Paris Hotel

The following is a blog about a recent trip we took to Paris.

Wednesday

On Wednesday, we packed up in the morning and got our bags ready to leave London for Paris and then went back to Harrods to pick up a few more items. We then took two taxis to the Waterloo Train Station and boarded a Eurostar Train for our 3 hour trip to Paris . The train went 80 miles an hour in England , went through the Chunnel at 100 mph and through France at 180 mph. Once the English track is rebuilt, they will be able to go 180 mph on the British side as well and the whole trip will take only 2 hours. It was really nice to travel by train and to see a bit of the countryside.

We arrived in Paris about 4 in the afternoon. We checked into our nice Paris Hotel :

Cervantes Hotel
19 Rue de Berne
Paris , France
01133143875577

We were near the Europe metro station, just 5 minutes away. We dropped our bags and headed over to the Louvre. We purchased a Museum Pass for Dalita and I and that allowed us to get in to all the Museums and bypass the ticket line at each place. We bought the passes at the Metro Station and I was trying to communicate to the attendant what I wanted to buy and I kept slipping into Portuguese, then Spanish, then English and then French. Zach thought this was hysterical. Sim, I mean Si, I mean Yes, I mean Oui. Of course, the lady spoke perfect English.

We made it to the Louvre around 6 pm and since it was Wednesday, it stayed open till 9:45pm . Our first major piece was Winged Victory. This tremendous piece once stood on a hilltop in Turkey to celebrate a naval victory. Her clothes are windblown and sea-sprayed. It is believed that her missing arms were held up as in a celebration of a victory. As she strides forward, the wind blows her and her wings back. She is solid on the ground, yet the wind and her clothes curve and whip about her. These opposing forces create a sense of great energy.

We next went to Venus de Milo carved in about 100 BC on the Greek Island of Milo . We learned about contrapposto, the harmonious balance of opposites. Split her down the middle and as she lifts her right leg, the left shoulder dips down. As her knee points one way, her head points the other. The twisting pose gives an S-curve to her body. She is resting her weight on one leg, yet her other leg is raised slightly. This slight movement seems to set her whole body in motion. Other opposites include the rough texture of her dress on the lower half compared to the smooth skin of her upper half.

As we passed through the Greek period, we entered into the beginning of the Italian Renaissance. The first room we entered had some great frescos by Botticelli. Dalita especially loved one of them and Ali identified with the women in the fresco and labeled each woman as one of her friends. She later got postcards of the fresco and mailed the postcards from Paris to each of her friends.

We passed through lots of Madonnas and Child and noted the format – symmetrical – the Madonnas are flanked by saints, two on the left and two on the right. They often were in a layout of a pyramid, with Mary at the top and her form and body widening out and having a baby Jesus on one corner and a lamb or something on the other. We saw the Virgin, Child and St. Anne by Leonardo de Vinci. We saw lots of John the Baptist and of his head on a platter. There were several Raphael, with his hazy grace and beauty. His Madonna followed the pyramid form with Mary as the top point, baby Jesus at another and baby John the Baptist at the other. Baby Jesus is standing contrapposto, like a chubby Greek Statue.

We then made it to Mona Lisa (my lady Lisa). The museum was not crowded at all at this time of night and we were able to stand right in front of her. Leonardo used a technique called sfumato, which blurs the edges of her mysterious smile so you can not see the actual corners of her smile. Why the smile? One book we read stated that the model that Leonardo painted, Lisa del Giocondo, wife of a rich Italian merchant, had recently had her small child pass away and she was in deep mourning. In order to cheer her up, Leonardo brought in some circus clowns and acts and she finally smiled in light amusement. A brief moment of levity for someone dealing with deep sadness. Is it true? Who knows, but you can see both elements in her face.

We continued on and came upon the enormous Marriage at Cana by Veronese, which shows Christ at the marriage festivities. On note, the artist painted his friend and fellow artist, Titian, with a funny hat, center right and himself, almost dead center, standing out in white, playing the viola.

Moving into the French Neo-Classical period, we came the biggest painting in the Louvre, the Coronation of Napoleon, by David. Napoleon quickly conquered Europe and proclaimed himself Emperor (not merely king). In an elaborate ceremony reminiscent of Greek and Roman Emperors, Napoleon had the inside of Notre Dame redecorated to appear with Greek columns and Roman arches to reflect the glories of those eras. In the painting, you see the Pope that came from Rome to place the crown (rather a Romanesque wreath) on his head, but at the last moment, Napoleon put it on his head by himself, and you see the Pope and cardinals sitting there rather bugged

Close by was the Raft of Medusa by Gericault, telling the story of survivors of a shipwreck on a life raft that floated off the coast of Africa for a long period of time before being rescued. Gericault went to insane asylums to capture the twisted faces there for his painting and visited the morgue to get an idea of how to paint dead corpses.

