Strasbourg

So, I've left my cozy Paris apartment and headed out into the countryside.  First stop; Strasbourg, which is a ridiculously adorable town on the border with Germany.  It has an odd history as it has been passed back and forth between Germany and France repeatedly since Charlemagne died.  It's now the home of the European Council and the European Court of Human Rights which is a nice result for a town that has been the prize of a tug-a-war for centuries.

I stayed in a very cute hotel in the Cathedral square.

The only problem was this;

Less than 100 feet away were 16 cathedral bells that rang every 15 minutes....starting at 7:00 am.  Seriously!  Every 15 minutes.  Apparently the Vatican hasn't figured out that we've all got time devices of our own now.   Other than that, this 900 year old cathedral was really gorgeous with pink stone and odd animal statues interspersed with the gargoyles.

I took the walking tour.

An old girl's school

Old City fortifications

Fisherman's wharf

The guide talked all lot about the struggle between Germany and France with the tour ending in Republic Square with this war memorial.

The female character represents Strasbourg while the two nude males represent all the dead from both Germany and France.  They're nude to show that in death it doesn't matter which side they were on.  Strasbourg mourns for them all.

On the tour, I met an interesting woman from the UK who is working at the Human Rights Court and we had dinner together in Petite France.

 

Petite France is the original city and was eventually turned into a hospital/brothel for syphilis patients.  So French!  Now it's just beautiful with tiny cobblestone streets and wooden framed houses.

 

 

On the other end of the scale, here's the European Human Rights Court that I saw while taking a boat tour of the Ill River

 

It probably doesn't hurt that it's sunny and 22 degrees but I really like Strasbourg.  I'll have to come back one year for their Christmas Market.  Tomorrow I'm off to Dijon for some wine tasting.

 

The Palais Garnier

I didn't intend to but I accidentally left 'the best for last' by making the Paris Opera House my last stop in Paris.  It was fantastic!  Designed for a contest by Charles Garnier in the 1860s and finished in 1875, this building has all the French opulence that anyone could want as well as some great stories to go with it.  Because the English tour was sold out, I toured with the audio guide which turned out good as it was the only good audio guide I've used in the whole city.  It gave me a comprehensive explanation of each area as I walked through and provided extra information if I wanted it.  It also included interesting tidbits of historical events at the opera. 

The grand staircase was designed to show off the ladies' dresses to their best. 

It's a dramatic entrance made up of more than 9 different marbles and decorative lines on every surface.  Above it are balconies which people can stand and watch who's coming and going.

 

Then you go through the dramatic entrance to the box seats, lined with red velvet 'to flatter and bring out the youth in ladies faces' according to Garnier.

 

In 1964, the Opera House commission the famous Chagall painting on the ceiling, which was actually the only thing I didn't like in the place.  It looked, to me, a bit like a 10 year old had done it with crayons.

Between the acts, the audience could enjoy the salon and some drinks or food.   Elaborate tapestries adorn the walls showing what was available.

 

 

There were also busts of famous actors, including this one of the most famous French actress who played Gisele, which after seeing a million Madonnas in the museums, was a breath of fresh air.

Then, the piece de la resistance, the grand salon.

This place was built so the women would sit safely in the boxes and the other rooms were for the men only but on the opening night, the Queen of Spain couldn't contain her curiosity and wandered all over the place, making it acceptable for women to mingle with the men for the first time in history.

If you have one day in Paris, go here.

The most horrendous tourist trap in the world

Can you guess what I'm talking about?

Versailles, of course.

This was the only really unpleasant day I've had here.  I came early by metro to avoid the line and they weren't really too bad with about a 30 minute total to get in and get my audio guide.  As I was leaving, the line had to be at least 3 hours long if not longer so it was worth coming early.

The unpleasantness started as soon as I started the tour.  There were so many people stuffed into the rooms that you couldn't turn around in some of them.  I was pushed, shoved and elbowed repeatedly.  In addition, the audio guide was really limited with almost no information.  This has been the case with almost all of the audio guides I've gotten here so I'm guessing that they just don't know how to do it well.

