Our Tour Begins...

One of the lovely things about Europe is that there are a multitude of languages spoken there. Because of this, major tourist destinations like museums and estates have audio tours. They give you this little hand-held device that has numbers on it, and throughout the museum or house, things are numbered. Punch in the number and hear about what you're seeing--super cool! I think some places in America do this, but it isn't seen quite as frequently in my experience.

So imagine that I am your audio guide through the Palace of Versailles. First, I am going to take you into the entryway. You will see the chapel. Louis XIV had a chapel built inside his house.  You can see the massive pipe organ--it is so tall, it is seen best from the second floor!

This is the ceiling in the chapel.  Can you imagine the number of hours it took someone to stand on a ladder or some sort of scaffolding and paint that? Yeah, it took a long time.  

Look at this statue. Isn't it a nice statue? I wish the entry rooms in my house had statues like these. Unfortunately, audio guides do not explain what every single thing in the room is. And I really don't know what the specifics of this statue are.

This is not the chapel ceiling. This is the ceiling in the first room after the chapel, called the Hercules Drawing Room. Louis XIV was really into Roman mythology, so many of the rooms are named or decorated for Roman gods and goddesses.

This is the fireplace in the Hercules Drawing Room. Can you imagine how much wood was needed to keep a fire going?

There are doors like this throughout the palace--very tall, very ornate. I think a pair would go very nicely in the classroom, don't you?

Tomorrow I will show you one of the most famous rooms in the Palace of Versailles--get excited!

The Palace of Versailles

I'm going to take you outside of Paris now, to one of the "suburbs."  Versailles (pronounced Ver-sigh) was once just a small village, way back when, but then something radical happened and changed it to a focal point of France.

King Louis XIV happened. Now, in Versailles, there had been a hunting cottage used by the kings of France.  Louis XIV decided it just wasn't good enough--wasn't grand enough. And so in 1661, he began to build the Palace of Versailles where the hunting cottage once stood.  And this is what he created.

Yeah, that place is massive! And get this--it was only his summer home!! It held over 20,000 people...can you imagine having that many people in your house at one time?

And as it goes with kings, they have to go over the top. Do you see that gate? Yes, that gate has gold on it! I'd love to have a golden gate in front of my house!

The extreme grandness of the Palace of Versailles is something I will explore with you through the rest of this week. I will also describe the history behind the Palace and what major French events happened in or near Versailles.

Here are just a few more shots of the Palace. And all the places I am going to show you pictures of were only one small wing of this place. (Side note:  can you imagine having to wash all those windows? Can't have dirty windows for the king!)

Paris in bits-and-pieces

I have a lot of random pictures of things that won't create a entire post by themselves...so I'll just throw them all into a blender and make a post from that!

This lovely statue is at the Louvre, along with the Mona Lisa. Do you recognize him from somewhere? Maybe if he said, "You give me gum-gum?" This is an Easter Island head, and there is a talking one in the Night at the Museum movies.

The hotel where I stayed. It is called the Hotel Ibis Eiffel Tower and is only three blocks from the Eiffel Tower, but unfortunately, other buildings prevented me from seeing the Tower. Rats.

A Microsoft building! Don't ask me why I took it--I guess I was excited to see a giant building belonging to an American company in the capital of France.

Do you recognize this lovely lady? This is the Statue of Liberty in miniature! This one was built in 1889, three years after the one in New York was finished. Ours was a gift from France. This statue sits on a man-made island on the river Seine and was featured in National Treasure 2:  Book of Secrets. Ours is also much bigger!

Paris is such a beautiful city. I couldn't resist showing you some more pictures from the top of the Eiffel Tower.  So enjoy these pictures and have a lovely week!

More of Paris

Happy April, everyone! As I am writing this, it is April Fool's Day. I told my students here in England that the date was March 32nd and that April had been put off for another day. They said they didn't believe me, but some of them actually wrote "3/32/2011" on their homework!

Anyway, about Paris. There is a very famous street in Paris called Champs Elysses, which is pronounced "Shawnz a-lee-say." It has lots of very fancy shops and apartments on it--some of which the rent is equal to $1.5 million per year!

This is a shop on this street--a Louis Vuitton shop, which is famous for its very pricey luggage and purses. We did not go in...none of us could afford anything!

At the end of Champs Elysses is another famous Parisian landmark, the Arc de Triomphe.  This is a view of the Arc from farther down the Champs Elysses.

This monument was commissioned by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1806 to honor all those who had died fighting in the French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. One thing you will learn about Paris is that Napoleon built things everywhere. You can barely go down a single street without there being something built by Napoleon or designed by Napoleon or about Napoleon. He really wanted people to remember him.

This monument has the names of all French victories and generals from those two wars engraved on it. We were not able to get off of the bus to go to the top, but we did drive all the way around it, as it sits in a "roundabout" in the middle of the road. Here in Europe, they have lots of roundabouts instead of stoplights. You just keep driving down the street, around the circle, and then pull into the street you're looking for.

The flowers you can see line the Tomb.

In the middle of the monument (you can't really see it, but this was the best picture I could take) is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier from World War I. There is an eternal flame over it.

I hope your weekend is lovely. I'll post more about Paris next week!

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!