We then came upon Liberty Leading the People by Delacroix. The year is 1830 and the Parisians have taken to the streets to fight royalist oppressors. There is a proletarian with a sword, an intellectual with a top had and a shotgun, and even a little boy brandishing pistols. Leading them through the smoke and the fighting is Liberty , a strong woman waving the French flag. All of the major colors in the painting are done in the red, white and blue of the French flag.

We were worn out of absorbing so much, so we took a break at a museum café and had French pastries and brownies and yummy lemonade to rejuvenate us. We then continued downstairs to a section with lots of sculptures. The most famous being the Slaves by Michelangelo, which included the Dying Slave and the Rebellious Slave, who appeared to be trying to free himself from the rock he's made of.

Another interesting piece in this section was a woman that had a veil over her face. Imagine a veil of marble done so exquisitely that you could distinguish the eyelashes and nose and cheeks and lips as the veil lightly rests upon them. It was amazing.

We traveled to the other side of the museum and quickly went through other European masters such as Rembrandt and other Dutch artists. We finally had to leave the museum because it was closing. On the way out we stopped and bought some postcards and stopped at a food court outside the museum and got some delicious crepes for dinner. We then headed home.

Thursday

Thursday was our marathon museum day and we had to get an early start. The kids slept in one room and Dalita and I slept in an adjoining room. When Dalita and I woke up, I called the kids on the telephone, but it rang busy. Zach had knocked the phone off the hook. I went to the door and pounded on the door for a long time. I knocked on the door with my key, as it made a more sharp noise. Still nothing. They had their room key in their room with them. I finally went to the front desk and got another key, but the kids had put the deadbolt in place. More knocking was still unsuccessful. Finally I looked out our window and saw that if I inched along a ledge along the side of the building, I could get from my balcony to their balcony. So here I am, early in the morning, in the middle of Paris , inching my way along the edge of a building, 50 feet up in the air. I finally made it to their balcony and by rocking the balcony door back and forth, I was able to open it and wake the kids up. It is amazing that I didn't either wind up splattered on a road in Paris or being thrown in a Paris Jail.

After breakfast at the hotel, we started the day out by taking a train out to Versailles , about an hour trip. We were able to get right in and bypass all the long ticket lines because we had our Museum passes.

Here is part of what we learned about the King Loui (plural of Louis). King Louis XIV (reigned 1643-1715) moved the official palace out of the Louvre, to Versailles , 12 miles west. At Versailles , he consolidated the ministries so he could personally control policy and more importantly, he invited all of the nobles to reside at Versailles so he could control them as well. He then embarked upon a campaign of “domestication of the nobility,” a process of almost enforced idleness, leaving the nobles virtual slaves dependent upon Louis' generosity. There were as many as 5,000 nobles here at any one time, each with an entourage.

Part of the “domestication” process involved games. By distracting the nobles with the pleasures of courtly life, he was free to run the government his way. Billiards, dancing, and concerts were popular, but the biggest distraction was gambling, usually a card game. King Louis lent money to the losers, making them even more indebted to him. The good life was an addition, and Louis helped keep them addicted.

What a powerful strategy! Concentrate the people with power in a place where you can control them. Create a life of indulgences and ease for those you wish to control. Feed them any pleasure, lust, or vice, and make social positioning more important than concrete and substantive actions. Then you are able to better achieve your gains and your objectives. It seems like a familiar strategy. “Others he will pacify, and lull them into carnal security, that they will say, All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well – and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.”

King Louis XIV called himself the Sun King, because he gave life and warmth to all that he touched. He was also thought of as Apollo, the Greek God of the sun. Zach and I stopped counting images of the sun in different places through the palace when we reached 100. There were images, statues, and symbols of Apollo, the sun, and Louis himself throughout the palace and gardens.

The next king was Louis XV, most notable to us because he supported, funded, and facilitated trade with American colonies during the Revolutionary War, with Benjamin Franklin lived in Paris as the American Ambassador and help broker the alliance between the colonies and France .

Following him was King Louis XVI and his Austrian wife, Marie-Antoinette. Unfortunately for them, the revolutionary fires that were ablaze in the Americas had caught hold in France and instead of dealing with the changes in the political winds, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette retreated to more isolation at Versailles .

On October 6, 1789 , a mob of revolutionaries stormed the palace. They were fed up with the opulence of the nobility while they were starving in the grimy streets of Paris . Marie had became the focus of much anger for her extravagant spending (as well as being a foreigner). When Marie was informed that the Parisians had no bread to eat, she sneered, “Let them eat cake!” (“Cake” was a term for the burnt crusts peeled off the oven and generally feed only to cattle.)

