Paris - Part Two

Note: There is a mysterious white space at the top of this post and I have no idea why. Curious.

Ah, procrastination...I know thee well. Thanks to the holidays, travel, and general uselessness on my part, I am just now getting to posting the second set of Paris pictures. With a little luck and a lot of shame, I should be able to get the London ones up with a bit less lag. One of the pleasant surprises of Paris was the day we spent at Versailles. I had almost no expectation for it (it was a lady's choice) but found myself quite entranced, particularly with the gardens. It's an hour or so train ride out of Paris, in a small town that grew up around the palace.

I mentioned when visiting Napoleon's tomb that the French nobles had it coming. There is no clearer evidence of this than the palace at Versailles. The walls are covered in marble or rich wallpapers, and everything you can imagine to gild is gilded. We had a fascinating room by room guide of it, which helped put each over the top room into perspective.

The French must have spent a lot of time looking at the ceiling (if you know what I mean, wink wink, nudge nudge.) Every one of the public rooms had elaborate scenes painted in panels that were framed by gilded base relief carvings. There were so many amazing details here that it really was a marvel. Not only does this shot show one pissed off cherub, but it also has a series of empty golden helmets lining the crown molding, awaiting being filled by future French war heroes. Neat! And a little creepy.

Everything for the French royalty involved public ceremony. Observe the ceremonial bed. The king would wake in his private bedroom, then come to his public bedroom, where lucky nobles would get to help 'wake' and prepare him for his day. Mary and I would do very poorly in this ceremony. Our niece plays a similar game with her Bubba, and when we attempted it we proved too adept at pretending to be asleep and freaked her out a little. Alas, but for that we could be kings.

As gorgeous as the inside of Versailles was, the real stunner for me was the gardens. Most of the rooms had views overlooking the many elaborate plantings and ponds (and puddles, sadly.) The palace sits right on the edge of the town, so from the front appears surrounded by civilization, but from within seems to be nestled into nature. It's pretty amazing to see.

The largest and most elaborate series of gardens was off the back of the building, overlooked by the public rooms. This picture gives a sense of the layout and scale. Behind the photographer (me) is a large courtyard with a shallow pool filled with fountains and scultures. Down the first bank is another large fountain, flanked by two smaller pools and several smaller fountains. In the middle distance you can see a long, rectangle of lawn stretching back. What appears to be woods on either side of that is, in fact, a series of square grottoes, each with elaborate plantings and garden structures. At the far end of that lawn is the Apollo fountain. Stretching back into the distance from there is the cruciform Grand Canal, where the royals would import gondolas from Venice for elaborate parties. The woods on either side of these were filled with more rustic structures, for when the royals had to get away from their hectic lives of pretending to wake up and staring at ceilings.

King Louis loved fountains, and Versailles reflects this. Even scenes that you might not think to immortalize in bronze can be found shooting water out of every orifice. Take, for example, this pair of scenes from the hunt. Particularly inspiring is the fact that the sculptor did not let the fact that he had never seen a bear or mountain lion stop him from creating a masterpiece.

The French are masters of turning everyday things into works of art. Observe the shrub. Throughout Paris, every shrub was seen as an opportunity to express ones inner Picasso. Nowhere was this more evident than in at Versailles. It was like walking through a Dr. Seuss book, in the best possible way.

We spent some time wandering through the grottoes mentioned above, though the rain and cold kept us from doing as much as I would have liked. Of all the ones we walked through, this grotto was probably our favorite (even though it was gated off and we could only look in from outside. Not only does it have the coolest sculpture/fountain around, but it also has the neat arbor all around it and shrubs shaped to look like vases. Well done, France.

The Apollo fountain was the biggest one there, which is sensible because it was modeled after King Louis (the Sun King.) It was visible from most places in the garden and the house, and thus was the only fountain that was always running. The others were turned as the king approached and then off again once he lost sight of them. This lead Mary and I on wild flights of fancy, imagining royal stalkers whose job it was to figure out when he was approaching a fountain and notify the engineers to turn them on. Best job ever. Our day at Versailles was quite amazing, but sadly a cold and rainy one. I can definitely see us returning on a sunny day, and just spending all our time in the gardens where hopefully the crowds are a bit lessened. We didn't get to see the replica of the rural village that Marie Antoinette had built to remind her of home, and that's an omission that just can't stand.

Back from Versailles, we spent the rest of the afternoon in the Orsay Museum. It is housed in an old train station, and even minus the art is a striking place to visit.

The Orsay houses art from an interesting transitional time. It has both very classical works and more modernist ones. With the guidance of our book, we saw art move from one period to the other, which made art history come alive in a way it hasn't for us in the past. There were also some pieces that were just interesting on their own, like this one of a sculptor shown working on a very classical sculpture of a gladiator.

Despite our hotel being a few blocks from the Eiffel Tower, we only managed to get up to it on the last night we were there. We took the elevator instead of the stairs, since we had walked a ton already that day. The tower sits at the head of the Champs du Mars, at the end of which is the Escola Militar. These huge green spaces really were very special, and I could definitely see us picnicking on the champs in the summer and people watching. Along with the millions of other sneaking into our postcard dreams.

Another artsy shot of the tower. At night it is quite brightly lit, and every so often a show is given where colored lights chase up and down and around the tower. It is tacky fun for the whole family; the French must hate it.

Even topiary has its dark side. These shrubs outside of Notre Dame are proof that shaping can't improve every bush.

Our last set of stairs in Paris! You can climb the towers of Notre Dame and get a gargoyle's eye view of the city. Looking down in the courtyard in front of the cathedral, you can see the lighter colored stone which indicates where the walls of the old buildings and roads used to lie. We think that the spire in the distance is St. Chappelle, but we could be lying.

The gallery midway up the Notre Dame climb puts you at the same level as the famous Gargoyles. I am a total sucker for them, and took a zillion pictures. The 'most photographed gargoyle in the world' was neat, but there were so many other ones that caught our eyes as well.

Have I mentioned that I love signs? Because I love signs. Take, for example, these fire exit indicators. They are so action packed! If you could distill a Michael Bay movie into one frame, I believe it would be one of these.

Overall, we had a fantastic visit to Paris. We loved the sights, the food, the pastries (mmm....the pastries) and the overall environment. We will definitely visit again. We may even make another half-hearted effort at learning French.