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Paris
Things on the trip have by and large been going very well. I'm gonna do my best to type up this post on the weird-ass Paris keyboard, but please note that if you see a q, I probably meant to write an a, and a z probably means I tried to write a w, and anything any number of errors might indicate that I was attepmpting to write an m. :)
We arrived on Wendesday morning last week, and true to my expectations I didn't manage to get any sleep on the plane. Instead, I read through the travel guide and rapidly established that even if I wasn't dealing with the constraints of being on a family vacation, there was more to do in Paris than even I could have managed in the amount of time that we were here. With that in mind, I decided on the three things that were most important to me:
1. The Louvre. One of the most amazing art museums in the world, I had very fond memories of the time that I spent there the first time I visited Paris (fall, 2000). I particulqrly was looking forward to seeing the Titians, because he is one of my favorite painters and because my first time here, due to gallery closings I was not able to see the works of his that they had. I also was especially looking forward to the donuts. I have very positive memories of the donuts at the Louvre. :) I was particularly anticipating this visit because I had learned that the Louvre allowed photography, which was just asking for trouble...
2. The Musee d'Orsay, the second great art museum in the city, is also a high priority. Though it focuses on more late &çth and éàth century art, which isn't as much to my taste, there is still plenty of artists in that time period that I like a lot, so it's well worth the visit.
3. Musee de l'Armee. I love arms and armor. Especially old guns, muskets, rifles, etc. That made this the only logical choice to round out my three, since it has one of the finest collection of arms and armor in the world, starting with the Greeks and Romans (a pretty small collection) and going all the way to modern times.
So we arrived on Wednesday, and having not slept, I was exhausted. Everyone was pretty tired, too, so we made no effort to do anything fancy, instead just going for a walk, and then it took all my willpower to stay awake until 7 PM. I feel like I must be getting old.
Remarkably, I slept through the night (sort of, mom and I were both up for about 2 hours in the middle) and oke up basically refreshed the next morning at 7. Breakfast was obtained, and then we headed to our first stop: the Louvre. I was more than pleased to make it to my highest priority stops on the very first full day. :)
The Louvre was everything I remembered and more. It's immense, for one thing, with unbelievable collections of everything from Ancient art all the way through most of European history. While non-European contries aren't that represented, there are other museums with those collections here. Course, I'm not going to end up having the time to go to the this trip, but that's okay.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
schenker28 will probably be here all spring (tha's my current understanding, anyway) and I'm figuring that makes it a good time to come back and do all the things I'm not getting to do this time. :)
The Louvre is immense. I ended up spending all day Thusday there, and only managed to get through about a quarter of the museul, with a focus on the French, Dutch, Italian, and related paintings, and I ended up ambling through the early Cycladian type stuff, too, mostly inadvertantly. That was "all" I managed to see in that, oh, roughly 8 hour stretch.
I also got my first taste of what it's like to be the person pushing the wheel chair. My grandfather is 91, and he no longer walks very well. While he doesn't, strictly speaking, NEED a wheelchair, he cannot stand for long without getting tired; and he walks noticeably less than a mile per hour, and so we brought a chair along and have been pushing him around. The walk to the Louvre with the chair was the first enlightening experience. IT was a fairly long walk from our hotel, which is located just outside the Gare de Lyon on the eastern side of the city, and I was surprised to find that the chair wasn't that tiring to push, at least aside from uphill. The next interesting thing was that both he and I were admitted to the museum for free. Then, it was fascinating to see the way different people in the museul reacted. For the most part, people were more polite and understanding than I would have expected, with the veyr noticeable and irritating exception of Italians. I can't claim that all Italians were rude, but I can state with confidence that pretty much all of the people who were memorably rude were Italian. The last major perk came at the museums main attraction: On a wall in one gallery, with a wooden balustrade, an empty space, and then a line of those flexible barrier things, is the small, and, to my mind, rather unimpressive bit of canvas that is the Mona Lisa. Permanently mobbed with people and perpetually under guard, and behind glass, the wheelchair gained us access within the flexible barrier, enabling us to get far closer than any one else was permitted. Course, it was still rather unimpressive. I'm not a fan. :)
Part way through the day, pop went back to the hotel, and I as free to wander a bit more to my taste (though, in truth, pop said to go whereever I wanted, so I wasn't really restricted in this regard) and at my own pace, and my first goal was obvious: I had to find those Titan's! I rememebered where they were supposed to be, and my victory seemed assured when I found the romm in question, containing an assortment of Italian and Spanish paintings, to be open. There were Goyas and El Grecos and some other wonderful bits, but then I noticed that the little side galleries around the edge of the room were blocked from public access by barred doors. I could see through to the obviously Italian paintings within; but could get no closer. A sign on one of these doors informed me (with my sister-in-law, K's, help) that the galleries in question were closed until November. And what did they contain? Oh, all of the Venetian school...