For a while, Marie and her husband locked themselves in. Eventually, the crowds broke through and dragged her and her husband off. (Some claim that, as they carried her away, she sang, “Louis, Louis, oh-oh…we gotta go now…”)

The enraged peasants ransacked the palace and took Marie and Louis to prison. Marie was imprisoned in the Concierge and later she and her husband were taken to the place de la Concorde in Paris and knelt under the guillotine and were made a foot shorter at the top.

We went through all the main rooms – the chapel, the Hercules Drawing Room (where balls and receptions were held), the Diana room (where card games and billiards were played), and the Apollo Room (the grand throne room – the ceiling shows Apollo in his chariot dragging the sun across the heavens and in the corners are the four corners of the world, Europe with a sword, Asia with a lion, Africa with an elephant, and America, an Indian maiden with a crocodile). We continued on to the War Room, the Hall of Mirrors, where the Treaty of Versailles was signed (mirrors at the time were a great luxury and this was unlike anything ever seen before) and the Peace Room. We also saw the King's and Queen's bedchambers. Marie Antoinette had her bed, chair and wall covering all changed with each of the seasons.

We took a short guided tour that talked about the day in the life of King Louis XIV. Bedtime, wake-up and meals were all public rituals. Those nobles who were in his favor might be able to attend one of these occasions. In the morning, nobles would stand to the side of bed while Louis was awakened and observe as he rose, dressed, put on one of his 300 wigs, and sat for morning prayer. At night they would fight over who would be able to hold the candle while he slipped into bed.

While the palace is immense and overwhelming, the gardens are equally as impressive. Just as Louis had control of the political power, he attempted to also control nature, seeking to put himself with the gods. The gardens were elaborately planned out, pruned and decorated to show that Louis was in total control. In the Orangerie, he had 1000 orange trees that he would wheel out of the green houses in the spring and scatter them throughout the gardens. Some flower beds were changed every time King Louis would pass by.

Versailles is laid out along an 8 mile axis that included the palace, the grounds, and the town of Versailles itself. There were originally gravity feed fountains. Today there are about 300. We went past the Latona Basin , that told the story of the birth of Apollo and Diana, with their mother Latona. The local kids had been teasing them, so Zeus, the father of Apollo and Diana, came down and turned all the bullys into bull-frogs and lizards.

The last fountain we saw as the Apollo Basin , with Apollo and his horses emerging from the water to start his journey of towing the sun across the sky.

We left Versailles and returned to Paris and had lunch at a charming outdoor café where we had cheese and escargot and delicious French bread. Ali, Nikki, and Mom all looked quite continental with their sunglasses enjoying the outdoor café.

We continued on to the Carnavalet Museum , a old mansion converted into the top French history museum. While it covered parts that included the early Celtic period (2000 years), the Roman period (52 AD – 500 AD), Charlemagne (800), and the English or Normans that ruled until they were thrown out by Joan of Arc in 1453, creating the birth of modern France.

We jumped through all these time periods and landed at King Louis XIII, who at the beginning of the 1600s transformed Paris into a world capital and shifted Europe 's cultural axis from Italy to Paris . King Louis XIII built the pont Neuf, one of the first major bridges over the River Seine (what do you call someone who swims in that river? In Seine !), expanded the Louvre, built the place Royale, and the Invalides dome.

We saw portrayals of King Louis XIV, who consolidated power and ruled over the largest, most populous, and richest nation in Europe . His greatest monument was Versailles , a symbol of his absolute power.

Following came Louis XV and Louis XIV. Each brought their own style. Louis XIV style was Baroque, where you had gilded rooms, ceilings decorated with curved ornamental frames or cartouches, and heavy with Greek myths. The tables and chairs are heavy and have thick, curved legs, animal feet and bronze-corner protectors. If it's not Baroque, don't fix it. (Nikki says she just got that joke after 10 years of Beauty and the Beast).

Louis XV style was Rococo. The rooms are decorated in pastel colors, with lighter decoration and exotic landscapes. The chairs are made of highly polished, rare woods, with delicate curved legs and padded seats and backs.

Louis XIV style was Neoclassical. This style is simpler, with classical motifs and the furniture is straighter. The walls were painted in bright yellows and pale blues. The chairs' straight legs taper to a point. Rooms and furnishing showing each of these styles were shown. We decided we had unknowingly (Dalita said that only I was ignorant of this fact) painted and styled the inside of our house in the neoclassical style with our yellow walls and classical trims.

Before Louis and Marie-Antoinette were captured and executed, the seeds of the Revolution had been growing for decades. The French had watched the Americans take the ideas and philosophies formed and postulated by French radicals like Voltaire and Rousseau and throw off the tyranny of a King and create their own independence. They even supported and assisted that independence with funds, trading relationships, supplies, and capable volunteers like LaFayette . Yet they found themselves suffering, starving, and grinding out life in the shadow of the excesses of the King.

