Roman Holiday

Over my past break, I spent 4 days in Rome. Rome is definately very different than Paris. The architecture is older, the color scheme is similar to that of Florida, and the cobble-stone streets can be quite painful to walk on. While Rome is very beautiful, the public transport is horrific (especially after living in Paris for several monthes). Overall, though, my visit to the city of the emperors was a pleasant one.

Day 1: Arrival and initial exploration















The street our hostel was on, or, near the street our hostel was on.















Castel Sant'Angelo-- the tomb/moseleum of the emperor Hadrian, which was converted into a fort, which was converted into a Papal vacation home, which was converted to a Papal fortress, which was converted to a historical museum.















The Trevi Fountain-- I forgot to make a wish when I threw my coin in. . . oops.

Day 2-- The Vatican (Also, my 21st birthday)




















The road leading up to the Vatican. The dome is St. Peter's Basilica. Gelato or Gelati can be found everywhere, literally.















St. Peter's Basilica and a wing of the Vatican















The Vatican Museum--Very very very big. Although, not Louvre-sized. The Vatican certainly has a large art collection, spanning from ancient egyptian to modern art.















Recognize this?? It's found on the wall of one of the Papal apartments at the Vatican.
















I enjoyed the signs in Rome :)




















The inside of St. Peter's Basilica. This is the wall behind the alter.


Day 3: Day trip to Assissi (as in St. Francis of Assissi)















A city on a hill. I climbed all the way up to the castle on top.















Tuscany is about how it is depicted in movies. Pretty old sleepy little town with left over medieval architecture.




















The view was great. . . but there were lots and lots of stairs. My legs still hurt.















The castle ruins on the tipity tip top of the hill of Assissi. They were pretty cool.

Day 4: Ruins Day






















Palatine Hill. Here you can see the ruins of ancient palaces of emperors and of ancient villages.















The Colosseum as viewed from Palatine Hill




















The ruins of the Roman Forum. Gotta love those columns. . .















Columns columns everywhere. . . .















The inside of the Colosseum

These are just a few of my mountains of photos. I saw lots and lots of other things as well. :)

Musee d'Orsay

So, I went to the Musee d'Orsay a long while ago, I just have been negligent in posting. It was very cool, however, I didn't see a whole lot because I went to find a specific piece for my Art History class, which of course wasn't there. Still, I got to see some very famous pieces dating to around the time of the Impressionists. It was fun to see works that I studied in class. Here are a few of the things I saw:














"Olympia", by Manet. This piece is based off of one by the Italian artist Titian. It was way controversial back in the day. Btw, this painting is huge. Don't let the picture fool you.




















A piece be Renoir. "Everyday life" was a favorite subject of the impressionists.




















More Renoir





















Degas's blue dancers





















The lady with the fan is "Berthe Morisot", the only female impressionist!
















The famous Renoir park scene





















Woot, Monet! I'm pretty sure this is a painting of his wife. . .

















They also had some very nice pointillist paintings. I think this is a "Cross".

That's all for now. . . I have to go back!

L'Organgerie

So, epic failure on my plans to visit one "tourist site" every day. Instead, I attempted the Archives Nationales and the Bibliotheque Nationale in pursuit of primary documents for my thesis. Both were dismal failures, thus far anyways. The documents I wanted to look at were locked and sealed away, and only fame could unlock them. Boo hoo for not being a famous professor just yet.

Anyways, I did manage to visit the Musee de l'Orangerie the other day, famous home to some (potentailly all) of Monet's waterlily paintings. So, pretty cool. It is also the home of some Matisse and Gaugin paintings, which were also neat.

When I arrived at the O, people while filing out of the building, and the door guard told me that the building was being evacuated. Thus, as I await my friends, I thought of all sorts of exciting reasons for why it could be closed: terrorist plot to destroy Monet paintings? Fire from someone trying to smoke in a gallery? Etc. In reality, it was only a "panne electric", or an electrical shortage, which was fixed after a good half an hour. How dull!

