Europe Trip-Paris Part 2

We enjoyed the Musee du Orsay more than the Louvre.  There were more paintings we knew-renaissance, etc.   The only disappointment was that they were getting ready for a show, so a lot of the DaVincis, etc. were not available to view. 

We tried to go to the Catacombs, but didn't realize their popularity, so we had to put it off to another day.  Instead we went to Invidales & Napoleon's tomb.

L'Hôtel des Invalides, is a complex of buildings in containing the military museum, Napoleon's tomb and a hospital and retirement home for war veterans.

 

We quickly went through the war museum.  The headdresses & feathers kept getting bigger and bigger.  Amazing.  I have no words....

 

 

 

After Invalides we headed over to the Eiffel tower where we walked up to the 2nd floor and then took the elevator to the 3rd (you cannot walk to the 3rd-the line is shorter and the tickets cheaper if you walk to the 2nd floor).

 

Original steps up the tower

View:

 

 

 

the small red thing is an Eiffel Tower made out of red folding chairs.

 

 

 

Us at the top of the tower:

 

 

 

 

 

The following day we took the advice of those waiting for the catacombs the day before and headed to the line for the catacombs and ate breakfast in line waiting for them to open. Worth the wait.  It's not something you can understand until you are actually in there.

 

Paris is full of these beautiful limestone buildings.  Where Paris stands now used to be an ancient sea (Lucian) When the water receded it left behind limestone.  Paris began to be built when the leaders discovered all this limestone and started to quarry it out under Paris.  Unfortunately this meant sinkholes developed.

(Looking up)

 

 

the path leading to the catacombs-note the black line to keep early tourists from getting lost & Paul using his audio tour.  It was easy to share as you push a button for each number as the spots appear on the tour:

 

 

So they started reinforcing the quarried areas.  Signs like this show: Number of the column in the series, the initials of the commissioner who ordered the columns in that section.  The year they were reinforced.

 

 

 

Signs like this show the street one is under.  Before these street signs, there was a black line painted on the ceiling to show which way to go in and out of the catacombs.

 

Then the plague hit Paris.  There were so many infected bodies that the cemeteries were overfull and it was becoming a health hazard.  So the government of Paris got to thinking that they had all this empty area beneath the city available and starting moving the older bones to the area under the city, now known as the catacombs.  The older bones didn't usually have anyone still looking after the graves.  Any tombstones were offered back to the families, but they had some unclaimed and had a tombstone museum as part of the initial tours.  After the catacombs were closed during a war and reopened, the tombstones had all disappeared except one, which is still in the catacombs.

 

 

The catacombs are 60 feet underground and go for miles.  The estimated 6 MILLION skeletons stretch 910 meters through the tunnels. They go back approx. 5 feet from the aisles.

 

 

The signs in each section indicate what cemetery they were unearthed from and the year.

 

On our way to the Metro to go out to  Versailles, our other excursion for the day, we walked through Cimeiere du Montpanesse. 

 

This cemetery was a mix of old and new.  Family members would be buried on top of each other 6 people deep. There were small mausoleums with family members as well.  It appeared that the graves were put in every other spot to start and filled in later on as old graves are next to new and there's really no where to walk between them.

 

on the way to the metro-how most of Paris gets around:

We then took an RER regional train out to the Palace of Versailles.  The Palace itself has 2300 rooms.  The grounds stretch for miles and it was all built by Louis XIV for himself and Marie Antoinette.  Also on the grounds are Grand Trianon which housed Napoleon's estate later on

 

and Marie Antoinette's estate.  Marie wanted somewhere to "get away from it all" so Louis XIV built her Petit Trianon and even a pretend farm village.  The building later was a meeting place for Louis XV and his mistress Madame de Pompadour.

that's me in the center in the blue dress by the woman with the pink bag. This is only the center of the 3 sections of the palace-it is the biggest building I've ever seen.

Grand Canal:

 

 Model of the grounds. The building on the left is the palace:

 

Bedroom/Bed in the palace. The bedrooms were huge, probably 700-900 square foot rooms with this huge bed-tall but not long.

House of Mirrors, meant to reflect light back out...

The Petit Train can get you around everywhere.  There's really no other way to see everything, esp in an afternoon. We saw people walking and on bikes but it was very hot and they mostly looked miserable. 

In the gardens are fountains that are only run on Tuesdays which is also the closed day for the Louvre. Music is also played.  It is said to be an experience you should do once and I think we'd do it on another trip, but it also makes the place very crowded. Now that we've toured Versaille we might do it on our next trip (view the fountains) and skip the tour.

An out of the way fountain we found while wandering the grounds:

Afterwards, we were hungry and Paul couldn't take it any more and insisted on McDonalds-They have self-order touch screens then you go up to pickup your order. You'd think this would be quick. 20 minutes later, Paul got his dinner and decided it was NOT great.  Oh, well.