CURSES!!!! FOILED AGAIN!!!!
I think I'm doomed. If I fail to see them the third time, I'm just going to have to give up. I mean, really, what were the chances? The only reason I couldn't see them the last tile was that the galleries randomly closed on a day that they were supposed to be open...
Sigh.
Still, this frustrating experience couldn't dim the joy brought by such a vast museum, and I soon felt better bustling around a room completely filled with immense paintings by Rubens, some choice Rembrandts, and a funny little church interior by a guy named Houckgeest, just to name a few of the things that stood out. Needless to say, I took about a zillion pictures, until I was driven home by my camera battery dying. :)
Friday morning brought family plans to go the museum that highlights the experience of Jews in France (pre-WW2). While I had, for myself, decided I wasn't terribly interested in this museum, it was very logical that it would be a place that my grandfather would like to go, and in the end I was pleased that we went. It wasn't terribly big, but it was set in a lovely historical (17th century) mansion, and had extensive collection of artifacts and books, some of them very old. There was also an interesting selection of 19th century art either of Jews or by Jews, and all in all I thought it was a nice, balanced disucssion of the topic. Afterwards, mom headed back to the hotel and the rest of us grabbed lunch, at which point I volunteered to take pop back, but due to lousy weather I ended up walking him all the way back, including a detour caused by accidentally starting out going the wrong direction. It left me pretty tired, though Mom and I still found the energy to go back to the Louvre for another couple hours, though we didn't stay long - we were both pretty tired.
Saturday dawned to a lovely clear sky, the rain of Friday having thankfully passed. I was feeling pretty tired - I haven't been sleeping great overall, which is getting old and is exacerbated by how much exercise I've been getting - and thought to make a relatively slow day of it. I ended up convinced to head over with the family to the Botanical Garden and park just across the river from our hotel. One large park area contains a zoo; several Natural History museul type things, and a lovely planted garden. Rather than attend any of the particular attractions, though, we ended up just wandering around the planted sections and taking pictures, and then back to the hotel. After that I didn't really do anything but read. It was a pretty good day.
With discussion of visiting the Eiffel Towzer today it was becoming clear to me that if I wished to go to the Musee de l'Armee, I was running out of time. It turned out that no one else wished to attend this museum - and carving out alone time hasn't been that easy, since Pop needs to be wheeled around. Fortunately, as Sunday daned, both Mom and Pop indicated that they'd like to stay at the hotel, so I set out bright and early for my museum. It was HUGE and they allowed photography, and in the three hours or so I managed to get there, I took as many pictures as I took my first day at the Louvre. It was the kind of place that had I seen pretty much any one item in the museum at a different museum, I'd have taken the picture - an embarassment of riches, after a fashion. They had astonishing selections of arms and armor, especially armor, and guns...though really, everything on display was at masterwork level. The crossbows stood out as especially fine.
The museul is divided into three major sections - up to Louis XIII; Louis XIII to the Third Dynasty (roughly 1870) and then 1870 to the present, though primarily WW1 and WW2. See, the museum was founded in 1796, which means that ever ruler of France from Napolean forward turned over all their spoils that ,ight relate to the collection, and so they have a fascinating array of uniforms, etc., from these wars. Oddly, weapons seemed under represented in the modern stuff - though there were some awesome WW1 era machine guns that were fascinating - but there were uniforms from all over the world.