Anways, to the good stuff: the art.















The waterlilys are displayed in two large circular/ovular white rooms with powder-white glass ceilings. There were eight of them and they are all fairly large and long, and shaped like rectangles. Not excately how I imagined them!














To give you a better idea of size. And this is cut off, it still stretches on for a while on the right. . .














There were also no-pastel waterlilies. This had long grasses in it, which seemed odd.'



















A close-up shot. Pretty pretty.














This one is my favorite. I bought a poster of the right-hand side for my room.















More close-ups of the lovely waterlilies.














I was surpised by how dark some of the waterlily paintings were. . .















I never knew before that there were waterlily paintings with trees. . .




















Oops, upside down. Oh well, you ge the idea. I didn't try to blend in on purpose. But, still pretty funny.














Moving on to things which are not waterlilies. A lovely piece by Renoir.




















Another Renoir. I'm quite sure it's one of his more famous works. You should have seen it before?




















Here is a Cezanne, who also had quite a few works at the Orangerie




















Here's a Matisse.

There was also a special exhibit which was about "perfect children", which treated the painting of the children of big artists like Matisee, Cezanne, Monet. It was really cool, although, taking pictures was forbidden. But, I figured this out after I took one by accident. . . spacey me.















But, the exhibit reminded me of my "History of Childhood" class from last semester. It was very cool. One of the paintings looked scarily like me--I have a French doppleganger from the 1870s!!!

Hotel des Invalides--National Army Museum

So, I finished my finals, and now I have a week and a half before I start my next semester. As such, I have decided to visit a different tourisitic sight every day for a week and a half, to narrow down my "to see" list. I will also be collecting postcards, so faithful friends, you should be getting new and exciting postcards for your walls ;)

Today, I visited "Les Invalides". "Les Invalides" was built by King Louis XIV, the sun king, who was a big military man. The purpose of the building was to house and care for wounded and aging soldiers. It was partially destroyed during the French revolution, and then re-built and adopted by Napoleon. As such, this is where you can see Napoleon's tomb, and the graves of some of the famous army-related people he lived and worked with.

"Les Invalides" is also the museum of the French army. The weather was so nasty, however (cold, wet, and rainy), that I only briefly visited the army history section.




















This is the famous "golden dome" of "Les Invalides". Looks famously familiar to our lovely golden dome back home.
















The ceiling under the golden dome. Pretty cool, huh?















There are even murals around the bottom edge of the top fresco. The gold was very bright and shinning, despite the gloomy weather
















There were a whole bunch of really nice stone carvings leading to and encircling the crypt of Napoleon.















Napoleon's tomb. It's huge. It's like a russian doll--a coffin in a coffin in a coffin in a coffin. etc. They used the same stone for his coffin that they used for all of the roman emperors! Talk about ego.




















Napoleon's tomb is surrounded by a bunch of enormous statues of roman-looking angels.















One of the crypt frescos. It talks about how even though Napoleon is gone, his great works in Paris lives on. The two lists show all of his projects and innovations in Paris.




















Napoleon bragging about how he created the Legion of Honor, the most important award, both civil and military in France. Also, channeling Rome, a little too much.

Overall, Invalides was entertaining, I just wish it hadn't been cold and rainy :(

The Centre Pompidou

The Centre Pompidou is a or rather the main modern art museum in Paris. I visited yesterday as part of a group project for my Gender, Feminism, and Society class, but I managed to sneak a few 'tourist moments.'














The days was pretty cold and gloomy, but this is the outside of the Centre, on the entrance side.















A big poster for the collection I went to see. "Elles"















A look at the inside. . . the main entryway




















Some art hanging from the ceiling. . .. Perhaps it's Pompidou?















When you go up the tube escalators in the first picture, you see all of this writing on the ground. I never noticed it when I was on the ground!!














The names of all of the main artists of the collection.

















The collection was the works of all of the modern art of women artists acquired by the Centre Pompidou. A lot of it was very feminist and revolutionary, but interesting.