(France) Paris is lovely city ever in my heart

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I didn’t expect much about Paris, because many of touristic cities in Europe were all the same except a few cities to me. Although I’ve passed many touristic cities in Europe, only three cities were impressing to me.
Barcelona in Spain (Because of Gaudi’s architecture), Carcassonne’s castle in France, and Florence in Italy
But here I had to add one more city. PARIS!!
I loved here. It was so beautiful city!

The photo of Notre dame

There were so many locks on the bridge.

It was the Seine which was similar to Korean river in Seoul. Why did I decide to part in Paris such as a beautiful city? I was not sure why, but I knew one thing. It was time to enjoy the freedom.

It is Museum of Orsay. It looked so big.

I met really interesting host and Korean friend in Paris. Thanks to them, I could enjoy Paris.
Eiffel Tower was very easy to be seen.

It was the scene from the second floor of Eiffel Tower

Lift to the top was 15 Euros
Lift to the second floor was 9 Euros
Stairs to the second floor was only 5 Euros

People waited to get a lift. But to use stairs didn’t have long line. I only waited 5 minutes to buy a ticket. It was not high, so it was no problem to walk.

It was Palais de Chaillot(Trocadero) which was used as museums. It was said that the view of Eiffel Tower from Trocadero was so beautiful.

With view of Chaillot

The view of the park was really stunning.

With Eiffel Tower

I wanted to hold and put on my heart. Hahaha. I loved Eiffel Tower so much!

I’ve seen the photo of Eiffel Tower so many times, but I’ve never been tired to see with my eyes in Paris.

Museum of Orsay which was at the next to the tower

There were so many old buildings around the center. I loved really hanging in the center.

At the next day I decided to go to Palace of Versailles which was out of city. It took 40 minutes by train.

I didn’t want to wait a long line, so I booked already on online.

http://en.chateauversailles.fr/homepage
http://billetterie.chateauversailles.fr/index-css5-chateauversailles-lgen-pg1.html
I paid with a credit card.

The price was 18 Euros for every palace.
For only Versailles 15 Euros

There were audio guide which was for free. Luckily there was Korean version as well.
The photo is La Chapelle Royale

When the chateau was built, Versailles was a country village; today, however, it is a wealthy suburb of Paris, some 20 kilometers southwest of the French capital. The court of Versailles was the center of political power in France from 1682, when Louis XIV moved from Paris, until the royal family was forced to return to the capital in October 1789 after the beginning of the French Revolution

The drawings were huge on the ceiling.

There were many paintings at every room.

Luxury room

The Hall of Mirrors is the central gallery of the Palace of Versailles. French Prime Minister Clemenceau chose the Hall of Mirrors to sign the Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I on 28 June 1919.

It was war room. Every room were very well decorated.

In The Hall of Mirrors

The Palace of Versailles was huge and there were so many rooms. But every room was very well built with so many expensive drawing and stuff.

It was the King’s Bedchamber (Chambre du Roi). Audio guide kept telling me how rooms were beautiful. It never said how much citizens were tortured while money going to the palace to be built. It was my disappointing. I thought we should learn from the past’s history about wrong thing to go forward. This palace was built with wrong way because so many people had to pay lots of tax for only royal’s house. But it seemed like Audio guide were too proud to tell me the truth.

It was queen’s Bedchamber (Chambre de la Reine)

Marie Antoinette run away through the secret space at the next bed while Versailles was attacked during French Revolution.

Some important room

The Coronation of Napoleon is a painting completed in 1807 by Jacques-Louis David, the official painter of Napoleon. The painting has imposing dimensions, as it is almost ten metres wide by approximately six metres tall. The crowning and the coronation took place at Notre-Dame de Paris, a way for Napoleon to make it clear that he was a son of the Revolution.

Playing room

Princess room

Princess library

For a guest

The garden of Versailles was really big and gorgeous.

I got lost at the beginning to find the way to Trianon, a small palace.
Personally it was not necessary to come here, because the palace of Versailles was more beautiful and bigger. To tour Versailles took whole day. So, there was not much time to look around Trianon.

Chapel salon

Trianon’s garden

Some weird drawing

Trianon’s garden

I liked this picture. It seemed similar to some painting.

To visit the garden of Versailles was free. I thought it would be so good to the local people.

The palace became more gold around the sunset.

I usually didn’t cycle in a big city to go to the center, because there were too many bicycle thieves in Europe.
I used a train or walked, but today I would use city bicycle.
1.75 Euros to use one day.
But 30 minute was only free. After 30 minutes 1 euro will charged to the credit card. There was always too much traffic, so 30 minutes were not enough to go to the destination. I could change the bicycle before 30 minutes. But the problem was it was extremely difficult to find the city bicycle parking place. Sometimes it was full, so I could not change or leave. It was really not comfortable. I didn’t think this was really good system. Although I used an application of Velib which showed me where city bicycle places were, it was hard to me. I thought to use subway was much better. Anyway it was good experience to see how it worked.

One surprising thing was all bicycles had Schwalbe tire which is quite expensive.

Today my destination was Louvre Museum.