One of the French symbols of that time was the fluer-de-lis, whose petals are the three social groups that made France strong, clergy, King and people, and nobles. In May of 1789, King Louis XIV called these three groups to Versailles to try to find a common ground to quell the rising dissension and crisis caused by a bankruptcy, brought on by wars and corruption. But in a bold move, the Third Estate (the people), tired of being outvoted by the other two groups, formed their own National Assembly. Amid the chaos of this new assembly, they raised their hands bravely pledging to stick together until a new constitution is written. King Louis XVI responded by ordering the Assembly to dissolve, and when they refused, ordering 25,000 Swiss mercenaries to Paris .

On July 14 th , 1789 , the citizens of Paris waited for a rumored attack by the Swiss mercenaries. The crowd stormed the Invalides and seized 30,000 rifles, but there was no gunpowder. Word was spread that it was stored at the Bastille, the prison where France 's criminal and political prisoners were held. It was a Medieval fortress that oppressive loomed over Paris with 100 feet tall walls. The crowd grew and finally a few broke into the prison, let the drawbridge down and the crowd surged into the prison, fought a bloody battle and finally took control of the Bastille. This storming of Bastille is considered the start of the Revolution and July 14 th is celebrated today with colorful festivities. The Bastille was torn down stone by stone and the cry went up, “Long live July 14 th ”.

During the next year, the people stormed Versailles , capturing Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in October of 1789 and later executing them. They created a Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen, which stated that the French people were the ultimate authority and that men are born free and equal, possessing freedom of the individual, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech. In 1793, they turned the Louvre into the first public museum of art (the masses had a right to enjoy the art possessed by the former nobility). Each of these events were displayed through painting and artifacts of that period.

One of the new laws created by the new Republic was to abolish torture and barbaric executions. A certain Doctor Guillotin proposed a “humane” and efficient method of execution with his new device referred to as “The Machine.” The Assembly adopted the instrument as a kindler, gentler execution device that would make France a model of compassion. The Guillotin claimed its last victim in 1977 when capital punishment was abolished in France .

With the monarchy dead, the power rested upon the new Assembly. While they were able to produce noble ideas and concepts and plans, there also developed a dark, horrific side to them. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Some in the assembly were moderate reformers, while others were radical priest-killers and power hungry individuals. They all lived in fear that the rest of Europe would step in and gang up on the Revolution and restore the old regime. Enemies, it seemed were everywhere.

By 1793, Georges Danton led the Jacobin party to power and created the “Committee of Public Safety” to root out and execute those enemies, even guillotining moderates opposed to the Jacobins. Hence began “The Reign of Terror” of 1793-1794. Over the next year 2,500 Parisians were beheaded, 18,000 others were executed by other means and tens of thousands died in similar violence around the country.

The head of this Committee was Maximilien Robespierre, who promoted the Revolution with religious fervor. By July of 1794, there were over 30 executions per day by the guillotine. Executions were preceded by speeches about Liberty and Truth. Robespierre finally even sentenced his old friend and party leader Danton to death, after Danton began to speak out about the bloodshed. As Danton knelt down for his execution, he joked, “My turn.”

The people had had enough. A few days later, when Robespierre read the list of names for the Guillotine, the committee members started yelling, “Tryant” and seized him. The next day, Robespierre was led down to the place de la Concorde and was executed and the Reign of Terror ended.

The remaining government splintered itself intentionally into a government called The Directory, making itself weak so as to not produce another Robespierre and the country caught its breath for the next 5 years.

During the Revolution, 3/4ths of the country's churches were destroyed or vandalized as a backlash against the wealthy and politically repressive Catholic Church. In Notre-Dame, the statue of Christ was removed and a woman dressed as “Dame Reason” was worshipped on the altar.

The new Republic had attracted the attention of its neighbors and as early as 1792, had to defend itself against invasions from Austria and Prussia . A young soldier began to distinguish himself as a brilliant strategist and a fierce commander as he fought royalist in Italy , Egypt , and on the streets of Paris . This young soldier, known as the “Little Corporal” became a general over time and in 1799 returned to Paris as a conquering hero. With the backing of his soldiers and the adoration of the public, he dissolved the Directory, established order, and gave himself the title of “first consul.”

Napoleon put together a million man army, drafting young men from every village, town and family. This was a completely different approach to war. Europe had never seen an army of this size and make-up before. Previously, armies had been primarily professional armies that were smaller and highly trained. Napoleon created an army of the common people and with his mass, he overwhelmed Germany and Austria in three months. He also created a strategy of mobile forces of independent armies, decentralizing command in the midst of the battle to the field commanders.

