11th Day- Paris France

TEAM CHARBECCA

Today we are off to PARIS and we have demanded that the guys from "TEAM DANERIK" support the girls team of  "CHARBECCA" ( a name Rebecca came up with for us. They are great sports and have agreed!! We followed them for two days and they will follow us!)

We got on the train and went into the city with our first stop being Notre- Dame. (I had to explain to my kids that this was the church that the movie "Hunchback of Notre- Dame" was inspired after)  It was beautiful as all the others, this one though had a line that snaked through the courtyard, with hundreds of people.

 (Little History)Notre Dame broke ground in  1163.  The people who built the church "had hopes that someday their great-great-great-great-great-great grandchildren might attend the dedication Mass 200 years later."
The location that Notre- Dame sits on is also considered the center of France, "the center where all distances are measured."

This is Charlemagne (Charles the Great," 742-812) King of the Franks, whose reign marked the birth of modern France. 

This is Joan of Arc- she is looking directly across from her into the center of this window which is a picture of Mary and Christ.  This window is one of the original windows from the time Notre Dame was built.

We all had to use the bathrooms and they have no bathrooms on the street so we thought that we would stop to eat so we could use a bathroom.  (That is one thing about Europe- they hardly have any bathrooms and you sure don't get to use the limited ones they have unless you are a "customer")

Our next stop was the Louvre. [LOO-v] (This is where the Da Vinci Code book took place.) The Louvre is a museum where most of Europe's history and antiquities lie.  I guess the Louvre started out as a collection of old art open to the public close to 8 centuries ago.  It has accumulated over 300,000 pieces of art.  As you walk in the courtyard entrance and you look all around you the Louvre surrounds you on all 4 sides.   The pictures of us with the glass pyramid in the background is also a part of the Louvre, which goes underground.  There was so much to see we could have stayed in there for hours.   My favorite was looking around the Greek and Roman antiques.  Here are a few pictures. (Of course we are with 14 year old men who kept laughing at the greek statues that were naked.  Rebecca and I had a good laugh as well.  WHY?????? are they all naked?? we kept saying.

This angel was originally on a ship that was dated all the way back to  190 B.C.

Mona Lisa, the most famous painting in the world was painted by Leonardo Da Vinci in 1503

Aphrodite, was sculpted 400 B.C. 

We then headed over to The Orsay Museum which also holds a lot of art mainly impressionist artists like, Vincent Van Gogh, Edgar Degas, Toulouse- Lautrec, Paul Gauguin and Claude Monet.  I would have loved to take pictures but they do not allow cameras.   My father would have loved it. 

We were wiped out after all of this, but had yet to see the Eiffel Tower.  We bought the tickets to go up the tower and then waited our hour in line.  It was so beautiful at the top and of course very high up.  We later went to dinner at 10:00pm next to the Eiffel Tower, a photo shoot of the Eiffel Tower at night and then a trip on the train home!!  We walked all over Paris all day long. Everybody says Paris is all within walking distance.  HUH!!  We must have waked 10 miles today.  We were exhausted and did not get off the train until 12:30, walked another mile (no lie) to our car and then home by 1:00 AM.  It was a long marvelous day. 

The Eiffel tower at night. 

And after I took this the whole Eiffel Tower lit up with sparkly lights.

This lady was at the restaurant we were eating at.  I think she is some sort of star in Paris.  She did not want me to take her picture, but I'm American and a momarazzie!

I think this is her on the cover of a magazine in Paris!!