The Sights of Paris

I saw a lot of things in Paris. Some are very well known, like the two I have already showed you. Some are not so well known, which are the things I am going to show you next.

This is Sacre Couer, translated as the "White Church." It sits on a hill and overlooks Paris. Construction began in 1875 and took 39 years. (So it finished in what year?)

This is the Palais Garnier, also known as the Paris Opera House. The book, musical, and movie The Phantom of the Opera are all set in this Opera House. However, there is no mysterious musician living in the grotto beneath the opera (so far as anyone knows...)

This picture is of the Mary Magdalene Church. It was originally built as a memorial by Napoleon but later was turned into a church. It is the only church in Paris that has no windows.

This bridge is called the Alexander III Bridge. It was a gift from Russia to commemorate the Franco-Russian Alliance of 1892. Tsar Alexander III, the second to last tsar before the Russian Revolution, is the man who it is named after, and his son, Tsar Nicholas II (the very last tsar, or king, of Russia) laid the first stone in 1896.

This is the Inverted Pyramid in the Louvre, which is perhaps the most famous art museum in the world. There is a bigger glass pyramid outside in the courtyard, and it is said that this upside-down pyramid is exactly the same size.

Also at the Louvre is this lovely lady, whom you all might recognize--the Mona Lisa! She is much smaller in person than you might think, only 30 inches tall and 21 inches wide. She is kept behind bulletproof glass in a temperature-controlled space in order to protect this almost 500-year-old painting from thieves and from the air, which is not good for the painting, as Leonardo da Vinci painted it on wood and not canvas.

So there you have it--a quick tour of some of Paris's highlights!

Notre Dame

No, I don't mean the college football team. I'm talking about the real Notre Dame in Paris! One difference is that we pronounce it like "Noter Dame" in America, whereas in Paris it is pronounced "No-tra Dahm."

If any of you have seen the Disney movie The Hunchback of Notre Dame, then you will know what I am talking about. Notre Dame is a huge cathedral in Paris which you see in almost every movie that takes place in Paris (along with the Eiffel Tower, of course).

Construction on Notre Dame began in the year 1163. It took them a very long time to get everything completed--construction "finished" in 1345 (which means it took how many years?)

Some of the most famous things about Notre Dame are the stained glass windows.  You can see them from the outside here...

See the big circular window above the tree?

And the inside here! Aren't they beautiful? The lights were dimmed in the church when we went in, as it is a church. The atmosphere was very reverent...basically, you didn't talk!

You can go to the top, but we were unable to, as we had to get back on our bus to continue to our next stop.  But we were very lucky to be there on-the-hour and got to hear the bells chiming!

Everything about Notre Dame is breathtaking...as are some of the other sites, which I will continue to post about. But for now, au revoir (French for "good-bye")!

Where in the World is Miss Fink?

I went on a little trip this weekend, which is why I did not post last night...sorry! I got home very late and was tired because we just pushed our clocks forward an hour. Anyway, Gordon went with me, and he wanted to see if you could figure out where we went without us telling you.  So here is his only clue:

Yep, we went to PARIS! Paris, France! That is the Eiffel Tower behind Gordon--we went all the way to the top! I have loads of pictures, so I have a feeling that all this week will be about Paris (and maybe part of next week, too!)

This is just a full picture of the Eiffel Tower.  It was built in 1889 and is the tallest building/structure in Paris (which you can see from the picture below, which was taken at the very top!)

The Eiffel Tower was meant to be a temporary structure, built for the World's Fair which marked the 100-year anniversary of the French Revolution. The man who designed it was Gustave Eiffel, which is how the Tower got its name.

It stands 1,063 feet tall (the equivalent of an 81 story building) and is painted 3 different shades of brown. If it is hot enough, the metal in the tower expands and makes it about 7 inches taller!

We were lucky enough to take a boat tour on the river Seine at about 6:00p.m., which meant that by the time we finished, it was dark out. We started out at the Eiffel Tower and ended there, where we had a surprise waiting for us...

The Tower was all lit up! We thought it couldn't get any better, but then...

It began to sparkle! It was absolutely the most amazing thing I have ever seen! More about Paris tomorrow!

The British Museum

When we were in London two weekends ago, my friend Miss Welter and I also visited the British Museum. This is one of the oldest museums in the world and has some of the most extensive collections of one of my favorite things...

This is Cleopatra's mummy!

Egyptian artifacts! This also works out great because my students here in England are studying Ancient Egypt, so I was able to take some neat pictures that they could look at to help their learning.

This is a statue of a scarab beetle. These were very important in Ancient Egyptian life.

Lots of statues of famous pharaohs, and lots of hieroglyphics.