By 1803, Napoleon was running short on funds on his campaign to conquer Europe and sold some property to ensure there would be ample supplies to keep his army fed and armed. That property was purchased by Thomas Jefferson and the United States and is known as “The Louisiana Purchase.”

By 1805, Napoleon had conquered most of Europe and returned to Paris and crowned himself “Emperor.” As we had seen at the Louvre in the Coronation of Napoleon, Notre-Dame was transformed into a classical Greek Temple with columns and arches for the coronation. Napoleon took up residence in Versailles and started construction of the Arc de Triumph to celebrate his victories and honor his soldiers.

In 1812, Napoleon made his fatal mistake and attempted to invade Russia . His army when he left France consisted of 600,000 men. When he returned, after suffering a brutal winter, he had only 100,000 frostbitten men. Two years later, the Russians marched into Paris and Napoleon was exiled to isle of Elba . Napoleon skipped parole, returned to France , bared his chest and declared, “Strike me down or follow me.” For 100 days, they followed him and wound up in Belgium , being defeated by the English forces led by the Duke of Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon was permanently exiled to St. Helena . When he died, his funeral procession traveled under the newly completed Arc de Triumph.

With Napoleon and the French defeated, the rest of Europe monarchs were eager to see a monarch on the throne of France again and put Louis XVIII (the younger brother of the beheaded Louis) on the throne as a constitutional monarch. The next king, Charles X, sought to reestablish the oppression of the old regime, but the people resisted which lead to the revolution of 1830.

The Parisians blocked off the streets with barricades to fight the king's soldiers (a setting for Les Mis). They stormed the Louvre and the king's palace and after “Three Glorious Days” took control and put Louis-Philippe in control and created a powerless constitutional monarchy cheered by the royalist, the middle class, and the peasants alike.

In 1848, as a Europe-wide depression weighed down upon France , dissatisfaction grew again and the Parisians took to the streets again, barricading them (maybe this was a scene from Les Mis) and finally toppling the King. After five decades, a republic returned to France , called the Second Republic .

This became an era of Romanticism in France . We saw busts and portraits of famous Frenchmen from this period, including Victor Hugo (Les Mis and Hunchback of Notre Dame), Johann Strauss, Chopin, Litz, Adolph Sax (ophone), Giuseppe Verdi (Aida) and Rossini (Lone Ranger theme).

In 1848 Napoleon III, nephew of Napoleon, was elected in a landslide as the president of the Second Republic . Within a few years, he had combined democracy with the monarchy and became the second Emperor of France. He promoted the moderization of Paris , creating some of the broad boulevards of today (and preventing those darn barricades that keep showing up) and built many of the parks, railroad stations, and Opera House that exist today.

He also promoted colonial expansion, getting involved in the Crimean War and backing Austrian Emperor Maximilian in Mexico . Mexico defeated the French forces on May 5 th in an underdog victory and that is the basis of the Cinco de Mayo celebrations today. In 1870, Napoleon III led the French to conquer Prussia . Within 3 weeks the French were surrounded and then surrendered. Napoleon was captured and France was without a leader or King or Emperor. So France created the Third Republic .

The Germans marched through the Arc de Triumph and lay siege to the city through the winter. The Third Republic finally agreed to surrender, but a group of outraged Parisians refused with the terms and created their own government, called the Paris Commune, barricading themselves (again!) insides Paris ' neighborhoods. Then in one bloody week in May, French troops backing the Republic stormed through Paris leaving 15,000 dead, 5,000 jailed and 8,000 deported and ending the Commune.

The French, feeling bad about fighting each other, built the Sacre-Coeur, the beautiful white cathedral with the Arabic looking domes that looms over Paris as a form of national penance.

Even after the defeat by the Germans, the Third Republic survived and ushered in “La Belle Epoque” or the Beautiful Age from 1871 - 1914. It was during this time that the Eiffel Tower was built for the 1889 centennial of the Revolution and the World's Fair. Eiffel was also busy designing and building the structural frame of another monument, this one headed to New York as a gift from France , called the Statue of Liberty. The Impressionist movement was in full swing, George Bizet wrote and produced the Opera Carmen and life was good.

France began the 1900s with a costly war with German where 1.5 million Frenchmen died in World War I. A generation was lost and France was a pushover in WWII when Hitler invaded. France 's long history as a superpower was over and so was our tour of the museum. However, France still looms large in its influence as a cultural superpower.

As we reached the end of this great museum, Nikki had lost her French phase book. She wanted to backtrack to find it. We told her we would meet her at the entrance. We finished our tour and bought postcards and waited for Nikki. She still didn't come. We finally decided we would look for her and just then, she came walking in from off the street. She thought we meant the street entrance, while we thought we meant the museum entrance, which was inside a courtyard. She had been waiting out on the street and was worried that she was waiting at the wrong entrance and started walking up and down the streets to see if there was another entrance. Finally she decided to go back into the museum and there we met. She had been scared and was relieved to find us. We left right as the museum was closing for the afternoon. Surprised? (“Stay until it Closes” Event #5).

