First day in Madrid: Plaza Mayor and Reina Sophia

In Madrid, we are staying at Hotel Europa on the Puerta del Sol.  This is the center of Madrid, and the center of Spain.  Kilometer Zero of Spain is located just across the street.  This is the view from our window, and this view was our first real look at Madrid.

At this point in our adventures, we were both very tired, and so our first day in Madrid, we took it easy.  We took a stroll down to Plaza Mayor.

Greg with one of my favorite buskers, a puppeteer (I can't imagine doing how they do it in the heat!):

Another busker, making music with glasses filled with water. I guess the coin I had tossed in was not enough for a photo, or he forgot that I had already tipped him since he is pointing to his coin box.

After walking around a bit, we returned to the room for a nap.  Many shops close down in the afternoon,  which I love. It allows me to take a nap without feeling like I am missing out on anything.  After recharging our batteries, we took the Metro a couple of stops to the Reina Sophia Art Museum.  

I have wanted to see Picasso's Guernica for a very long time.  It is one of the first modern art pieces I remember seeing in books, and the images stuck with me, because they are so striking. As a child, I thought the painting was odd and the images funny, but after I grew up and learned the history behind Guernica and why it was painted, nothing about the painting seems funny. It is a strong statement on the horrific cost of war, especially to the innocent. The bizarre images convey the pain and emotion in a powerful way, perhaps even more so than a realistic image would. The surrounding galleries display the sketches Picasso did for Guernica.  All them are powerful by themselves, and evoke powerful emotion, but put together in the final painting, they are almost overwhelming.  Guernica is huge, and standing before it, seeing it in person, and understanding its history brought tears to my eyes.   

Being moved emotionally by art is a good way to spend any day, and it was a good way to start our visit to Madrid.

Last two days in Paris: Montmarte and the Louvre

Saturday was spent hanging out in Montmarte, shopping in boutiques, and checking out the different markets. It was a relaxing day spent near the apartment. I left the camera behind to travel as light as possible, and did not even carry a handbag.  One of the most interesting things about shopping abroad, besides seeing the different products, is seeing the different shopping etiquette.  I spent a lot of time observing the shopping before I purchased, so I didn't make too many mistakes.

Sunday, we had to be out of the apartment at 10 am, but our flight to Madrid did not leave until 7 pm. What to do for several hours with baggage in tow? Why, go to the Louvre for a second round, of course! The Louvre will check your baggage for free all day with a purchased ticket. What a great deal!  After depositing our bags, we went searching for some familiar faces in the French sculptures wing of the museum.

We rounded the corner and saw a couple of famous Americans. Sculptures by Houdon:

Benjamin Franklin, my favorite Founding Father:

Greg contemplating the details of the Ben Franklin and George Washington sculptures:

I had forgotten that the Code of Hammurabi was displayed in the Louvre. We stumbled upon it after exploring the French sculptors.

Code of Hammurabi:

From Louvre, we caught the Metro to Porte Maillot where we took a shuttle bus to the Beauvais Airport to catch our Ryanair flight to Spain. The only problem I have with traveling by subway is that I get very disoriented traveling underground, and it always takes me a while after returning to the surface to figure out which direction I am facing (I am one of those types of people who always needs to know which direction is north).  Porte Maillot has several exits from the Metro, and we thought we were taking the correct one. We emerged from under the earth to find ourselves in a park in a middle of one of those huge roundabouts with about 5 lanes.  Hmmmmm.  I had drawn a map so we would know where to go, but the map I based it on did not show a Metro exit in the middle of the roundabout.  We were toting our suitcases, and it was hot.  We couldn't wheel our bags because the only walkways were gravel paths. The roundabout was huge and the street signs were too far way for me to read and try to orient myself to my map. After parking Greg with our bags in the middle of the park, I wandered around a bit to try to figure out which direction we needed to go. I finally saw the bus park in the distance, but it was across the very wide, very busy street from where we were and there was no crosswalk. We searched for a crosswalk, but the only exit we could find was a pedestrian underpass on the opposite side of where we wanted to go.  We saw other people with suitcases disappear in the direction of the bus park and not return, so we followed them.  Their solution to reaching the bus park? Jay walk across five lanes of traffic. What could we do?  Backtrack and walk at least a half mile in that heat using the underpass and walking all the way around that roundabout hauling our bags? No way! We waited for an appropriate lull in traffic, and together with a bunch of other people with the same problem, ran across the road before we got creamed by a tourist bus or the speeding taxis. Whew!  

After that little adventure, the flight to Spain was quite relaxing.

Historic Paris--The Cluny, Pantheon, and Sainte-Chapelle

We started...dang, which day was it? I have reached the point in the trip where I am a couple of days behind on the blogging, and I am so tired that everything is starting to run together.  Hmmm. I think this was Friday.  Friday we started at the Cluny Museum of the Middle Ages.  They have a whole room dedicated to stained glass where you can see the panels lit at eye level--a view not often available in the cathedrals.

Gabriel and his trumpet with the dead rising from their graves:

A knight beheading someone.  I can't remember the specifics of this panel, but I thought it was interesting how they used the variation in the glass to the best bloody effect.

The Cluny also had some of the original sculptures from Notre Dame. The heads are the Kings of Judah whose statues at Notre Dame were beheaded during the Revolution in an anti-monarchy furor.

