Day 5: Masterpieces of the Louvre Museum
Our day begins at the Louvre, where a local guide will show us the highlights of this magnificent museum. Your afternoon is free to spend in the Louvre or wherever you choose - perhaps that nearby "Mecca for moderns," the Pompidou Center?
What can I say about the fact that we saw modern art in the middle of Paris dressed up as a metro station. I had no idea things like this existed here. What a treat.... Rolinka introduced us to this modern art and then we charged around the corner to the conservative yet kicky Palais Royal and gardens that hosted yet another modern art architecture built into the courtyard-I loved it. I just loved the modern black/white columns.
After the visit to the courtyard we headed over to the Louvre and collected our whisper head sets, met Elizabeth our guide and were off to the main course. Elizabeth our guide was thoroughly acquainted with the Louvre but in all honesty I got much more out of the Rick Steves book tour and ipod tour. I stayed with the group for the tour but then went back and did the Rick Steves book and ipod tour that I had downloaded to my new ipod shuffle. Great tour...self paced...tazmanian through some, lagged through others.
My legs were like jello after the Louvre but for some bizarre reason I decided to walk throuh the Tulleries which was alive with people yet peaceful, and visited L'Orangerie and then onto the Concord
and over to the Magdalene . How my old body was taking all this walking I don't know but I pressed forward to the Arc de Triomphe and was so glad I did. I hopped the Metro somewhere around the Magdeline (Magdalene) and surfaced on the Champe Elysee only to go underground again and surfaced in front of the arc. I have to share with you that I lied to the entrance people and told them I had a bad heart, I did not want nor could I have climbed the 248 stairs, so they whisked me to the top on the elevator. If there is one place you cannot miss in Paris it is the top of the Arc, the views are spectacular.
I should have walked down but I elevatored down and headed back to the hotel for a well deserved rest.
The name of the gardens refers to tiles that are manufactured here from the clay pits along the Seine.
The area became a royal garden during the reign of Catherine de Medici.At the Louvre end of the gardens is a beautiful collection of sculptures by Aristotle Maillol. Look for Pomona a nude figure holding an apple in each hand. At the age of 74 he met a 15 year old beauty who became his muse and inherited much of his art collection.
The Carrousel takes its name from a special equestrian display held to celebrate the birth of the Grand Dauphin, Louis XIV’s son. The arch itself was built to commemorate entrance into the central courtyard of the Tuilleries. The bronze statues on top of the arch are copies of the horses from St. Mark’s in Venice. Naploeon stole them thinking they would look better in Paris but have since been replaced with copies.
The Magdalene
When construction of the church started in 1764, the plans made by architect Pierre Constant d'Ivry called for a design similar to that of the Invalides church. When d'Ivry died in 1777 his designs, which can be seen in the Musée Carnavalet, were dismissed by his successor, Guillome-Martin Couture. He decided to raze the unfinished building and start with a new design, this time based on the Panthéon.Construction halted during the French Revolution until in 1806 Napoleon decided to build a temple in honor of his army. He appointed Pierre-Alexandre Vignon who razed the building yet again, and started with the construction of a temple based on the 'Maison Carrée', an ancient Roman temple in Nîmes. With the construction of the Arc de Triomphe, which honored the French Army, the new temple was looking for a new function. Some of the suggestions included using the temple as a parliament, a bank or even a train station and finally in 1842 the building was consecrated as a church, a function it still holds today.