We were thrilled at the broad scope of French history we had taken in. I had never really had understood the whole sequence and reasoning of the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, and Napoleon, but now it made sense. We were enlightened as well as exhausted from Versailles in the morning and the Carnavalet in the afternoon. Enough for one day? Are you kidding? There was still a museum open in Paris and it was our duty to see it!

We made our way over to near the Orsay, stopping at a ice-cream parlor, where we had some delicious French ice cream splits, and sundaes and such. We were rejuvenated and entered the Orsay.

The Orsay has one of the best collections of Impressionist paintings in the world. We rented English cd players and at certain pieces, you could punch in a number and the cd player would tell you about that piece. It was very helpful. We wish there would have been something like it at the Louvre.

The Orsay covers the period from 1848 (the birth of the Third Republic ) to 1914 (the start of WWI). We started with the Conservative Art section. Conservative art was popular with the French schools of art in the mid-1800s. It mirrored the ancient Grecian and Roman style of perfection and idealism of the human form. We saw a painting by Ingres (ang-gruh), called The Source, where Ingres called it his “image of perfection.” Like Venus de Milo, she stands in a contrapposto position – a balance of opposite motions. Her hips tilt one way, her shoulders another. One arm goes up, the other down. The fluid curve of her body is matched by the water falling from the pitcher.

The French art world was divided into two camps. One was the Academy (the state art school) which promoted and taught the Conservative style and on the wrong side of the artistic tracks, was the Salon, where art was exhibited and sold to the buying public. Here there was much more experimentation and novelty, while everything from the Academy was regimented and similar in style and approach.

Realism was one wave that rebelled against the idealism and perfectionism of the Conservative style. Millet (mee-yay) painted a favorite of mine called The Gleaners. He grew up on a farm and hated the snobbish Paris art scene and instead of idealized gods and nymphs and winged babes, he painted simple rural scenes. Millet was strongly affected by the Revolution of 1848, with its affirmation of the working class and in this painting, “realistically” captures the innate dignity of these workers.

The emergence of the camera put a real strain on the Realism style. What is more real than a photograph? Yet art is more than painting reality. It is allowing us to see reality from the artist point of view, putting a personal stamp on that work. Sometimes that feeling is fleeting and you have to paint fast to capture this brief impression. This led to the Impressionist style. Their motto was to get out of the studio, into the open air. So they grabbed their scarves, berets and cheese and wine and set up their easels in the country, on lily ponds, at cafes, in dance studios.

Impressionism features light colors, easygoing open-air scenes, spontaneity, broad brushstrokes, and the play of light. They made their canvases shimmer by a simple, yet revolutionary technique. If you mix red, yellow and blue together, you get brown. But the Impressionists didn't bother to mix them. They would put a thick brushstroke of yellow down, then a stroke of green next to it, and then red next to that. Up close you see a bunch of messy colors, but if you back up, voila! Brown. The colors blend at a distance. While your eye is saying “Brown”, your subconscious is shouting, “Red! Yellow! Blue! Yes!”

Critics hated the quick style, the dabs of paint, and simple subjects. Even the Salon would not carry the paintings. So in 1874, the Impressionist held their own Exhibition. They took there name from a critic who laughed at one of Monet's “Impression” of a sunrise.

We took in paintings from Monet, Manet, Degas, Renoir, and Pissarro among others. In the middle of these Impressionist masters, there was another one of the painting superstars of familiarity, “Whistler's Mother.” Its subtitle is “Arrangement in Gray and Black.” There were a number of ballet sculptures of Degas that Nikki liked.

We lingered at Monet's paintings from his garden at Giverny with the famous foot bridge and lily pond. We enjoyed the “Dance at the Moulin de la Galette” by Renoir, with the sunlight filtering through the trees, creating a kaleidoscope of colors and Renoir sprinkles his sunshine throughout much of the painting with warm blobs of yellow.

We moved onto some of the post-impressionists, like Van Gogh, Cezanne, and Gaugin. Impressionists used dabs of colors that from a distance, blended together. Seurat took it one step further with pointillism, little points of different color closely next to each other, that blend together in the distance. Seurat was really the father of pixel technology that is used to make color TVs and computer screens and newspaper color photos work.

We had reached the end of what we could absorb for the day. We stumbled down the stairs, found a few postcards in our daze, and somehow found our way back to the hotel as the Museum closed for the night at 9:45pm .

Friday, Our 16th Wedding Anniversary

We started the day at Notre Dame (Our Lady). Outside of Notre Dame is Point Zero. It is a bronze plaque on the ground in front of Notre Dame. From this point all distances in France are measured.

