J'Adore Paris: Louvre

Ever since I was seven, I've had a passion for France and the French language. At the age of seven I decided it was time to learn French and my parents bought me a book and tape that teaches basic French to children. Thanks to "Teddy," a French bear, and his friends, I learned useful phrases such as "Je suis un ours." which means "I am a bear." By the time I got to middle school, I had a few phrases under my belt, and I continued to study French in school for five years.

Why is this relevant? Well I have ALWAYS wanted to go to France, and last week I was able to go for the first time!!! Here is where Paris, France is (I even made the map so you can see it in relation to Ireland):


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When I arrived in France, we had to take an hour bus ride to Paris. The bus ride itself was pretty boring, but I was thrilled to see all of the signs in French as I passed. I pronounced them all silently to myself, tried to translate, and (I know I'm a nerd) I had fake dialogues in my head in French to see what I remembered. To my surprise I remembered much more than I thought I would.

It was obvious when we arrived into the city; well first we had to drive through the not-so-nice areas, but I mean the heart of the city! I was completely enamored with the beautiful, intricate architecture of every building in sight.


It is difficult to tell with this picture, but each building had beautiful metalwork done on all of the rails of the balconies that were simply stunning.


We stayed in Monmartre which is where the famous Moulin Rouge and Basilique du Sacre Coeur (Sacred Heart Cathedral) are located. We stayed there because it was the most budget-friendly section of Paris (which is important for students like us!). After we settled into the hotel for a bit, we went on our first Parisian adventure, to the Louvre! Driving through Paris to the Louvre, we saw some beautiful buildings. This is just across the street from the Louvre. The opera house is just across the way, to the right of the fountain:


And then there it was, La Musee du Louvre (the Louvre Museum).


The outside of the Louvre was like a museum in itself. There were so many tiny, intricate details on every inch of the building. It certainly was a sight to behold.


The Louvre is an enormous building; it is in a rectangular shape with one side cut off. Here is an aerial view of the Louvre:


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Our tour guide told us that if you took the Louvre, separated the floors and stretched out the entire thing, it would stretch close to 11 km! Additionally, if you were to spend just one minute looking at each of the 35,000 exhibits, it would take you approximately 14 years straight (without sleep) to view all of them. This is just to give you an idea of the enormity of this building!

As I walked through the archway to the middle of the rectangle, I caught my first glimpse of the illustrious pyramids. Here you can see the largest pyramid in back of the little one.


Many of us commented on how amazing it was that the architects were able to fit such modern structures (the pyramids) in with the old style of the main building. Somehow the two contrasted in a harmonious way.


At the very end of the rectangle (on the open side) was this arch. Some people thought it was the Arc de Triomphe, but it is much much smaller than the Arc, and it looks pretty different (you'll see that later!).


When it was time to go inside the museum, I was surprised. I had no idea that the main entrance to the Louvre was through the pyramid! Here's a view from inside (so cool!).


Now I walked past hundreds of exhibits when I was inside the Louvre, but the pictures I took were carefully selected. Although I was glad that my first trip through the Louvre was with a tour guide (because I did learn some interesting facts), it was difficult to get a real look at the museum's exhibits because he has a strict itinerary. The pictures that I took fell into a few categories: 1.) very famous exhibits 2.) artwork that I was personally attracted to 3.) exhibits that we stopped at and the tour guide explained to us and 4.) paintings that I studied in art classes. Some of them fit into multiple categories. I will definitely not bore you with every exhibit that I took a picture of.

The first thing we saw had to do with the history of the museum which is perfect since I like to share history with you so much! This is a picture of the original Louvre. Beginning in the 12th century, it was a fortress for the king, but was extended to become the Palais du Louvre. This is the original Palais du Louvre (it is the square part that you can see in the aerial view).


In 1682, King Louis XIV decided he wanted to reside in Versailles instead of the Palais du Louvre; in 1793, the Louvre became a museum. Since then, it has been added on to several times (the wings are the newer parts). The Pyramids were started in 1983, and by 1993 all of the pyramids were completed, resulting on what you see today.

