Paris, France Part 5
Many of the pictures (especially early on) are by Hubby.
I wanted to mostly save my battery for the Louvre.
Hubby really wanted to see Montemartre and the Sacré-Cœur Basilica so this day we headed out to Montemartre for a walking tour. Our tour started at Saint-Jean De Montmartre. A pretty little church we got to go in and see the stained glass windows. It’s famous for being the first church in Paris constructed using reinforced cement and a metal frame.
Video by Hubby. (Sound on to hear the bells.)
The tour was mostly art themed and it was fun to see and talk about the history of art and what people perceive as art. We even got see Pablo Picasso’s primary residence and studio location! It was nicknamed the “washhouse boat” because it swayed in the wind! The building there now isn’t the original because it was rebuilt after a fire.
During the tour our guide discussed the question of what is art. He showed us examples of street art, paintings of various things, or 8-bit characters which are specifically there as art, versus graffiti which is more about defacing or making a statement. Hubby remembered seeing an article about a banana taped to a wall with duct tape as art named “Comedian” and how it had sold for $6.2 million, only to be eaten. Art is generally created to evoke emotion and represent something, but is also at times based on the beholders. One major point our guide made was that great artists who create a new style are doing it from a base of exceptional knowledge of art. A two-year old can make drawings similar to Picasso’s, and not be recognized as great. Picasso’s Cubism and Surrealist styles are great art, because he already had a firm foundation in classical art forms and chose to deviate from the expectations of the day.
The tour ended at the Sacré-Cœur Basilica. The Basilica is made with Chateau-Landon stone. It is a type of travertine limestone which is naturally self-cleaning. Our guide discussed how this particular stone was chosen so that the Basilica can be a representation of the salvation story. When it rains, the limestone releases a substance called calcite, a chalky white substance which acts as a bleaching agent and washes away dirt and pollution. The Christian faith focuses on how our sins are washed away by the cleansing power of Jesus’ sacrifice. It was fun to end the tour on a religious note talking about how someone is always continuously praying for you within the Basilica. We decided not to try to tour it because the line was so long it wrapped around the building! We took the Funiculaire back down the hill. That was a fun little ride!
We decided to have lunch outside at Adelaide, a cute little café, across the street and just down from Saint-Jean De Montmartre. It was fun to sit outside and watch the Parisians go by. A cat visited us too! We enjoyed good food and delicious hot chocolate while deciding what to do next since we couldn’t visit the Louvre until later in the afternoon. I was so happy to gain a few hours this afternoon because it meant I could visit another place on my bucket list!
We headed off to see the Conciergerie. The Conciergerie is where Marie Antoinette was held as a prisoner. It was a very interesting place to visit! You learn about two periods of time, the Middle Ages and the Revolution. Before part of it became a prison in the 14th century, it was a great palace and housed the Parliament of Paris (the highest court in the kingdom).
You start your tour in the great hall which happens to be the largest Gothic civil hall in Europe, built between 1300 and 1314. You also get to see the Guards’ Room and the Royal Kitchens. Eventually you proceed to the prison. It was sad seeing the tiny cells and the room where they cut their hair to prepare for execution. There was another room, The Hall of Names, that holds more than 4,000 prisoner names. It was nice because they had a system in there for people that were looking for information about an ancestor. We found Marie’s Antoinette’s name on the wall. Translated it reads: CAPTURE Marie Antoinette Josephe Jeanne Former wife of the tyrant. Marie Antoinette’s cell is now a commemorative chapel. There is a woman’s courtyard just outside which remains almost unchanged since the Revolution. The prison activity wasn’t suspended until 1934.
We got to the Louvre at 4:30. I was so excited they opened in time for us to visit! It’s a bummer the area where the heist happened was still closed so we missed seeing those things.
First things first, naturally I had to seek the Mona Lisa! She was surrounded by people but I played the part of the rude American and carefully made my way to the front to see her! I wasn’t going to travel all that way for what is probably the only time in my life to miss her!
Video by Hubby.
The ceilings in the Louvre were equally impressive to all the art on the walls I was surrounded by!
I was in 7th heaven walking through the Egyptian section! We studied Egypt quite a bit when I was a kid. Here was so much ancient history right next to me! I couldn’t believe everything I got to see!!! The museum is huge and could take weeks to explore! I didn’t think I would see much of anything other than the Egyptian artifacts but was pleasantly surprised that we covered so much territory in only a few hours that we actually saw a lot!
We found the one and only mummy they have, an Egyptian man named Pachery. His wrapping were so cool! I’d never seen such intricate wrappings before and they reminded me of one of my mom’s quilts. Someone obviously cared a lot for this person once upon a time.
I’m thankful I had done some research online beforehand because everything was written in French and I wouldn’t have recognized so many cool things that I did, as we were walking by! I saw the Code of Hammurabi and things from the Royal Palace of Susa! We’re talking King Darius’ palace! There was a column capital shaped like a bull which could very well have come from King Xerxes’ palace! The very room where he held the banquet and called for Queen Vashti. Perhaps…
We also found the Assyrian sphinxes which were pretty impressive! I saw Venus, Winged Victory of Samothrace and many of the statues, we saw the fortress foundations, the Moabite Stone and much of the Royal rooms including Napoleon’s throne and bedroom set! We saw many famous paintings while searching for the one Hubby wanted to see, “Liberty Leading the People”. It’s pretty cool seeing the works of people like Leonardo de Vinci up close!
I could spend so much more time at the Louvre! What an amazing place! We left at closing time and went to have dinner. Then we had to pack. I enjoyed my first macaron as I watched the Eiffel Tower sparkling at night for the last time from our hotel room.