Standing there and looking at the façade, over the door on the left is headless St. Denis, holding his head in his hand. St. Denis was the Bishop of Paris, trying to convert the early Roman Parisians. They disliked what he was saying and beheaded him. Apparently, he got up, picked up his head and tucked it under his arm, washed it off at a fountain and continued on until it was the right place to lie down and die.

Over the right door sit the Kings of Judah who, it turns out, have something in common with St. Denis. During the Revolution, the citizens mistook the Kings of Judah as the Kings of France and as it was all the rage, yelled, “Off with their heads.” So the citizens beheaded the statues of the Kings of Judah. A schoolteacher nearby came after the mob had left, collected up all the heads and buried them in her yard. For almost 200 years the heads were buried there, forgotten, until during some construction, they were discovered in 1977.

We went inside and viewed the altar and imagined Napoleon's coronation there. We imagined the citizens of the Revolution tearing down the altar and turning it into the “ Temple for the Cult of Reason.” We imagined the Hunchback running through the rafters, seeking sanctuary within the walls of the chapel.

We saw the statue of Joan of Arc, who helped drive the English from France and saw the beautiful stained glass windows. We exited the chapel and had planned on climbing the Tower to see the Gargoyles up close, but it was closed until the afternoon.

We examined the side of the church and noticed the flying buttresses. These 50 foot stone beams that stick out of the church were the key to being able to build Gothic churches as tall as these were built. The pointed arches on the roof cause the weight of the roof to push outward rather than downward. The flying buttresses support the roof by pushing back inward. We built our own chapel with flying buttress out of our bodies, with some of us making a steeple and others pushing against our middles to keep us upright. Nikki swore she saw Quasimodo running around along the railed balcony at the base of the roof among the gargoyles.

We went to the end of the island and went down into the Deportation Memorial. This memorial is to the 200,000 French victims of the Nazi concentration camps. On the floor is inscribed, “They descended into the mouth of the earth and they did not return.” In front of us was a narrow hallway lined with 200,000 lighted crystals, one for each French citizen that died. At the end of the hallway is the eternal flame of hope flickering. As we left the Memorial, we read over the doorway what is written at all Nazi sights, “Forgive, but never forget.”

We traveled to the Lafayette department store, passing the beautiful Opera House. At Lafayette , Ali, Nikki, and Dalita search for French scarves to buy and had fun dressing up.

We left and walked down a street equivalent to Fifth Avenue in New York . There were expensive clothing shops, jewelry shops and the likes. We stopped in a Godiva Chocolate shop and bought some sustenance to keep us going. We left and then Ali said she had left her sweater in the shop and she ran back to get it. Little did we know she had something up her sleeve, buying chocolates and a beautiful card for our anniversary.

Along the way, a street vendor was selling roasted chestnuts in rolled up paper cones. We bought several bags and I was in heaven. We finally arrived at the place de la Concorde and saw the Obelisk of Luxor. The obelisk was a gift to a French King in 1829. On the obelisk were the details of the amazing feat to transport the obelisk from Egypt to Paris . Near the obelisk, on the ground, was a brass plaque, identifying the place where the guillotine was located. It was here that Louis and Marie Antoinette were executed as well as many other.

The Obelisk is in line with several other significant monuments in Paris . It is called the royal perspective. There is a straight line from the Louvre (the period of Kings), to the Obelisk (Revolutionaries cutting off each others heads), to the Arc de Triomphe (Napoleon and other victorious nations carrying their flags under the Arch), to the new rectangular Grand Arch de la Defense (a new future where business is often more powerful than nations).

We went up the Champs-Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe and climbed the 230 steps to the top. The Arc de Triomphe is dedicated to the glory of all French armies. The tomb of the Unknown Soldier is at its base. At the top, we had a tremendous view of the city and of the Eiffel Tower . We took some nice shots there and one of my favorite ones of Dalita and I showing our love is still strong after 16 years of marriage.

We imagined Napoleon's funeral procession passing through the Arch. We also envisioned the Nazis with their swastika banners flying as they goose-stepped through the Arch and then triumphantly, the Allied forces marching through the Arch in August of 1944.

We rushed back to Lafayette and went to the top floor and attended a Fashion Show where models walked down a runway featuring clothes in the store. They had cookies and drinks for us. The girls had a grand time, but Zach was busy playing his GameBoy during the Fashion Show. However, a number of the models would stop and turn right near us and as they did, they would look at Zach and smile. Zach would be embarrassed and start playing even more furiously on his GameBoy. But when the next model came, he looked up in time to catch their smile and be embarrassed again.