One thing I could not capture with my camera was the tapestries that were displayed. They were exquisite, but they were displayed under very dim lights to minimize light damage.  After the Cluny, we strolled through the Sorbonne to the Pantheon.  I found it interesting that whatever the town, or the country, a university just feels like a university.  I wanted to find the steps where Theodore Roosevelt gave his "Man in the Arena" speech, but we just didn't have time.  The Pantheon had free admission this day.

I love that France honors her writers and scientists as much as her warriors and statesmen.  I wanted to see where Madame Curie was buried, but that wing of the Crypt was closed.  I did get to see Victor Hugo's and Alexandre Dumas' final resting place, however:

Voltaire is also buried in the Crypt of the Pantheon:

From the Pantheon, we walked towards the Latin Quarter.  St. Severin church has a beautiful flamboyant -style window. We walked in the church, but realized a funeral mass was going on, so we quickly exited.

I love gargoyles. I wish I could be there to see them spitting water from the rain:

Greg grabbing a bite to eat:

The two of us at St. Michel's fountain:

From St. Michel's fountain, we walked to Sainte-Chapelle cathedral. Sainte-Chapelle is magnificent. It was a sunny day, and we arrived late in the day, so the whole interior was lit with a rainbow of color from the windows. There are so many scenes depicted in the windows, it would be possible to spend years looking at them all.  It was stunning.

Sainte-Chapelle is located within the Palais de Justice, where the French Supreme Court is located.

I feel that I am not doing justice to the places we visited this day with my brief descriptions. It was a very full day.  My hope is to update some of these entries with additional information after the trip.  For now, I will get down what I can.

The Orangerie, Louvre, and Orsay

We started Thursday at the Tuileries, the giant park in front of the Louvre.  We were to give our Paris Museum Passes (one of the best deals in Paris) a workout this day!

Greg at the front entrance of the Tuileries with the Arc de Triomphe in the background.

The Tuileries also contains the Musee Orangerie, which contains Monet's Waterlilies (Les Nympheas).  I absolutely loved the Orangerie. It wasn't crowded, and it was easy to contemplate the paintings. It was wonderful to get up close and look at the details.  I kept envisioning Monet painting on the canvases and then backing way up to see how they looked at a distance.  I would move in close, and the painting looked like nothing but a mess of brush strokes and a riot of color.  I would move away, and the painting would come into focus.

Detail of brush strokes of above section:

Detail of brush strokes of above section:

The canvases are huge (over 6 feet high) and curve around the oval rooms.  Oval skylights above light them with natural light.

From there we walked through the Tuileries to the Louvre:

Greg and I in front of the Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel:

With our Paris Museum Pass we bypassed the lines into the Louvre and went straight to the Denon wing of the museum.  What can I say about the Louvre? I have wanted to visit since I was in grade school. Seeing paintings and sculpture in person is so different then seeing reproductions. There are many, many works at the Louvre I want to see. It was like being at a massive feast where I only had time to sample a few dishes.   Ah, I could spend days here!  I took a lot of pictures at the Louvre, but these are some of the better ones. 

Winged Victory of Samothrace:

Mona Lisa in her glass coffin:

Cat and dog detail from the Wedding at Cana by Veronese.

Venus de Milo:

The Slaves by Michelangelo:

From the Louvre we walked to the Orsay.  It was a nice counterpoint to view some Impressionists after all the classical works we viewed at the Louvre, .  Paintings are so much more vibrant and say so much more when you view them in person. I was able to see many works that I have long admired.  I have to say that no photograph I have seen does Renoir's Moulin de la Galette justice. The colors were so vibrant in person, the dancers looked as if they were actually twirling.  I was able to see the brushwork of many of Van Gogh's paintings.  I had a chance to view Whistler's Mother up close.  The Louvre and Orsay were like the shrine at the end of a long pilgrimage. 

Photography was not allowed in the museum, but I was able to do a quick sketch of a sculpture at the end of our visit while we sat in the cafe enjoying a coffee.

It was a day to feed the soul.

Quintessential Paris

Wednesday was our first day to really go see all the famous Paris sites.  I had HUGE plans for all we were going to see.  I always plan way too much and forget that sometimes just getting around a city can take a lot of time.  We decided to take buses yesterday, instead of the Metro. We thought it would be a good way to see more of Paris, traveling above the ground, seeing the streets instead of passing beneath them. It was a good way to see Paris, but it was a slow way to see Paris with all of the traffic that was out yesterday.  It was a warm, almost hot, sunny day, and the crowds were enormous.

Our first stop was the Arc de Triomphe.

Next we went to the Eiffel Tower.

Ice cream at the Eiffel Tower:

I really did not picture how enormous the Eiffel Tower was until I stood beneath it.

Greg perusing the bookstands along the Seine.

Point Zero, the center of Paris, where the city started, and the point from which all distances are measured.

Point Zero is in the square in front of Notre Dame cathedral.

I love the gargoyles!

Portal of the Last Judgement (center portal):

North rose window--this window has the most original glass of the windows:

Greg and I in front of Notre Dame.  

I really enjoyed the day, and seeing Notre Dame after reading Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame really put the book and its descriptions into perspective.  I could just see Quasimodo stalking over the rooftops and gazing over the city or grabbing Esmeralda from the square and whisking her within the church for sanctuary.  We didn't have time to climb the towers, which is something I hope we can come back to do before the trip is over.

We didn't get to everything I hoped during the day, but it was a full day nonetheless.

Finally a quick video of the Eiffel Tower from the room with sounds from the streets surrounding us.