In addition, due to the revolution, there is almost nothing authentic left in the Palace.  It's all reproductions and guesswork and there isn't very much of that either...bare rooms with elaborate gilt and painted ceilings.  Don't get me wrong, the ceilings are amazing but not worth 3 hours in line.

I'm also going to have a little rant about Asian tour companies here.  I don't blame Asians for wanting to see the sights like the rest of the world but I do blame the Asian tour companies for running groups of 30+ people through these places at high speed and forcing everyone else to get out of their way.  It's been an issue at almost all of the Parisian sites I've been to but Versailles was completely out of control.  I can't imagine that the poor tourists are really getting anything out of it at the speed they're being rushed through and the rest of us weren't impressed either.

That being said, here are a few images.

 

The gardens really were worth seeing but, unfortunately, I picked the first day of wintery weather and I couldn't stay outside for more than 30 minutes.  Oddly, they had covered most of the statuary and turned off all the fountains so it wasn't at it's full potential but the place is massive at 240 acres so it's impressive enough without the extras.

Shopping

One of the oldest department stores in the world...very nice!  I bought some souvenirs here as they had a good selection at not bad prices.

Musee D'Orsay vs. The Louvre

I wish I had started my trip here with a guided tour of the Musee D'Orsay.  It is a much better experience than the Louvre and deals mainly with French painting from 1850 onwards.  The guide was excellent and explained the history of French painting so that I now get why Van Gogh and Manet were supposedly brilliant compared to their predecessors.  There aren't any photos allowed of the museum or art but I did get a couple of the cafes inside the converted train station/museum.

Another great aspect of this museum is that it's laid out in a chronological order with special rooms for certain artists of the period.  Very logical and easy to understand.  You can start on one side and finish on the other.  There were nicely placed signs in English to explain about the different art movements and how they came about.  Well done!

This Renoir was my favorite painting...in fact, I think it's my favorite of all the paintings I've seen in Paris.

I also went back to the Louvre to explore the paintings. 

I have two complaints about the Louvre (besides the massive tour groups pushing and shoving their way around).  The first is the lack of cohesiveness about the exhibits. Turn a corner and you're surrounded by entirely different type of art with no real connection.  Also, you spend a lot of time retracing your steps due to one-way corridors and dead ends which is tiresome. 

My second complaint is that the Louvre doesn't really have that great of a collection outside of the French artists.  Sure, they've got the tiny Mona Lisa and two of Michelangelo's statues but all of my favorite Italian and Dutch painters were poorly represented with second-rate paintings.  After seeing the best work in their countries of origin, I could have easily skipped the majority of the Louvre.  There is also the issue that, being Catholic, the majority of work collected by the museum seems to be religious in nature.

That being said, I did enjoy seeing some of the French art.

 

and I discovered Thomas Gainsborough who I had heard of but had never seen.

Rodin and Napolean

It was a decent day so I decided to go for an outdoor museum experience and headed to the Rodin Museum.  The museum is located at Rodin's last address, the Hotel Biron which he saved from demolition by donating his sculptures.  The large pieces are out in the gardens and some of the smaller casts and marbles are inside the hotel.   It was only 6 euros to get in as it's the only non-state run museum in the city.  Most of the others are costing between 9 and 12 euros for the basic ticket.

Of course, there was the famous 'Thinker' with the Eiffel tower to his back.

Also, I had seen The Kiss outside of the Museum Orangeries and they had the marble here in the museum.  Apparently he made over 300 versions of The Kiss.  He would draw an image or sculpt it in marble or clay and then eventually make a bronze. 

It was worth the visit and a nice walk through the gardens.  I even saw a cute little bunny hoping around.

As the tomb of Napoleon is located next door, I wandered over to have a look.  Unfortunately, you can only visit by buying a ticket to the Army Museum which was as dreadful as I had feared.  Room after room of armor, swords and canons.  

 

 The tomb is as overdone and ornate as they come...bringing to mind pharaohs and roman emperors.

I really wouldn't advise wasting your time here unless you have some obsession with military history or medieval knight's clothing.

I did see a military funeral taking place in the main courtyard so the place is obviously still in use by the army.  I was rather horrified to see tourists filming the funeral and taking photos and I have to wonder how lacking in common compassion people have become that they could blithely take vacation snaps of some family's grief.