Paris III Musée du Louvre

On Monday we visited the Louvre, the oldest, biggest, most famous, most visited, most everything museum in the whole wide world. Our favorite exhibits were those of the more ancient civilizations, and everything Egyptian (the encyclopedia of Egyptian gods was really neat), Hammurabi's code (the first written code of laws in human history), the Grand Gallery of huge paintings, the sculpture garden.. too many to list. It is easy to be distracted by the walls and ceilings of the former Royal Palace as you walk through the exhibits, and the Medieval Louvre underneath it all...

My least favorite was the Mona Lisa. It was a madhouse, literally, and I'm just glad we got out alive.

It's pretty cool to finally see the artifacts of everything you've ever read or hear about in history. The picture of the ancient pottery decorated with what we now call swastikas is for Shari, who has said that the (now corrupted) symbol has been around for a long time! Pretty amazing stuff...

Below, the painting with the longest title, David's "Sacre of the Emperor Napoleon I and the crowning of the Empress Joséphine in the cathedral of Notre-Dame of Paris" and Delacroix's "Liberty Leading the People," First picture (above): my own artistic rendering of "Nike" or "Winged Victory."

Paris II Eiffel Tower

Sunday night, we relaxed with a small picnic on the Champs-de-Mars, the green space at the base of the Eiffel Tower. (The translation is Field of Mars, so named because was used for military training). I've seen the Tour d'Eiffel lots of times from a distance, but it is pretty awesome to see it up close...not because it's an icon of everything French, but because it's just so big!

In October we saw a huge rugby balloon hanging in the middle of it. I've since learned about some more banners that hung from the tower in the past: During World War II, the Germans hung a sign on it that read: "Deutschland Siegt Auf Allen Fronten" ("Germany is victorious on all fronts"). In 1958, as Fidel Castro was rising to power, Cuban revolutionaries hung their red-and-black flag from the first level, and, in 1979, an American from Greenpeace hung one that read: "Save the Seals". What a billboard!

Paris I

We decided to celebrate our fourth anniversary in Paris this year. Up until this point, we had visited Paris often, but without really taking the time to really relax, see it, and enjoy it. We've gone to church services there, we've picked up friends and family from the airport, we've had work-related appointments and a cooking class... Not a lot of sight-seeing. So we decided to spend a long weekend there and enjoy some museums and see some sights.













We really enjoyed walking at night. The monuments, churches, buildings, fountains, statues, etc. are beautifully lit at night. On our first night there we explored the Tuileries and the Louvre gardens and then walked along the Seine to the Notre Dame cathedral. The next day we took most of the day to see the Musee d'Orsay, an extraordinary museum in the center of Paris of collections of art (painting, sculptures, decorative and graphic arts, photography, and architecture) from 1848 to 1914. The museum was installed in the former Orsay railway station, itself a work of art! We saw very famous painting after painting.. the kind you see in your literature and art books in school, on greeting cards, prints all over the world. You have to hold your chin up as you walk from room to room. A very interesting place!

Around Vauville

We don't spend ALL of our free time travelling. We do enjoy our home when we are here, especially the sunsets over the water. We like to go biking along the miles of nearby trails. We have had some adventures in the scrub and steep sand dunes with our bikes. We also like to take long hikes along the trails that line the water.

One Sunday we enjoyed the annual Vauville derby that took place just up the road. At lunch we had to laugh at the differences between American and French concession stands at such sporting events. Instead of what we are used to (BBQ, hamburgers, hotdogs, soda, brownies, etc), they roasted salted lamb, had a variety of gourmet salads (some with shrimp), specialty cheeses, tarts, and wine! This was after the aperitif that was between the event and lunch time. But, in either country, at any event, you will find French fries!

One of the perks to living here is the fun stream of traffic going by our house on the street. The kitchen window is like an entertainment center, where in the summer I see a constant stream hikers, tourists with cameras, huge tour buses, horses and riders, carriages, ponies, boats, and tractors. And one evening,while the Harpers were here visiting, a herd of sheep went by. Sandra dropped everything and ran out the door--we didn't know what was going on until we followed her and saw them!

We also find a little time to go to the beach. We mostly walk there around sunset, but on occasion we could be found relaxing with our lounge chairs at the edge of the water.