This first sculpture is one that's familiar to most people, even those who don't know a whole lot of art. She is the Venus de Milo (in Greek mythology she is Aphrodite); Venus is the goddess of love and beauty. She was sculpted in Greece around 100 B.C. and is 6' 8" tall. The position that she is standing in is called controposto which describes the way that her shoulders and hips are going in opposite directions. This is an impossible position if a person is standing still; the position suggests that she is moving or dancing. Controposto is a common technique used by Greek sculptors in ancient times.


Here is the ceiling above the Venus de Milo. Most of the ceiling in the Louvre is highly decorated like this.


This painting is by Jacques-Louis David and is called "Napoleon's Coronation." The title is ironic since it actually depicts Napoleon crowning his wife, Josephine. In real life Napoleon crowned himself, which was not customary at all. The main reason I am showing this painting is because of its size. When we view slides or prints of paintings, we do not realize that some of them are huge! I was in awe at the size of some of the paintings in the Louvre. I purposely caught the people passing so that you could use them to gauge the size of this piece of art.


And here is the famous Mona Lisa. Honestly, she's a bit disappointing. I don't want to sound like I don't appreciate art, because I do, but she was one of the less spectacular displays of the museum. Not surprisingly, however, she was surrounded by mobs of people. I quickly joined the masses because I felt obligated to take a photo of one of the most famous paintings in the world.

Leonardo da Vinci knew the male anatomy very well and had a difficult time painting females. In fact, Mona Lisa was painted using a male model (who was likely da Vinci's lover). In 1911, the Mona Lisa was stolen from the Louvre. This theft (and eventual recovery) was what ultimately made the Mona Lisa so famous.


This is a painting by Paolo Veronese called "The Wedding at Cana." It depicts the scene where Jesus turns water into wine. This painting was so enormous that I couldn't get the entire thing in the frame. It literally took up an entire wall of the Louvre (granted it was a somewhat small wall for the Louvre). It turns out that most of this painting was not painted by Veronese, but by his apprentices.


Next I have some more pictures of the ceiling decorations. They were stunning.


I like how this one has more modern art mixed in with the traditional moulding.


This is the King's Room. There is a portrait of every king of France on the walls as well as many other intricate details. (Sorry for the bad quality of the pic. No flash allowed. It was a beautiful room though.)


Here is a room full of sculptures underneath the inverted pyramid.


And finally, as I said before, Paris is even more beautiful at night. I will leave you with pictures of the Louvre as I left that night.

Killarney Day 3

Well this last week has been awfully hectic and a whole lot of fun! It was RAG Week for NUI Galway which is basically a week full of events on campus in order to raise money for charities. This year over 20,000 euro was raised for various charities. RAG Week is also a week that the college students use as an excuse to go crazy so it was definitely a high-energy, fun-filled week for me.

I never finished blogging about my trip to Killarney (although I did hit most of the important points), so I am going to finish it up before I move on to Paris (which was an amazing trip!).

The day after our trip around Kerry, we had a few hours before we needed to leave for Galway. We decided that it would be fun to rent bikes for the day to see some more of Killarney National Park. Either European bikes are different, or I have become very rusty at bike riding because boy was it a struggle to ride those bikes at first. We were all laughing hysterically because it was so hard to get on the bikes, and then difficult to ride without looking all wobbly. You know how everyone says the phrase "it's like riding a bike" referring to how you don't forget certain things? Well that figure of speech no longer makes sense to me.

After five minutes or so, we got the hang of riding bikes again and made our way over to Killarney National Park. Our goals for the day were to see Muckross House, Muckross Abbey, and a waterfall that some people recommended seeing.

Now, not only is the skill of bike riding something that can, in fact, be forgotten, but it is also something that takes some leg muscle. When you are a kid and used to bike riding, you do not realize this. When you are 20 and have not ridden a bike in close to three years, especially uphill, you DEFINITELY realize this (but it's already too late).

We passed Muckross Abbey without stopping (because it looked like every other monastery we have seen in Ireland already), and finally made it to Muckross House. The Muckross House was built from 1839 until 1843 for the Herbert family. At the time it was one of the most modern houses in Ireland and almost completely fireproof. I also recall the tour guide from the bus tour saying that it had running water even though no one else did at the time (but I'm not entirely certain about that). It is a beautiful house, which you can see from both the outside, and tours of the interior. Unfortunately it was closed for the off-season so we were only able to see the outside.




