Second Day in Paris

Today we woke up and ate a quick breakfast. We decided on two museums that we wanted to visit.  The first was the Centre Pompidou. This place housed the Paris museum of contemporary art:

I had my caricature drawn by an artist in front of the Center:

The exhibits inside exclusively featured women artists.  The work was very strange and interesting:

We left the art gallery after browsing for a few hours.  Outside the museum were several performers.  This guy was eating razors:

Another was blowing huge bubbles:

Next, we made our way to the Musee d’Orsay, a museum full of Romantic and Impressionist art.  We weren’t allowed to take pictures there, but let me tell you the exhibits were beautiful.

A funny thing happened in the museum.  I left my Dad’s lens bag on a wall in the main part of the museum.  Security saw it and cordoned off a perimeter around the bad and surrounded it with white screens.  They were planning to evacuate the museum when we came over and told security it was our bag.  Apparently, they thought it was a bomb (they also blocked off the bathrooms, so I couldn’t go.  Go figure…) :-D

This is the exterior of the museum.  It was actually a converted train station:

Oh, and here’s a picture of Thomas Jefferson:

After that, we returned to our hotel, ate some dinner and prepared for sleep.

First Day in Paris

Today we had a small breakfast and then took the metro over to the Louvre (which is a Palace turned Museum).  On the way, we listened to a wonderful Russian group:

We got to the Pyramide Inversee (where the Holy Grail is said to be buried in the Da Vinci code).

We then continued on to the big pyramid, which is the entrance to the Louvre

The first exhibit we visited was the Ancient Mesopotamian exhibit:

Hammurabi's code

We then moved on to the sculptures (my favorite part)

We then saw some Iranian art:

And some art from Cyprus:

Some art from Egypt:

We then moved onto Greek statues, which were very nice:

Venus de Milo

Winged Victory

We then moved on to the massive Italian Painting section of the Louvre (which my Dad and I disliked.  We thought the paintings were kind of boring.)

We couldn’t get a picture of the Mona Lisa because the light was bad and there were too many people.

We then moved on to African, Oceanic and Native American art:

Finally, we viewed some German, Dutch and Northern European art:

After exploring the Louvre thoroughly, we exited the museum, but not before taking some photographs of the exterior:

We then walked though La Jardin de Tuileries, which is a beautiful garden in front of the Louvre.  We took some nice pictures, of course.

Next, we walked down the Champs Elysee, which is a big, historic road that connects to Tuileries.  It is filled with shops and other things:

These are veterans celebrating the flame of the unknown soldier at the end of the Champs Elysee.

At the end of the road was L’Arc de Triomphe.  A huge arch erected by Napoleon:

After leaving L’Arc de Triomphe, we visited the Madelaine (also known as the Pantheon), which is a church designed similarly to Greek Temples:

Finally, we visited Opera Garnier, a beautiful opera where the Phantom of the Opera took place.  It is also known as the National Academy of Music.

After visiting the Opera, we returned to our hotel to rest up for the next exciting day.