I just got back from a quick trip to Paris! Leaving on Thursday morning I arrived in Paris at 7:50 AM Paris time. We began tour immediately, meaning I went on about 4 hours sleep in a 30 hour day. We visited all the sites and I didn’t have to pay for plane, meals, sites, or hotel. Looking down the Champs Elysees to the Arch de Triomphe to the west and the Louvre to the east, I was amazed to be there. I ran all over the Louvre in four hours from ancient Greek and Roman statuary to Reformation paintings. I saw the Mona Lisa, Winged Victory of Samothrace, Venus de Milo, statues of the Caesars, winged bulls of the Assyrians, the Code of Hammurabi, the apartments of Napoleon III, Medieval. Renssaince, and Reformation paintings. I went up in the Eifel Tower, down along the Seine River, later in a night boat ride around the islands of Paris and down to the Eifel Tower. I visited three cathedrals, Versailles and its gardens, walked up Montmarte artist district, ate in the Latin Quarter, navigated the Metro, and flew internationally for the first time, and more. Check out a few of my pictures.
Grand Arch of Victory (1989)
Weekly MarketThe Metro
Concorde Square
Luxor Obelisk
Arc de Triomphe along the Champs Elysees
Feeding Seagulls at a fountain in the Jardin de Louvre
The Louvre
Romans BC
The Christ- painter?
Great pictures! So glad that you were able to enjoy your trip despite only 4 hours of sleep. Blessings!
Nice trip! Glad you got to see so much. BTW, on the painting of Christ:
Christ at the Column is a small painting by the Italian Renaissance artist Antonello da Messina, finished around 1475, showing the Flagellation of Christ. It is in the Louvre in Paris. Painted in his final years, the picture shows Antonello’s assimilation of the Early Netherlandish and Venetian influences into a mature art. For a long time the unusual small size and close-up view of the subject led scholars to think that the work had been cut down and originally extended lower, and that originally a parapet separated Christ from the watchers. This theory has been proved to be wrong. The face of Christ was a common theme in Antonello’s art: however, portraying Christ in the middle of his pain, in the moment in which the tortures have just begun, Antonello managed to obtain an emotive impact sometimes lacking in his similar works.
I am sooo jealous. I love Paris. It sounds like you do too. Did I see a Parisianer smiling in a pic? Sometimes to see what you want to see in such a short visit, you have to hustle on a few hours of sleep and leave the rest to adrenalin. Imagine two weeks of that! Ah, but worth every moment. Most of my students slept on bus rides, but a couple of students stared out the window, soaking up the scenery, taking mental and digital pix. Me, too, except for that time we drove for miles through Spain’s windmill farms, a blight on the landscape. I, then, napped. Travel whets the appetite for more travel. I hope your Costa Rica trip is awesome.