The Muckross House was beautiful; it reminded me of the old mansions in Newport, RI. It even had a very large garden in the back of it (which I could tell will be beautiful in the spring and summer).



In the 1850s, the Herberts prepared the house for a visit from Queen Victoria. Though the Queen did end up staying at their house (remember Lady's View?), they spent so much money on the renovations for her that they went bankrupt and the estate was sold shortly afterward. The third owners of Muckross Estate were Americans and ended up donating it to the state of Ireland in 1932. Muckross Estate thus became Killarney National Park.

Next we biked to a waterfall that many people in Killarney said was worth seeing. Here are some sights along the way:





Although it was very pretty, it was not much of a waterfall. Actually, it was more like a downhill stream.

We were a bit disappointed with the waterfall, but I hear that in the spring it is a lot more impressive so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt. It was definitely a peaceful place to be though. (How cool are the roots on this tree?)


There was still an entire day left of our rent and we wanted to get our 12 euro worth of biking in so we explored a bit more of the park, biked into town, got some lunch, returned the bikes, and headed back to Galway. After sitting on a bike all afternoon, walking and even sitting on the bus was a tad bit painful, but it was definitely worth it! Bye Killarney!

Ring of Kerry Bus Tour

Now I know this is what I did almost two weeks ago, but this was my favorite trip to date. Plus this weekend I'm going to be in Paris so I will have A LOT to update on. I really need to work on being more up-to-date with this thing because I'm going to start having MANY more adventures in the recent future.

So, the Ring of Kerry. Saturday we woke up after having gone to bed quite early to go on our tour of the ring of Kerry. Now contrary to what it may seem (and I thought this myself at first), the ring of Kerry is NOT some kind of statue, ruin, or structure of any kind. It is a mapped out circle around County Kerry which displays all of Kerry's beauty to its fullest.

Remember that mountain range from the last post, the McGillicuddy Reeks? These are them again!


There is a funny story about this stop. It was the very first stop of the bus tour. As I was taking pictures, I heard someone say "Jamie Blanchard!" Now I was on this tour with friends, but they were friends that I had only met in Ireland. I did not think that any of them would know my last name! I turned around and it was one of my best friends from home, Ashton. I knew she was studying in Dublin, and I knew she was traveling that weekend, but I did NOT know that she was in Killarney, and I did NOT know she was on my bus tour!


It's a bit difficult to tell what this next picture is, but it is of a bog. I have taken pictures of bogs in the past in different locations around Ireland, but I did not know anything about them. This particular bus driver/tour guide explained their significance to us.

Bogs apparently take THOUSANDS of years to form! Starting in the 17th century, the Irish cut the peat out of the bogs to use for fuel in their fires. Thousands of acres of these bogs have been destroyed because of the Irish dependence on peat for fuel. More recently, they have been trying to become dependent on other kinds of fuel to preserve this unique feature of Ireland's landscape.


We stopped briefly at a bog museum which featured a small village and bog ponies, which were used to help harvest the peat. It was very apparently very informational about these bogs, but as much as I love to learn, I did not want to spend 5 euro to go see a pony and a little village. In fact, most of the people on the tour decided to pass on the museum tour. Ashton and I waited outside and came across this unique creature:


This poor cat was the friendliest thing, but had this awful, deformed tail. I named her Piggy because her tail was curly like a pig. Despite her(/his?) demented appearance, she loved attention!

This is just a really pretty picture of a breathtaking viewpoint that we stopped at. I don't know how many times I'll say this, but you cannot see how beautiful it is from these pictures alone. Come to Ireland someday to see yourself!!


But it only gets more beautiful! This is a picture of Dingle Bay and Dingle Peninsula (straight across) which is one of the top 5 most beautiful places in Europe according to some people. There is a bus tour around Dingle (or you can take a bike or horse!) that I plan on going on with my sister, Sam, when she comes to visit. These pictures made me want to return to Killarney; actually they made me want to LIVE in Killarney!