All in all; I barely scratched the surface of this attraction I was looking forward to so much. I didn't have time to read any of the labeling just about, and I only went through the oldest stuff (to Louis XIII) with any thoroughness. I did a fast walk through of WW1, skipped most of WW2, and did an even faster walkthrough of the Louis XIII to Napolean stuff, even though I really wanted to see that section, because the signage was confusing and it took me several tries to FIND that section.
From there, mom had made it clear that she would go stir crazy if she spent the whole day in the hotel, so she and I met up and went to the Rodin Museum, which was just across the street. It was mostly outdoors, with some lovely bronzes of his, some of which I hqdn't seen before, though some I had (I've now seen three basically identical casts of the Buergers of Calais, which I can't spell. It was in a lovely old mansion (the parts that were indoors, anyway) and much of the collection was originally actually Rodin's, a combination of pieces he didn't sell, incomplete or early drafts, and pieces he owned and got inspiration from by other artists. It made a neat combination, and included many of his larbles, which I like better than his bronzes. One, entitled Earth and Moon (or something similar) reminded me ofmoonartemis76.
A long walk back followed (I've been walking as much as possible, though even I have had to acknowledge defeat a couple times, like today after I pushed the wheel chair for a two hour walk...) and mom and I wandered down a number of side streets, which was fun, and I passed a gallery where a couple of watercolors caughtmy eye, and I'm thinking about a purchase. I picked up a print in Cologne last year (not a print as in a copy, but a print as in a limited edition etching from the original plate) and have not regretted the decision...I'm pondering. I'm leaning towards no, though, because I'd really, really like to get the Man with the Gold Earring by Omar Rayyan (as discussed in my post about Gencon) and that'll blow out my pleasure spending fun for the next year or so.`
Today, plans were made, but largely didn't end up happening due to late starts. In the morning I...uh...oh; right! Mom, Pop and I went walking on the Palisade Park, which is very close to our hotel. It's like the Highline in New York - a garden built atop what was formerly a disused aqueduct, I think - and it was a nice and different viez of the city. I also found a gaming store called "Troll 2 Jeux" which I'm told by mom means "Troll 2 Play", which I thought was awesome, and just a block along I added Paris to the list of cities where I have photographed or seen a Games Workshop (along with, among others, Cologne, Hong Kong and Tokyo). I've passed several comic book stores, though I've yet to add One Piece in French to my collection - I need to find the chance tomorrow, or miss out. (If I get it, I'll own the first volume of One Piece in, er, 5 or 6 languages. No, I don't know why this appeals to me, but somehow it does, and it's easy to accomplish. :) )
A long walk brought us to the Museum of the Middle Ages; which is housed in a building built by the Cluny monks, and includes on the premises the foundation and some walls from a 2nd or 3rd century Roman chateau. We were going to go in, but on the walk I began to worry about the extent to which it would be handicapped accessible (being in a 500 year old or some such church, this seemed potentially problematic) and then when we got there the line to get in was shockingly long, so we pressed on to the Eiffel Tower, where we met up with B and K. Lol's afraid of heights, but the rest of us went on up and got to see a fabulous view of the city on an amazingly clear day. I'd never been anywhere near the Tower before, so it was pretty neat.
From there we went to dinner, I got to find out what profiteroles are and that they are delicious, and now I'm finishing this post, which I started this morning. The comps are public and only want to be used 20 min at a time (though nothing actually stops me from re-logging in other than the people potentially waiting) and the keyboard is far from standard (in addition to those I've mentioned, you have to hit shift to type the numbers, and the ; is where the , is supposed to be, and the . is a shift above the ; and the > carrots are someplace else completely, and for some reason it makes my left hand hurt trying to use it) - all combine to make it annoyingly slow going to get this done, though I think I still type faster than most even with these troubles. All the random z and q and w in this post probably belie with what skill I manage this feat, though.`
It could be worse - I could have written the above without trying to fix it - then Iùd hqve zritten thqt things could be zorse, qnd further belie ,y skills or lqck there of qt qdqpting. Funniest of all, I've already gotten so used to the new location of the a button that I had troule typing it "incorrectly" for the above. That's gonna suck when I switch back in a couple of days...
Tomorrow the plan is the Musee d'Orsay and laundry, and thus will I successfully reach my triumverate before we leave for London on Wendensday.
In other news, they tell me my underwriting approval should come through this week. I'll believe it when I see it.