After the Fashion show, we did a little more shopping, bought some souvenirs, and headed to the Eiffel Tower . We got off at the Trocadero metro stop and got some great shots with the tower in the background. Again, I had the chance to show my affection for my lovely wife. We walked down the stairs and through the park. There were lots of people out, enjoying the beautiful weather, playing soccer, Frisbee, playing drums, laying on the grass. Zach, Nikki, and Ali rolled down the hill until they were dizzy. The fountains were beautiful. We stopped and got some crepes at a street side vendor, crossed the River, bought our tickets and ascended the tower to the top at the 3 rd Observation Platform. It was a clear day and we could see forever. One fun thing we did was to look at the cities of the world that they had listed on a sign inside on the platform and it told how far away they were. It seemed like Australia was the farthest away.

The tower is 1000 feet tall and in hot weather it is 6 inches taller. It requires 50 tons of paint. Its 7000 tons of metal are spread out so well at the base that it's no heavier per square inch than a linebacker on tiptoes. It was built for the 1889 Centennial World Fair. Bridge builder Gustave Eiffel (he built the bridge in Porto , Portugal that spans the River D'ouro) was the winner of the contest, beating out a proposal for a giant guillotine. At first many Parisian disliked it, but now it represent the soul of Paris .

On the way down, we stopped and got some souvenirs and watched a video of the millennial fireworks display that was our favorite of all the fireworks set off at the start of the year 2000.

We continued home, bought some pizza for the kids and Dalita and I went out to a nice French restaurant at 11:00 at night for our Anniversary dinner and made it home at around 1:30 am . As we made our way home in the taxi, we were following a fire truck and it turned down the street our hotel was on. We were nervous, but fortunately, it went down another fork in the road and there didn't appear to be a problem.

Saturday

This was our last day in Paris . We packed our suitcases, took them all down to the lobby, arranged for a transport to the airport, and went to an open air market nearby. There were lots of yummy foods and cheeses. We had some delicious freshly squeezed blood red orange juice and some tasty French pastries. Ali bought some stamps to send some postcards to her friends back home.

We then still had a little time and we took a taxi to Napoleon's Tomb and Les Invalides. We saw his tomb which had a oak coffin inside, with a ebony coffin that housed two lead ones, then a mahogany, then a tinplate that finally held Napoleon.

We then raced to the nearby Les Invalides and the Army Museum , where they had a fabulous exhibit on WWII. We quickly went through the war's history starting at the Treaty of Versailles, the growth of Hitler and the fall of Poland , Belgium and then the Defeat of France in 1940. We saw pictures of an obscure military Frenchman who had escaped to London and began a series of radio broadcasts, insisting that victory was still possible. This man was Charles de Gaulle.

The exhibit talked about the Vichy government, showed the Blitz of London, and the capture of the Enigma machine. It showed that by the end of 1941, Hitler gave up hope of invading England and turned his sights to Russia , to repeat the mistakes of the guy we saw that was buried in all those coffins nearby.

The US entered the war after Pearl Harbor and Germany pushed through to the outskirts of Moscow . The Allies land in North Africa and Patton and Montgomery , under the command of Eisenhower, push the Desert Fox, Rommel, across Northern Africa . Hitler continued his campaign against Russia , losing 800,000 Germans, while the Soviets, holding Hitler at bay during the long winter, lost 1.1 million men.

It showed the French Resistance and its activities and the Allies landing in Italy and eventually liberated Rome on June 4th of 1944. Two days later, on June 6 th , D-Day occurred where 3 million men stormed the beaches of Normandy , and each one carried a note from General Eisenhower stating, “The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory.”

It then covers the period from June 1944 to August 1945 as the Allied forces slowly advance on Berlin from all sides. Meanwhile, the Americans were pushing closer to Japan during this time. Germany surrendered in May of 1945 and Japan surrendered in August. A total of 80 million soldiers and civilians died during WWII. The Soviet Union lost 26 million, China lost 13 million, France 580,000 and the United States lost 340,000.

We ended our tour, struggled to find a taxi, got our first real rude Frenchman as a driver, and made it back to the hotel right as our van showed up to take us to the airport.

We drove to the Charles de Gaulle airport, flew British Midland to Heathrow in London . We had a several hour layover in Heathrow and Dalita bought some beautiful Wedgwood jewelry for Ali and Nikki to give to them later. We took our flight on Virgin Atlantic back to New York and arrived at 9:00 pm local time in New York . We checked in to a hotel near the airport and collapsed into our beds. 

*Note: Much of the historical and factual information listed here comes from the guidebooks for Paris from Rick Steves, the guy on PBS who travels through Europe . We found his books to be informative, useful, and hit a spot of weird humor that resonated with us. We highly recommended them – they told us correct hours of museum closings (essential for us), told us how to get around the city at the lowest price, and told us all the ways to avoid the huge lines that form at some of these places. You can find his guidebooks at www.ricksteves.com or at bookstores everywhere.