There are flowers blooming already! Spring is coming! (Sidenote: I saw my first daffodils of the season today! That is always my sign of spring!)


These next two pictures are of the islands off of Dingle Peninsula, the Blasket Islands. They are uninhabited (although they were not always this way), and they are frequently visited by tourists because of their natural beauty.




Remember the Famine Walls that I talked about? Well they are everywhere around Ireland. I found out that they are also called Penny Walls because the individuals who built them were paid a penny a day for their laborby the British (as if a penny would buy themselves and their families food). You can see the walls pretty clearly on this mountain:


Our next stop was one that is chock full of history! This was the home of Daniel O'Connell, the great "Irish Liberator." In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Irish (Catholic) were being oppressed though the Penal Laws by the British (Protestants). These laws were set in place in order to control the Irish and to get rid of their "Irishness" in order to assimilate them with the British culture and way of life. Some examples of these laws were:
- Catholics could not hold office or serve in the army
- Catholics could not practice their religion, and they paid fines for not going to Protestant church
- Catholics could not attend school unless they converted to Protestantism
- Intermarriages between Catholics and Protestants was illegal
- And more....

O'Connell was determined to gain equality and religious freedom for the Catholics not through physical force or violence, but through political influence. Throughout the early 1800s, he campaigned for Catholic emancipation. By the mid 1800s the penal laws were repealed and the Irish Catholics were emancipated. O'Connell continues to be an influence to people today, and was even an inspiration to heroes such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King Jr.

As you can see, there is not much left of the house he grew up in.


This is just more beauty from the place that we stopped for lunch. The small town is called Waterville and is renowned for it's beautiful golf courses. It costs close to 500 euro to play on the nicest golf course here. In fact, it is a place that is frequented by professional golfers such as Tiger Woods. On a slightly different note, Charlie Chaplin also loved and frequented Waterville (in fact there is a statue erected in is honor there which I intended to get a picture with, but I was late for the bus!).



Just some more pretty places.



Now this was my FAVORITE spot ever! I could have sat here for hours staring. (Although I guess I felt that way about a lot of places on this tour.) I actually wondered about the house and property prices around there for a while. Maybe I'll have a house in County Kerry in my future...hmm...(I wish!).


Now this is an old ring fort ruin. The Irish have some funny ideas about circles and fairies though (which I think is so fun!), so this is also a "fairy fort."I'm sorry I took a pretty bad picture of it. Also, remember our old friend O'Connell? Well, just across the water, to the left of the picture, is his house that he lived in through his adulthood. He didn't move far from mum, did he? (Mum is how they say Mom around here.) Anyway, this house is now a museum in his honor.


Now this was one of the most interesting and bewildering parts of the tour! These next few pictures are of Black Valley. This valley is settled in between the McGillicuddy Reeks. The reason that it amazed me was because it was one of the last places in Ireland to get electricity and phone service. Guess when they got electricity?

....in the 1980s! I was just as shocked (excuse the pun) as you!

It is called the Black Valley because a large portion of it has never recieved sunlight, and the remaining parts get very little sun.



Now we are back in the Killarney National Park. This is Lady's View, and as with all of my sights, yes there is a little story behind it!



When Queen Victoria came to Ireland in 1861 for her first and only visit to the island, she stayed in the Muckross House while she was in Killarney (which I visited and will post about on Sunday). It is said that her ladies in waiting came to this very spot and declared it the most beautiful view in Ireland (after having visited other parts of Ireland).

I wouldn't say that it is the most beautiful sight I've seen, but it was certainly in the top 5. I do believe it lives up to its reputation.



The moon was out; isn't that stunning?



These are just some pictures as we drove through the park back to the bus station.

The water on this lake was so still; it looked like a mirror...or like I could walk on it.


I meant to capture the blue of the water with the glory of the sun getting low in the sky, but got something that looks like a black and white photo instead. I guess it's because I took it directly into the sunlight. It still looks pretty cool to me!


These last two are for you Dad!



That's the end of the Ring of Kerry. Stay tuned for the rest of the trip and for Paris (which I am heading to in 1.5 hours). I really should be sleeping right now....