We arrived on Wendesday morning last week, and true to my expectations I didn't manage to get any sleep on the plane. Instead, I read through the travel guide and rapidly established that even if I wasn't dealing with the constraints of being on a family vacation, there was more to do in Paris than even I could have managed in the amount of time that we were here. With that in mind, I decided on the three things that were most important to me:
1. The Louvre. One of the most amazing art museums in the world, I had very fond memories of the time that I spent there the first time I visited Paris (fall, 2000). I particulqrly was looking forward to seeing the Titians, because he is one of my favorite painters and because my first time here, due to gallery closings I was not able to see the works of his that they had. I also was especially looking forward to the donuts. I have very positive memories of the donuts at the Louvre. :) I was particularly anticipating this visit because I had learned that the Louvre allowed photography, which was just asking for trouble...
2. The Musee d'Orsay, the second great art museum in the city, is also a high priority. Though it focuses on more late &çth and éàth century art, which isn't as much to my taste, there is still plenty of artists in that time period that I like a lot, so it's well worth the visit.
3. Musee de l'Armee. I love arms and armor. Especially old guns, muskets, rifles, etc. That made this the only logical choice to round out my three, since it has one of the finest collection of arms and armor in the world, starting with the Greeks and Romans (a pretty small collection) and going all the way to modern times.
So we arrived on Wednesday, and having not slept, I was exhausted. Everyone was pretty tired, too, so we made no effort to do anything fancy, instead just going for a walk, and then it took all my willpower to stay awake until 7 PM. I feel like I must be getting old.
Remarkably, I slept through the night (sort of, mom and I were both up for about 2 hours in the middle) and oke up basically refreshed the next morning at 7. Breakfast was obtained, and then we headed to our first stop: the Louvre. I was more than pleased to make it to my highest priority stops on the very first full day. :)
The Louvre was everything I remembered and more. It's immense, for one thing, with unbelievable collections of everything from Ancient art all the way through most of European history. While non-European contries aren't that represented, there are other museums with those collections here. Course, I'm not going to end up having the time to go to the this trip, but that's okay.
schenker28 will probably be here all spring (tha's my current understanding, anyway) and I'm figuring that makes it a good time to come back and do all the things I'm not getting to do this time. :)The Louvre is immense. I ended up spending all day Thusday there, and only managed to get through about a quarter of the museul, with a focus on the French, Dutch, Italian, and related paintings, and I ended up ambling through the early Cycladian type stuff, too, mostly inadvertantly. That was "all" I managed to see in that, oh, roughly 8 hour stretch.
I also got my first taste of what it's like to be the person pushing the wheel chair. My grandfather is 91, and he no longer walks very well. While he doesn't, strictly speaking, NEED a wheelchair, he cannot stand for long without getting tired; and he walks noticeably less than a mile per hour, and so we brought a chair along and have been pushing him around. The walk to the Louvre with the chair was the first enlightening experience. IT was a fairly long walk from our hotel, which is located just outside the Gare de Lyon on the eastern side of the city, and I was surprised to find that the chair wasn't that tiring to push, at least aside from uphill. The next interesting thing was that both he and I were admitted to the museum for free. Then, it was fascinating to see the way different people in the museul reacted. For the most part, people were more polite and understanding than I would have expected, with the veyr noticeable and irritating exception of Italians. I can't claim that all Italians were rude, but I can state with confidence that pretty much all of the people who were memorably rude were Italian. The last major perk came at the museums main attraction: On a wall in one gallery, with a wooden balustrade, an empty space, and then a line of those flexible barrier things, is the small, and, to my mind, rather unimpressive bit of canvas that is the Mona Lisa. Permanently mobbed with people and perpetually under guard, and behind glass, the wheelchair gained us access within the flexible barrier, enabling us to get far closer than any one else was permitted. Course, it was still rather unimpressive. I'm not a fan. :)
Part way through the day, pop went back to the hotel, and I as free to wander a bit more to my taste (though, in truth, pop said to go whereever I wanted, so I wasn't really restricted in this regard) and at my own pace, and my first goal was obvious: I had to find those Titan's! I rememebered where they were supposed to be, and my victory seemed assured when I found the romm in question, containing an assortment of Italian and Spanish paintings, to be open. There were Goyas and El Grecos and some other wonderful bits, but then I noticed that the little side galleries around the edge of the room were blocked from public access by barred doors. I could see through to the obviously Italian paintings within; but could get no closer. A sign on one of these doors informed me (with my sister-in-law, K's, help) that the galleries in question were closed until November. And what did they contain? Oh, all of the Venetian school...
