Museo de Orsay

On our last day in Paris (yes, we are nearing the end of the "tour), we went to the Orsay Museum. It was my compromise for not going to the Louvre. I just got overwhelmed thinking about the Louvre and we'd both heard good things about the Orsay. So, we went and were not disappointed. John was far happier in it than I was since there were quite a few artists' works there that he wanted to see. I liked the sculpture and some of the paintings. Since my wrist was hurting, he got the camera and took almost all the pictures of the museum. This is to say, he took LOADS of pictures of art. I won't post too many of them. :)

The Orsay is in an old railway station and has mainly French art produced 1848-1914. The station was built in the early 1900s but became unsuitable for trains and it opened as a museum in the 1980s. Apparently it is best known for having impressionists such as Monet and Renior. However, there is also art by Van Gogh, Cezanne, Degas. The museum even has furniture! Granted I don't know much about art, but how is furniture art?

Yarn!

While in Paris, we focussed on sightseeing. We didn't get to do much shopping even though we did walk down one of the main shopping streets. In preparation for the trip, I sent out an email asking my knitting list serve if they knew of any good yarn shops in Paris. I got one message back suggesting a few places. We made it to one of them and it was wonderful. The colors of the yarns were so vibrant and the staff let us look as long as we wanted. After we selected our yarn (we got two: an alpaca and a bamboo), we told the sales person what we wanted and he went in back and wound it for us in the weight we wanted! It was quite impressive and I am looking forward to knitting with the bamboo. It is so soft and feels like silk. I have to finish my niece's poncho, first, though.

Although we weren't supposed to take pictures in the yarn store, we did. Actually, John did. I was having too much fun feeling all the yarns and looking at the sample items. :)

Saint Chapelle

While in Paris, we broke our usual routine of seeing two sites per day. We instead tried to pack into the few days we were there as we could. So brings on the next site: Saint Chapelle. It is a small little church that is near a government building so we got to go through a metal detector before we could get in! When walking in, I was quite disappointed because it is this tiny building. However, it is more impressive once you go upstairs. :)

So, Saint Chapelle was built in the 1240's to house relics from the Holy Land. The gothic church has very intricate stained glass in the chapel upstairs. In fact, the walls are covered in them and can be difficult to see what scenes we depicted.

Pantheon

So, to continue on the tour of our visit to Paris, we visited the Pantheon. As with everything else, we found it interesting but again large. The shear scale of things in Paris got a bit overwhelming at times. We were able to take a tour up to the roof which gave good views.

So, the church was originally dedicated to St. Genevieve and finished in 1781. The massive pendulum was added in 1851. It is interesting because the building has changed functions many times during the course of its history. It was a church, then not, then again, then not. Because of this, it has two entrances: one to the church building and a separate one to just the crypt.

Jardin du Luxembourg

We stayed near Park Luxembourg while in Paris and decided to take a stroll through it one day. The park is very pretty but was the "art" that caught our eye...

Church of Versailles

On our way back to the train from the palace, we saw a large church. Of course we went in and were rewarded with yet another beautiful church...

Versailles Gardens

The gardens in Versailles are absolutely stunning. I wish that we would have had more time to explore and walk around in them. They have all these little paths so you can feel like you are alone at times. The fountains are amazing. Unfortunately, we only managed to see probably about 1/4 of the area...