Paris, the city of romance…

Last weekend, in celebration of Anna’s birthday, we took a road trip down to Paris. It’s about a four hour car ride and since we didn’t have a car then, our friend Jose was VERY generous and let us borrow his (including the GPS navigation), which made the trip much more enjoyable. 🙂
Although I have been to France a couple times before, it was Anna’s first time. So, we focused our short two-day stay on the big tourist destinations (that seems to be the case the last few trips … hopefully, we will be able to delve in a little deeper next time).
One of the great romantic icons of the world is the Eiffel Tower. We watched darkness fall over the tower with many other couples. Love seemed to be in the air throughout the whole city. 🙂

For the millennium celebration the French government placed strobe lights on the tower, and on the hour when it gets dark, they illuminate the sky. It’s very pretty (although perhaps a bit gaudy, but that has characterized the Eiffel Tower since it was built in 1889, when it replaced the Washington Monument as the world’s tallest structure).


Next stop was Napoleon’s famous Arc de Triomphe on the Champs-Élysées. An interesting fact: when Napoleon returned to Paris in 1810 with his bride, Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria, he had a wooden mock-up of the completed Arc built as a wedding present.


After an exquisite dinner at Ladurée on the Champs-Élysées, we walked up the boulevard to purportedly the most famous cabaret in the world, The Lido. For those of you who aren’t familiar with it (we’ve found most Americans aren’t), it’s a show similar to the Moulin Rouge. It’s a bit risqué, but the costumes and sets were beautiful. We enjoyed the show, but it’s a bit expensive and we recommend the Moulin Rouge instead.

A view looking back up at the Arc from the Champs-Élysées.

Here is the view from our hotel balcony. It was in a perfect location, literally right next door to the Louvre and close to all the sights we wanted to visit.

Of course, one of the best parts of being in Europe (and Paris in particular) are the outdoor cafes. You can wake up and walk over to indulge in a hot chocolate (or coffee) and croissant. In Guam, it was waking up and walking down the beach for waffles. I don’t know which I like better, but the chocolate and croissant tasted fabulous on a cool, overcast morning here.

After our petit-déjeuner, it was across the street to spend the day at the Louvre. As you can see, the weather was perfect for museum exploring.

The line was a little long to get in (and a bit wet), but fortunately, we were admitted inside quickly.

Below are a couple pictures of a fashion that was very popular in France. It’s here in Germany too, but not quite to the same extent.


Even the security guards ride bikes here. I love it!

Here’s an aerial view of the entrance courtyard of the Louvre. As you can see, it’s dominated by the glass pyramid built in 1989. It’s a sharp contrast to the rest of the architecture. Personally, I think it’s a nice contrast. It stands about 70 feet high and serves as the main entrance.
Also interesting to note that since Dan Brown’s book the Da Vinci Code was published in 2003 (which opens in the Louvre and this pyramid plays a central role in the plot) visits to the museum have dramatically increased. In fact in 2005, there were 7.3 million visitors, a 22% increase to previous figures. That makes the Louvre the most popular tourist attraction in Paris.


Inside, we toured as much of the palace as we could, but since there are 73,000 works of art, we simply couldn’t see it all in a day. However, in my pictures below, you will notice that I have more of the sculpture. That’s not to mean that I didn’t enjoy the paintings and other works of art, it simply reflects that it’s easier to create an artistic image with sculptures. Plus, if you merely want to see the work of art, the Louvre publishes most of them on their website: http://www.louvre.fr/llv/musee/alaune.jsp
This is one sphinx of Ramses II (a similar larger version of this is in Egypt as well, in addition to the Great Sphinx of Gaza).

A statue of the Roman Emperor Constantine. He’s notable because he made Christianity the state religion of Rome and he began his rule nearby us in Trier before he went on to found the city of Constantinople.

Here’s Anna wandering the halls (which is a work of art by itself)…

Of course we had to see Da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and the Venus de Milo. While we didn’t take any pictures of the Mona Lisa (the crowd surrounding it is perhaps the most impressive part). However, below is the ancient Greek sculpture probably depicting Aphrodite and most likely created by Alexandros of Antioch. However, since the arms and pedestal are missing no one is entirely sure on either count. I’ve always found it interesting a work of art can gain such fame without really knowing where it came from… 🙂

The crowd around the Venus de Milo was almost as large as the Mona Lisa.

A self portrait…

Another wing…

A whole room of art… 🙂

The father of our nation (George Washington) in the foreground and a like-minded, sharp-witted French philosopher from the same era (Voltaire) in the back.

My favorite museum-going partner.

This eight-foot tall stela of basalt is the codified laws of Hammurabi of ancient Mesopotamia (from about 1780 BC). There are 282 laws written on this stone. We found it fascinating in that it is one of the earliest sets of laws. Since the laws were carved into the stone, they were immutable and irrefutable. Also, supposedly, this is also where the term written in stone came from.
Not only is fascinating from a legal and social perspective, it is also quite a beautiful work of art.

Finally, there was a scary lion from Mesopotamia to complete our tour of the Louvre.

It was simply an amazing weekend to celebrate Anna’s birthday. Best of all, it was only a four-hour drive away!
So, until the next adventure…
–Jim