CURSES!!!! FOILED AGAIN!!!!
I think I'm doomed. If I fail to see them the third time, I'm just going to have to give up. I mean, really, what were the chances? The only reason I couldn't see them the last tile was that the galleries randomly closed on a day that they were supposed to be open...
Sigh.
Still, this frustrating experience couldn't dim the joy brought by such a vast museum, and I soon felt better bustling around a room completely filled with immense paintings by Rubens, some choice Rembrandts, and a funny little church interior by a guy named Houckgeest, just to name a few of the things that stood out. Needless to say, I took about a zillion pictures, until I was driven home by my camera battery dying. :)
Friday morning brought family plans to go the museum that highlights the experience of Jews in France (pre-WW2). While I had, for myself, decided I wasn't terribly interested in this museum, it was very logical that it would be a place that my grandfather would like to go, and in the end I was pleased that we went. It wasn't terribly big, but it was set in a lovely historical (17th century) mansion, and had extensive collection of artifacts and books, some of them very old. There was also an interesting selection of 19th century art either of Jews or by Jews, and all in all I thought it was a nice, balanced disucssion of the topic. Afterwards, mom headed back to the hotel and the rest of us grabbed lunch, at which point I volunteered to take pop back, but due to lousy weather I ended up walking him all the way back, including a detour caused by accidentally starting out going the wrong direction. It left me pretty tired, though Mom and I still found the energy to go back to the Louvre for another couple hours, though we didn't stay long - we were both pretty tired.
Saturday dawned to a lovely clear sky, the rain of Friday having thankfully passed. I was feeling pretty tired - I haven't been sleeping great overall, which is getting old and is exacerbated by how much exercise I've been getting - and thought to make a relatively slow day of it. I ended up convinced to head over with the family to the Botanical Garden and park just across the river from our hotel. One large park area contains a zoo; several Natural History museul type things, and a lovely planted garden. Rather than attend any of the particular attractions, though, we ended up just wandering around the planted sections and taking pictures, and then back to the hotel. After that I didn't really do anything but read. It was a pretty good day.
With discussion of visiting the Eiffel Towzer today it was becoming clear to me that if I wished to go to the Musee de l'Armee, I was running out of time. It turned out that no one else wished to attend this museum - and carving out alone time hasn't been that easy, since Pop needs to be wheeled around. Fortunately, as Sunday daned, both Mom and Pop indicated that they'd like to stay at the hotel, so I set out bright and early for my museum. It was HUGE and they allowed photography, and in the three hours or so I managed to get there, I took as many pictures as I took my first day at the Louvre. It was the kind of place that had I seen pretty much any one item in the museum at a different museum, I'd have taken the picture - an embarassment of riches, after a fashion. They had astonishing selections of arms and armor, especially armor, and guns...though really, everything on display was at masterwork level. The crossbows stood out as especially fine.
The museul is divided into three major sections - up to Louis XIII; Louis XIII to the Third Dynasty (roughly 1870) and then 1870 to the present, though primarily WW1 and WW2. See, the museum was founded in 1796, which means that ever ruler of France from Napolean forward turned over all their spoils that ,ight relate to the collection, and so they have a fascinating array of uniforms, etc., from these wars. Oddly, weapons seemed under represented in the modern stuff - though there were some awesome WW1 era machine guns that were fascinating - but there were uniforms from all over the world.
All in all; I barely scratched the surface of this attraction I was looking forward to so much. I didn't have time to read any of the labeling just about, and I only went through the oldest stuff (to Louis XIII) with any thoroughness. I did a fast walk through of WW1, skipped most of WW2, and did an even faster walkthrough of the Louis XIII to Napolean stuff, even though I really wanted to see that section, because the signage was confusing and it took me several tries to FIND that section.
