so I could see all of Europe lit up beneath us as we flew. I couldn't get decent photo, but it really looked like the view from the ISS or something. It was wild! And, as we descended to Orly Airport, I could see the Eiffel Tower welcoming us to Paris with her lights. Mercifully we had a shuttle van to take us to our hotel on a quiet street in the Latin Quarter where we could take a hot shower and curl up in a warm bed. I seem to sleep my very best after jetting around the world.

 More on our visit in Paris on my next post, and I will be sharing some valuable travel lessons and tips from my experience soon as well. If anyone is planning or trip or would like to plan a trip, let me know and I will share some of the great resources I found that helped me plan this one!