Museum of Lourves and Palace of Versailles

It is safe to say that two of the must see places in Paris are the Lourve and Palace of Versailles.

The museum of Lourve is famous on it's own right, but recently popularised by the "da vinci code" At there, I met a Caucasian who speaks the best Mandarin (the lady in the middle)! and most importantly, it was with a Taiwanese accent. When she started talking, i was shocked for a few second cause I am really not used to seeing a Caucasian speaks such fluent mandarin. As it turned out she spent many years in Taiwan, and had taught my dad 1 or 2 days of French when she was there...small world huh~. Anyway... I just love the glass pyramid! I am sure it'll look spectacular at night as well, just sadly didn't get to witness it. The inverted pyramid instead is very unique, but I guess I can't help thinking about the last scene in Da Vinci Code.... :P The thign about Lourve is that it's not just the artworks that's worth seeing, the architecture and interior design is absolutely amazing! My favourite will has to be the rooms renovated during residence of Louise XIV, just look at the details put into the ceilings and the walls. Not to mention the whole room is lavished with gold.

The famous artworks in Lourve include the statue of Venis (Venus de Milo)

and of course the Mona Lisa. The Mona Lisa is actually a lot smaller than i imagined, it's even smaller than the wall scrolls I have in my room. and it's protected by I dotn' know how many layer of glass and alarms. It is also the room with a huge crowd of people. I had to literally push thru mountains of ppl to take this picture. I guess the special thing I found with this picture is that no matter which angle you look at her, Mona Lisa smiles right back at you, kinda.. ghostly actually. My favourite picture has to be "The Coronation of Napoleon I" because I just love how realistic the velvet robe looks like. In fact, think I saw this painting in one of the films I saw recently.. was it Shrek 3? or Enchanted.. hm.. can't remember :P Just outside of the Lourve is another arc of Triumph, a smaller version of the one at the end of Champee Elysees. The 3 arcs (including La Defence) form a straight line. Isn't that just a perfect platform for treasure map etc? :P

The Palace of Versailles is another must see in Paris. It's a place reside in the town of Versailles. It was renovated by Louis XIV after visiting a Chateau of his finace minister, he felt he's residence back then (Lourve) was nothing in comparison. So he picked a hunting lodge at Versaille and began its expansion and renovation, which later became the well know Palace of Versailles. Unfortunately the exterior of Versailles was under maintenance so we coudnlt' take a good photo of it, so here's a picture of the back :P
I really like the design of the palace, because the same extravagance design of the ceilings renovated by Louis XIV was echoed through the Versailles. This photo shows the hall of mirror. What I love about the palace is that most of the rooms have a theme, and that all the decorations were carefully design to suit that theme. For example, the room of Saturn (in Roman mythology is associated with agriculture and abundance) so the entire ceiling had pictures showing Saturn at the time of harvest. It is again unfortunate that there were special exhibition on display during our visit, so we could not take photos in those rooms. The above photo shows the game room I think. And here's a picture of the queen's chamber. On the left (not in the photo) there's a little side door which connects to the King's room for er.. convenience and privacy.

And what is a palance without a grand garden right? the garden of Versailles honestly stretch out over the horizon! but I guess having visit it during Winter it's not overly exciting in my opinon.

Lourve and Versailles is definatley a must-visit in Paris! it gives me a feel of what it feels to be royalty in those days! it is honestly Awesome!!!

Paris

Paris is definately a city enriched with culture, style, history and amazing architectures.

From the ancient design of Basilique du Sacre-Coeur or the Basilica of Sacred Heart situated at the summit of montmatres (highest point in Paris). A Roman-style cathedral.

and the Arc of Triumph.

to the decidedly more modern arc, Le Defence,

to the most well-known landmark of Paris, the Eiffel Tower (which gave countless opportunities for shameless lame poses)

at the top of Eiffel tower, the lame posing continues...

The night gives Paris a total make-over, revealing its beauty under shimmering lights.

The Eiffel tower, standing tall, claiming its place in Paris landmark even at night.

Arc of Triumph viewing from Champs Elysees.

The arc of Triumph looks different, somewhat familiar under its yellow coats.(p.s. to ff8 fans, can you recongize this from one of the areas in ff8? ;) )

Interior of Lafayeal

The department stores takes the opportunity to show off their extravagance, lavishness and luxuriance during the xmas season. (

LV orginial shop

While some other shops relies on its orignial products for decoration

The fact is, Paris is a stylish city no matter how you look at it, for example, in the picture is a building under construction, the wacky building is the design of the covers over the building.