It was famous for a long line to buy a ticket. I didn’t book on online, because it seemed like I had to get a ticket from other place.
I researched and found there were two more entrances.
– Carrousel
– Porte des Lions
– La Pyramid

Pyramid was too busy. Porte des Lions was closed at that time (I didn’t know why)
There were many ticketing places and even there were many ticketing machines in the down through Carrousel.

The Louvre or the Louvre Museum is one of the world’s largest museums and a historic monument. Nearly 35,000 objects from prehistory to the 21st century are exhibited over an area of 60,600 square metres (652,300 square feet). The Louvre is the world’s most visited museum, and received more than 9.7 million visitors in 2012.

The museum is housed in the Louvre Palace, originally built as a fortress in the late 12th century under Philip II. Remnants of the fortress are visible in the basement of the museum. The building was extended many times to form the present Louvre Palace. In 1682, Louis XIV chose the Palace of Versailles for his household, leaving the Louvre primarily as a place to display the royal collection.

As of 2008, the collection is divided among eight curatorial departments: Egyptian Antiquities; Near Eastern Antiquities; Greek, Etruscan, and Roman Antiquities; Islamic Art; Sculpture; Decorative Arts; Paintings; Prints and Drawings.

I visited Egyptian Antiquiteis first. I felt like meeting friends because I saw many ruins during touring in Egypt.

The museum was too huge, so I kept getting lost.

* Sainte Marie-Madeleine

*Dying Slave by Michelangelo (1513-1516)
It was to serve with another figure, the Rebellious Slave, at the tomb of Pope Julius II. In 1976 the art historian Richard Fly wrote that it “suggests that moment when life capitulates before the relentless force of dead matter”.

*Rebellious Slave by Michelangelo (1513)
The iconographic significance of the two figures is probably linked to the motif of the Captive in Roman art; in fact Giorgio Vasari identified them as personifications of the provinces controlled by Julius II. For Ascanio Condivi, however, they symbolised the Arts taken prisoner after the death of pontif. The “Rebellious slave” in particular might, speculatively, represent sculpture or architecture. Other meanings of a symbolic and philosophical nature have been suggested as well as some linked to Michelangelo’s personal life and his “torments”.

*Psyche Revived by Cupid’s Kiss by Antonio Canova (1793)
It represents the god Cupid in the height of love and tenderness, immediately after awakening the lifeless Psyche with a kiss. The story of Cupid and Psyche is taken from Lucius Apuleius’ Latin novel The Golden Ass, and was popular in art.

Some interesting chair

*The Winged Victory of Samothrace (200-190 BC)

The Winged Victory of Samothrace, also called the Nike of Samothrace,[2] is a 2nd-century BC marble sculpture of the Greek goddess Nike (Victory). Since 1884, it has been prominently displayed at the Louvre and is one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world. H.W. Janson described it as “the greatest masterpiece of Hellenistic sculpture.

It looked real. I really liked to see sculpture.

* Venus de Milo (130~100 BC)

Venus de Milo is an ancient Greek statue and one of the most famous works of ancient Greek sculpture. The arms and original plinth were lost following its discovery.

There were so many sculptures.

*The Coronation of Napoleon by Jacques-Louis David

I saw it in the palace of Versailles.

This art was really impressing. I could see very detail thing such as a vein and muscle.

This was also interesting.

* Maesta by Cimabue

*The Virgin and Child with St Annec by Leonardo da Vinci

*The Mona Lisa by Leonardo da Vinci

The Mona Lisa is a half-length portrait, which has been acclaimed as “the best known, the most visited, the most written about, the most sung about, the most parodied work of art in the world.”

The painting, thought to be a portrait of Lisa Gherardini, the wife of Francesco del Giocondo, is in oil on a white Lombardy poplar panel, and is believed to have been painted between 1503 and 1506, although Leonardo may have continued working on it as late as 1517.

The most popular art in Louvre

* Four Seasons by Giuseppe Arcimboldo

Giuseppe Arcimboldo was an Italian painter best known for creating imaginative portrait heads made entirely of such objects as fruits, vegetables, flowers, fish, and books.

I really loved it! So genius!

*Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix (1830)
A woman personifying the concept and the goddess of Liberty leads the people forward over the bodies of the fallen, holding the flag of the French Revolution – the tricolor flag which is still France’s flag today – in one hand and brandishing a bayonetted musket with the other. The figure of Liberty is also viewed as a symbol of France and the French Republic known as Marianne.

Napoleon
I had liked him when I was around 21 years old and read about his life.
One day someone asked me “Do you know how many people were killed because of him?”
After that, I stopped liking him. But I think still I admire something about his character.

*The Raft of the Medusa by Th?odore G?ricault (1818-1819)

It is an over-life-size painting that depicts a moment from the aftermath of the wreck of the French naval frigate M?duse, which ran aground off the coast of today’s Mauritania on July 5, 1816. At least 147 people were set adrift on a hurriedly constructed raft; all but 15 died in the 13 days before their rescue, and those who survived endured starvation and dehydration and practiced cannibalism. The event became an international scandal, in part because its cause was widely attributed to the incompetence of the French captain.

