Man I took a lot of photos in Paris. Alright so on to day 3 - I am going to try and get everything from that day into one post, so this might be really long. we got up early on Day 3 and got down to the Pantheon just before 10 when it opens.
We sat outside and had a baguette breakfast (note - we thought oh we will just go down that way and than on the walk to the Pantheon we will come across a bakery and just get a baguette to eat for breakfast. This is not Berlin. There is not a bakery on every corner so we wandered quite a bit before we found a chocolate shop that had some).
The inside was nice. It used to be a church but is no longer used for that purpose. In the middle of the main room where the people are standing in the photo is Foucault's pendulum which apparently demonstrates the rotation of the earth. it was interesting.
The walls were lined with hige murals of St Genevieve, the patron saint of Paris in various scenes.
The back of the church.
Downstairs is the crypt where lots of famous people are buried.
The Curies are burried here, as well as Victor Hugo, Alexander Dumas, Jean Jaures and other famous Parisians.
After we explored the Pantheon we walked over to Notre Dame to climb to the top and explore. This is the one bridge to the south east of the cathedral. Not sure why but people covered it with locks of all kinds.
It was actually the best day we could have gone up there. It was cloudy, but sunny while we were there so it was perfect. The rest of the trip was just cloudy and cold. Going to the top of Notre Dame was my other favorite part of the trip. I would highly recommend it as it was so cool at top. You could see all the guys up there and see out over the city forever. It was just amazing, though you do have to climb like 400 steps on a circular staircase. Coming down by the bottom I was getting a little dizzy. Below are a few of the tons of photos I took at the top.
There were some tight spaces you had to get through to walk around up there.
This is the back of one of the guys. You can see the shells and such stuck in the rock which I thought was cool.
There is an elephant in the back. What is he doing up here?
They are so silly!
You had to go through the tiny door to see the bell.
Unfortunately they did not let you ride it like depicted in this picture....
Back on the ground we went inside and were both very dissapointed. It wasn't anything special inside. For how ornate the outside is the inside is very plain. I am glad we did not wait to get in last time we went as I would have been annoyed that I waited for that.
With our Notre Dame tour complete we headed over to Sainte-Chapelle. Now this was nearby and included in the museum pass which is really the only reason we went. The book said it was one of the most complete collections of radiating Gothic stained glass window art so I said well we really should check that out since it is on our way.
It was gorgeous and the pictures really do not do it justice. The one side was under renovtion so I can only imagine how amazing it would be with the whole room covered in stained glass windows. It really was incredible, floor to ceiling stained glass windows on every wall, and I am glad we got the museum pass and went to check it out. It was really beautiful.
After Sainte-Chapelle we tried to go to the Conciergerie, but it was closed. So we headed off on the subway to Musee des arts et metiers where they were having a robot exhibit! Also included in the museum pass which made me happy.
The subway station for this museum was the nicest we saw in Paris. Most of them are grungy and not nice, but this one was all shiny and made me even more excited for the museum!
Small statue of liberty outside...then on to robots!
There were sooo many people in the robot exhibit. After we got out of that we started to go through the main museum starting at the top and working our way down. This museum was also really really cool. They had so many crazy things that were just amazing. Raymond said it is a steam punks dream come true - so many cool gadgets and things. I would definitely go back (though if I had to choose between this and Paneontology museum I would probably choose the later even though this one has robots - which anyone who knows me knows I LOVE robots - so that shows how much I loved the other museum).
The top floor was science things starting with astrology tools. Some of the old tools are so interesting!
A calculator
Besides having a lot of cool things, they also had videos that would show you how the machines would work for the larger things or more complicated things which i really liked. for example the one above - there are two big black drums and the machine would measure oxygen in the one and hydrogen in the other. Then they get hooked up to the back pieces and you give it some electrivity and such and you get water. I never would have figured that out by myself that that is what this set up did - made water.
Crazy
On the ground floor there was a large room with cars and airplanes and such in.
It was a really neat museum and I really enjoyed it. All of the museums are so huge! We just finished looking at everything when the announcement came that the museum was closing so we just made it through.
Our last stop of the day was Centre Pomidou, the big modern art museum. It is open late which is nice since most everything else closed by 6. Our museum pass only got us access to the permanent collection, but the permanent collection is huge and I really enjoyed it (this was Raymond's favorite part of the trip). Here are some photos of some of the works they have.
The outside. You can walk into the middle.
The inside
They had a lot of small rooms you could go in (though we didn't realize it at first as it looked like hallways we shouldn't go down or doors we shouldn't go in) that had lots of interesting things going on. This one had different toys rotating on squares with lights shining on them so the shadows were fun on the wall. I really liked it. Some of the other ones had fog in or loud music playing with video and just lots of neat things.
I told Raymond this is what we could do with our red room to decorate.
Looking disapprovingly at the lady bent over that was on the mirror. I had fun.
And that is it for day 3! Man we packed a lot into one day and my feet hurt so much by the time we got back to our room, but it was a really fun day. So much fun stuff in Paris!
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