This is the Rosetta Stone. It has three ancient languages inscribed on it and is how they translated a lot of really old documents. They were able to easily translate the Egyptian hieroglyphs and then figured out that all three "paragraphs" said the same thing, only in different languages. This was a major break through when it came to learning about ancient peoples.

Yeah, that's a mummified crocodile!

Now you might wonder why there are mummies and other Egyptian artifacts in a museum in England. Well, all of these artifacts were discovered by English archaeologists, so naturally, they brought them back to their own country to study them. Then they were put into the museum.

There aren't just Egyptian things here--there are exhibits from literally every continent! They had a very neat section about Native Americans. I thought it was interesting to learn about American things in another country.

The Tower Today

As I began to tell you yesterday, the Tower of London has a very different purpose today.

It is still used to guard something (see this man with the furry hat? He's an official guard!)

But this something is not people.  That's not a real guard--he's made of metal.

So is he.

And this one.

No, today the Tower of London is used to house...the Crown Jewels! These are crowns and scepters and dishes and rings and necklaces from hundreds and hundreds of years of English kings and queens.  Unfortunately, you cannot take pictures of them, but I found a couple pictures online of things that we saw.

Isn't that amazing!  Such beautiful jewels...I wish they would have let us try them on :)

Take him to the Tower!

On my trip to London, part two, we stopped at another famous historic landmark. The tale of this place is kind of gruesome, so I won't go in to too much detail.  We visited the Tower of London. To anyone who doesn't know its history, it might seem just like an ordinary castle.

But it wasn't ordinary, and it wasn't a castle. It was essentially a prison. The Tower of London was used to hold enemies of the crown, be they actual criminals or people the king or queen felt might try to take their crown. At various points, kings and queens were actually held in the tower!

Queen Elizabeth I was held in the tower before she actually became queen. Her elder sister, Mary Tudor, was reigning as queen and felt that Elizabeth was a threat to her crown.  Ironically, Elizabeth's mother, Anne Boleyn, was also held in the tower after King Henry VIII felt she was dangerous. Elizabeth came out alive and ruled for many year. Her mother did not.

For some reason, it will only upload the picture sideways. Sorry.

This is called "Traitor's Gate" and is where prisoners were brought in to the Tower.  

Tower Bridge is also a famous landmark--it appears in movies like Mary Poppins and Peter Pan as people soar over London.

The Tower of London is still used today--though not for the same purpose. I'll tell you all about that tomorrow :)

London by Night

This past weekend, some friends and I went back to London. And yes, this time I made quite sure that my camera battery was fully charged!  Gordon agreed to come with me again because he was very disappointed that he didn't get his picture taken with Big Ben.

There. Maybe now he'll stop bothering me!

We looked at some of the same things we did before, but we saw a lot of new things, which I will tell you about this week. One of the most amazing things we did was go up in the London Eye.

This is the London Eye. It is a huge Ferris wheel on the bank of the Thames River. One of my friends has been to London before, and she suggested that we get tickets to go up after sunset.

So our tickets were bought for 6:00 p.m. We got in line, and this was how it looked. 

Huge. I kept thinking "I'm crazy to go up there! It's so high!" Besides, it wasn't even night yet. Was it really going to be that spectacular? 

In one word, yes. It was absolutely breathtaking.  Being above London, one of the busiest cities in the world, when it is all lit up...

There really aren't words to describe how it felt. It was amazing, and I'm so glad I did it (even though I'm terrified of heights!)

Happy Spring!

Visiting Bath

Bath...now that is a funny name for a town, don't you think?  You might be wondering if they are very clean here and if they bathe often.  Well, I have no idea how often people in Bath take baths (though I'd like to think it is everyday!) but I do know why this town was named Bath.

Way back two thousandish years ago (a very precise number), Britain was conquered by the Romans.  You may have learned about the Ancient Roman culture in school.  If you have, you might remember that the Romans had the first plumbing systems, and that they had outdoor baths, which was where people gathered.  The baths were usually built over a hot spring and were believed to cure ailments and rejuvenate the body and soul.

The city of Bath is built over the only hot spring in the British isles.  The Romans found it and built a huge temple and bath system.  It isn't used as a mineral bath anymore, but it was the foundation for this city.

Keep in mind that this place is almost 2,000 years old.  That stonework was done by some master artisans, but I don't think I'd want to get in that water now!

Can you imagine men in togas standing on the balcony and people swimming and sitting down in that bath? This was the major social hot-spot of Roman life in Ancient Britannia!

Even a statue of good ol' Julius Caesar!  The Roman Baths were an extremely important place.

But there is still no way I'd get in that water!