Even the entrance to the Metropolitain is screaming with stylish flair.

Paris is definately a city worth visiting.

France- Orleans and Chartres

Orleans is a city Southwest of Paris

It is famous for the house of Joan of Arc (can you see which one is joan's house?)

and the Cathedral of Orleans

The Catherdal has everything I would expect to see in a cathedral...

beautiful glass windows that depicts stories from the bible, or in this case the story of joan of arc.

confession chambers
and HUGE AS organs.

and If i am perfectly honest, my impression from the 3 cathedrals I've visited from this trip is that it's all very dark, almost hauntingly ghastly, not to mention the coldness in the churches. It's nothing like the nice central heated churches you find in NZ. I guess me not being a Catholic may affect my feelings towards cathedrals, but upon entering those buildings, I feel like I might attack by devils at any second ^^;

Later we visited the cathedral of Chartres. It's signature two high vaults were results of a fire which burnt down half of the cathedral, a second vault was thus built in the 'Gothic' archtecture style.

The very special part about this church is the use of light blue stained glass on Mary which was very rare when it was constructed. The blue was hence named "Chartres blue".

And ending on that note, our next destination take us to Paris! for real this time. (think i'll make that separate post) ^^

Merry X'mas

Just want to wish everyone a most Wonderful and Safe Christmas!

Tours - France

We arrived at the Charles De Gaulle airport nice and early in the morning. The airport was absolutely huge, it took the plane a good 20 minutes to travel to the arrival gate after landing. And even after that, walking from the gates to the customs require going through tunnels and tunnels of escaltors!! At some point, it almost looked as though we were walking through a real life version of a huge aquarium, without all the fish and the water. While we are on the subject on flying, I just want to point out that Malaysian airline is like.. way better than EVA and air New Zealand in service!

Our first days schedule is to drive pass Paris to Tours to visit two castles. There are over 3000 castles along the river Loire, according to dad, all the old castles (chateau) has to be close to a water source so that the human waste can be dispose of easily.

Driving along this peaceful, almost enchanted path we arrived at our first destination - Chateau de Chambord.

The chateau is absolutely amazing! the exterior looks like everythign I would imagine what a chateau would be, and this one even got a bit of a hauntingly feel to it just like the caslte in 'Beauty and the Beast'. Apparently the exterior design is a blend of traditional French Renaissance and Medieval architecture. It as over 300 chimney.

Chateau de Chambord was built by King Francois I as a hunting lodge. Which meant that apart from a few game collections, the castle is almost empty because the chateau would only be decorated prior to arrival of the king. Due to the relatively early ancient in its design, the castle is absolutely freezing (despite having over 300 fireplaces).

The only interior design worth mentioned of is Da Vinci's double helical staircase, which Da Vinci specially designed for King Francois I.

The whole point of the the staircase is that whilst you can see the people from the other side of the staircase, in reality you can never meet them.

After our morning exercise around the castle, we arrived at this little cafe "Cafe du Midi" in the little town in Tours. The cafe has got a real homy feel to it, with a humourous owner.
We got to try some of the real local cheese that France has to offer!

Next up, we drove across the country side to our next destination. The country side of France is completely different to what you see in New Zealand, its old and yet peaceful, as if nothing in the world has disturbed its tranquiality since hundreds of years ago.

Our next destination was the Chenonceau Castle, which was a castle built over the river Cher. Unlike Chambord which was rarely occupied, Chenonceau was home for 6 mitresses in the past including Henry II mistresses Diana de Poitiers and Catherine de Medici and the wife of Henry II Louse de Lorraine. Each occupants has expanded/renovated it.

In the beginnng, it was just a river mill (the little building on the right), but eventually got expanded to a whole arch spanning across the river.

Due to the constant occupants in the castle, there were a lot to see within the castle, there was a chapel.

Furnitures and paintings.

A seeminly haunting stairway to the basement which would leads to a ...

fully equipped kitchen.

There is even a maze outside of the chateau.

But I guess what is most memorable about Chenonceau is the stories surrounding its occupants, like the love triangle between Henry II, Catherine and Diana,

...and the sobering widow Louise (the White Queen) for her early deceased husband, who decorated her room in complete darkness with silver paints as symbol of her tears.

And that concludes our trip around Tours, next up is Paris!!