Orsay Museum, Eiffel Tower, Versailles and more!

Palace at Versailles

So, where did I leave off? Oh yes. Tuesday for class we went to the Orsay Museum. The Orsay houses many interesting pieces of work emphasizing on impressionist, romantic, and naturalist pieces of art. So this includes Monet and Manet along with many others. I enjoyed a lot of the work I saw here, not really thinking that I enjoyed impressionist paintings, but I ended up liking them a lot. Also, this museum is an adaptive reuse of an old train station, so the architecture inside was a combination of the old and the new. On Wednesday, we went all the way to the top of the Eiffel Tower! The views were spectacular along with the amazing architecture/engineering of the Tower itself. After going all the way up and down, we then moved onto the Musee du Quai Branly designed by Jean Nouvel. This is a museum of African, Asian, Oceanic, and Native American artifacts. I like this museum a whole lot more than I thought I would! The artifacts were cleverly displayed in unique organizations that made you feel like you were in Africa itself or in some ancient civilization. After we wandered about this museum for an hour or so, we decided to eat lunch...under the Eiffel Tower! Such a great day! I had so much fun that afternoon taking fun pictures by the Eiffel Tower and also going to see Les Invalides, where Napoleon Bonoparte is buried. It was a very interesting museum/church/hospital sort of building. This building also housed the French Military Museum which we did not see. Then Thursday was our big day...the Palace at Versailles! The grounds at Versailles are enormous! I thoroughly enjoyed our visit here. We first went through a tour of the interiors, which were extremely ornate and grand! We saw the Hall of Mirrors, the King's Bedchamber, the Queen's Bedchamber along with many other important rooms. After we toured the inside we then started touring the vast gardens. The gardens are so huge that you probably couldn't tour them all in your lifetime! We started out on the main axis where the most important fountains are. It also helped that it was a gorgeous day! Then I made my way over to the Grand Trianon and the Petit Trianon, which are buildings far off from the main palace. Petit Trianon was notoriously given to Marie Antoinette from her husband King Louis XVI. I enjoyed looking at all the beautiful, but down to earth, interiors here at her smaller home. She also has a series of Hamlets that were farther away from the Petit Trianon where she kept her sheep and where she supposedly stayed and gardened while Parisians starved. Thursday was a very busy day, making my feet very sore at the end of the day. This morning my class toured the Pompidou Center of Modern Art. I actually enjoyed this museum too more than I thought I would. I especially enjoyed seeing a series of Liz Taylor prints by Andy Warhol. For class we studied the architecture of the building instead of studying the pieces held inside. To describe in brief, the Pompidou Center basically has an exoskeleton...it keeps all its functional parts on the outside including stairs/escalators, heating, plumbing, electrical, etc. Very cool and interesting building. After touring this museum briefly, my friends and I went to the Carnavalet Museum of French History. This museum has one of the best Art Nouveau interiors in Paris...and I love Art Nouveau so I definitely enjoyed that part. Pretty cool museum...although it started raining and I was unprepared so I wasn't too keen on that part. Tomorrow is the day we finally are going to tour the Catacombs along with going to the Highline, which is an elevated park. Did I also mention I now have a 3-day weekend?? And that a week from tomorrow I'm on my way to London?? I'm definitely ready to be in a country where they speak English! Aur Revoir!