From there, mom had made it clear that she would go stir crazy if she spent the whole day in the hotel, so she and I met up and went to the Rodin Museum, which was just across the street. It was mostly outdoors, with some lovely bronzes of his, some of which I hqdn't seen before, though some I had (I've now seen three basically identical casts of the Buergers of Calais, which I can't spell. It was in a lovely old mansion (the parts that were indoors, anyway) and much of the collection was originally actually Rodin's, a combination of pieces he didn't sell, incomplete or early drafts, and pieces he owned and got inspiration from by other artists. It made a neat combination, and included many of his larbles, which I like better than his bronzes. One, entitled Earth and Moon (or something similar) reminded me of
moonartemis76. A long walk back followed (I've been walking as much as possible, though even I have had to acknowledge defeat a couple times, like today after I pushed the wheel chair for a two hour walk...) and mom and I wandered down a number of side streets, which was fun, and I passed a gallery where a couple of watercolors caughtmy eye, and I'm thinking about a purchase. I picked up a print in Cologne last year (not a print as in a copy, but a print as in a limited edition etching from the original plate) and have not regretted the decision...I'm pondering. I'm leaning towards no, though, because I'd really, really like to get the Man with the Gold Earring by Omar Rayyan (as discussed in my post about Gencon) and that'll blow out my pleasure spending fun for the next year or so.`
Today, plans were made, but largely didn't end up happening due to late starts. In the morning I...uh...oh; right! Mom, Pop and I went walking on the Palisade Park, which is very close to our hotel. It's like the Highline in New York - a garden built atop what was formerly a disused aqueduct, I think - and it was a nice and different viez of the city. I also found a gaming store called "Troll 2 Jeux" which I'm told by mom means "Troll 2 Play", which I thought was awesome, and just a block along I added Paris to the list of cities where I have photographed or seen a Games Workshop (along with, among others, Cologne, Hong Kong and Tokyo). I've passed several comic book stores, though I've yet to add One Piece in French to my collection - I need to find the chance tomorrow, or miss out. (If I get it, I'll own the first volume of One Piece in, er, 5 or 6 languages. No, I don't know why this appeals to me, but somehow it does, and it's easy to accomplish. :) )
A long walk brought us to the Museum of the Middle Ages; which is housed in a building built by the Cluny monks, and includes on the premises the foundation and some walls from a 2nd or 3rd century Roman chateau. We were going to go in, but on the walk I began to worry about the extent to which it would be handicapped accessible (being in a 500 year old or some such church, this seemed potentially problematic) and then when we got there the line to get in was shockingly long, so we pressed on to the Eiffel Tower, where we met up with B and K. Lol's afraid of heights, but the rest of us went on up and got to see a fabulous view of the city on an amazingly clear day. I'd never been anywhere near the Tower before, so it was pretty neat.
From there we went to dinner, I got to find out what profiteroles are and that they are delicious, and now I'm finishing this post, which I started this morning. The comps are public and only want to be used 20 min at a time (though nothing actually stops me from re-logging in other than the people potentially waiting) and the keyboard is far from standard (in addition to those I've mentioned, you have to hit shift to type the numbers, and the ; is where the , is supposed to be, and the . is a shift above the ; and the > carrots are someplace else completely, and for some reason it makes my left hand hurt trying to use it) - all combine to make it annoyingly slow going to get this done, though I think I still type faster than most even with these troubles. All the random z and q and w in this post probably belie with what skill I manage this feat, though.`
It could be worse - I could have written the above without trying to fix it - then Iùd hqve zritten thqt things could be zorse, qnd further belie ,y skills or lqck there of qt qdqpting. Funniest of all, I've already gotten so used to the new location of the a button that I had troule typing it "incorrectly" for the above. That's gonna suck when I switch back in a couple of days...
Tomorrow the plan is the Musee d'Orsay and laundry, and thus will I successfully reach my triumverate before we leave for London on Wendensday.
In other news, they tell me my underwriting approval should come through this week. I'll believe it when I see it.
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And I rather agree about the Mona Lisa. It wasn't an uninteresting painting, but it'd be hard for anything to live up to all the hype. If it were just another of the top tier of famous paintings, that I could understand, but what makes this particular one THE painting to see in the Louvre? I don't get it. The smile isn't THAT mysterious.