I felt like he would come out from the frame. Many paintings looked like real. Who knows they come out in the night to fight each other or try to get out of Museum together…

*The Intervention of the Sabine Women by Jacques-Louis David (1796-1799)

David began planning the work while he was imprisoned in the Luxembourg Palace in 1795. France was at war with other European nations after a period of civil conflict culminating in the Reign of Terror and the Thermidorian Reaction, during which David had been imprisoned as a supporter of Robespierre. David hesitated between representing either this subject or that of Homer reciting his verses to the Greeks. He finally chose to make a canvas representing the Sabine women interposing themselves to separate the Romans and Sabines, as a ‘sequel’ to Poussin’s The Rape of the Sabine Women.

He conceived the idea of telling the story, to honour his wife, with the theme being love prevailing over conflict. The painting was also seen as a plea for the people to reunite after the bloodshed of the revolution. Its realization took him nearly four years.

The painting depicts Romulus’s wife Hersilia – the daughter of Titus Tatius, leader of the Sabines – rushing between her husband and her father and placing her babies between them. A vigorous Romulus prepares to strike a half-retreating Tatius with his spear, but hesitates.

* Napoleon III Apartments

*Lamassu

A lamassu is an Assyrian protective deity, often depicted with a bull or lion’s body, eagle’s wings, and human’s head.

I’ve never seen it before. It was so impressing to me. It would be excited to go to Central for learning their culture and history, which would be so new to me, because there were not many chance to face their culture before.

* *Code of Hammurabi (1772 BC)
The Code of Hammurabi is a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Mesopotamia. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world.
The Code consists of 282 laws, with scaled punishments, adjusting “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth”

* Portrait of Jean le Bon

* Marie de’ Medici cycle by Peter Paul Rubens

The Marie de’ Medici Cycle is a series of twenty-four paintings by Peter Paul Rubens commissioned by Marie de’ Medici, wife of Henry IV of France, for the Luxembourg Palace in Paris. Rubens received the commission in the autumn of 1621. After negotiating the terms of the contract in early 1622, the project was to be completed within two years, coinciding with the marriage of Marie’s daughter, Henrietta Maria. Twenty-one of the paintings depict Marie’s own struggles and triumphs in life. The remaining three are portraits of herself and her parents.

This room was really amazing to me. Huge 24 paintings were on the wall. I moved slowly to understand each paintings.

* The Lacemaker by Johannes Vermeer
I started liking Vermeer after reading the book of Girl with a Pearl Earring when I was 21 or 22 years old.
It was a bit sad that Louvre doesn’t have the painting of Girl with a Pearl Earring

* The Astronomer by Johannes Vermeer
I liked this painting as well. I remembered one thing

It was retouched by APOD
http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap100616.html

* Rembrandt

The painting presumed to depict Gabrielle d’Estres

It was already dark, 9:30 pm after visiting Louvre.

The night view was another beautiful scene.

Arc de Triomphe honours those who fought and died for France in the French Revolutionary and the Napoleonic Wars, with the names of all French victories and generals inscribed on its inner and outer surfaces.

It was the view of Eiffel Tower from Palais de Chaillot. Around 12 am, I could see the light event, which I really didn’t know. It was a big gift to me.
I had Americano which was cheap, 1.8 Euros and I was looking at my lovely tower.

After 12 am, still there were many people.

There was full of people in the park.

Around 1 am, there was another event. After that the light was turned off. I was not sure why they turned off.. maybe to save energy?

So many people enjoyed the night even after 1 am.

At the next day, I visited Eiffel Tower again.

To say goodbye~

I checked the picture of Montmarte on google and it looked interesting. But it was on the top of the city that I pushed my bike harder.

Later I realized there was nothing to see on the top. The best view was from the bottom.
(There was a big lift for free, but the worker didn’t allow me to use it with my bike.)

There was some rocket. Yeah, France invested lots of money for studying the space.

After getting out of Paris, I was confused where I was. There were many different nationalities such as African, India, and so on. The road was really unorganized and dirty. It was totally different from Paris.

Around the sunset, I was thinking where I could sleep tonight. To the town or to the forest?
Before the city I found a small road to the forest, so I turned to the right.
Wild camping… haha.

Next picture could be disgusting, because it is worm

At the next day, I found this little things. What did they were holding?

It was a bit easy to find a vegan thing in French big market.

Today my yummy lunch

I didn’t know they are selling Ratatouille which is a traditional French stewed vegetable dish, originating in Nice. As a vegan, it was perfect to eat on the road.

I met some Russian guy. His handle bar was so interesting.

He had three handle bars and brakes. WoW~!

I met another Asian cyclist.

It was interesting traffic light. I guessed it meant if you go faster, I will not show you the green light.

It was really hilly to Belgium border. It was getting dark and I was thinking what I should. Keep going or stop? I arranged already a host, and I wanted to keep promise. I thought I could arrive around 10 pm.
And then..
I cycled until 12 am… It was the latest night I’ve cycled.
There were so many stars in the sky. It seemed the stars were following me or I followed the stars. It was one of the memorable nights.