The Louvre

Day 3: Monday 30th Dec

Today we spent a full day at the Louvre - an amazing museum with so much to see and so many people that it is overwhelming.  I have found that a couple of things help feeling overwhelmed.  Firstly do not try to see everything but enjoy what you see and go slowly.  Secondly do not try to look at art, sculpture, etc using just the senses.  I have found it liberating to see art as text and then apply the methods of textual analysis: historical, redaction, form, socio-political, narrative etc.  In short every piece has a story and a message based on its context and the message is often relevant today.  

After we resolved a few dramas with the audioguides Maureen and I split up to look at our areas of interest.

A few highlights for me were:
-Michelangelo's 'Slaves' that were going to be in the tomb of Julian II but were not used.
-Canova's 'Psyche Revived by Cupid's Kiss'

-Code of Hammurabi - a well-preserved Babylonian law code of ancient Iraq, formerly Mesopotamia, dating back to about 1772 BC. It is one of the oldest deciphered writings of significant length in the world.

-The extensive Rubens painting

 collection

As we did not see all we wanted we will return later in our stay.

On the way home we wandered along the famous Montorgueill street which is full of wonderful shops selling local produce and wares ( fish , bakeries, chicken, flowers, fruit and veges, cheese etc). We bought some fare from the famous bakery La Maison Stohrer which has been there since 1730.

  

Notre Dame

Day 2 : 29 Dec
A chilly walk down Rue la Vivienne through the Royal Palais Gardens and through the Louvre courtyards led us to the Seine which we crossed at Pont Neuf (covered in padlocks expressing eternal love of couples) onto Ile de la Citie. A short walk led us to the Gothic masterpiece of Notre Dame Cathedral.  Built on earlier churches and completed in 1163 this Cathedral was amongst the first to have flying buttresses.  It has a history of important events including the coronation of Napoleon 1st  but was sacked during the French Revolution  and required extensive renovations.  We attended the International Mass (1130) which was actually pretty much all in French.  The church and courtyard was packed and felt like Paris's answer to St Peters.  After Mass we strolled through the gardens behind the Cathedral and visited the Memorial to the Martyrs of the Deportation on the eastern tip.  This was a sombre spot built like a bunker and with architecture that felt like a prison .  The memorial commemorates the 200,000 known French and foreign citizens who were deported during the Nazi period , many to their deaths in concentration camps. This place made me feel privileged to live today in Australia and sad for the tragedy of war and its innocent victims.   most southern Afterwards we had a wonderful lunch in a little restaurant Ma Salle à manger on Place Dauphine , a small park on the northern tip of the island.  I had snail and leek pie for entree - very tasty!

In front and beneath the courtyard of Notre Dame is a crypt museum tracing the history of Paris and the Ile de la Citie.  It has extensive excavated ruins from the Gallic town Lutetia which was established on the Island and mainly the left bank and became Roman from 53 BC when Julius Caeser defeated the Gauls there.  Lutetia was a thriving Roman town with a very large amphitheatre, 3 baths, courthouse, ramparts,port etc. The aqueduct brought water for the baths from 26 km away.

Over the centuries Lutetia was walled and provided protection against Germanic and Barbarian invaders though not the Vickings who sacked it.  The history of the building of Notre Dame is also covered.  A must see museum!

On the way back home we visited the Concierge which was a ryal palace and then prison complex during the French Revolution.  This museum held many condemned prisoners who were guillotined inculding Marie Anointette.  The museum covers a history of the reign of terror period of the revolution and lists all the known killed.  This includes Antoine Lavoisier, a famous French chemist and physiologist, who discovered the chemical processes in respiration and the chemical equation in combustion of carbon and oxygen.  I studied Lavoisier many years ago when doing a uni topic on the history and philosophy of science.   

Bonjour Paris

Day 1 28th Dec 2013
We arrived at 645 to Charles De Gaulle airport after a 14 hr flight from Singapore.  I was able to stretch out over 3 seats due to the unfilled plane and Maureen did the same but with less success in sleeping.  We got through customs in 5 min but waited for 40 minutes for our cases and caught the Roissybus ('Wassy bus') to L'Opera in Paris.  Only 10 euro and a 25 min trip. This was great.  The morning light arrived on our journey and what struck me was the wonderful urban design.  The architecture is stunning and elevates the city mood contrasting with the grey winter weather

Bvld Haussmann

I diverge here: George Haussmann was given charge in 1853 by Napoleon III to make the city more healthy, less congested and more grand. Haussmann modernised the city by demolishing up to 60% of existing buildings and build grand boulevards. bridges, parks , sewerage and housing.  Napoleon also wanted  the streets wide enough to make it difficult for rebels to build barricades across and so that battalions and their artillery could be easily moved around the city.

Sacre Cour in distant background

In Haussmann's plan the height of the buildings was not to exceed nearly one and a half times the width of the street.   This meant there are never more than five floors in one building. There is a balcony on the second floor and another on the fifth.  The attic /roof is effectively another floor.  They stretch from one end to another of the building and form a line facing onto the street.  The fascias are made of stone and white concrete. The limestone comes from the quarries underneath Paris and this created other problems which I will get to later.. The rooves are mansard (a four-sided roof having a double slope on all sides, with the lower slope much steeper than the upper) made of zinc where the top windows follow the original line of the building.

A 10 minute walk along Boulevard Haussmann from the Opera Garnier took us to our apartment at 4 Rue Le Vivienne (6th Floor).  The tiny lift was unable to fit both of us plus luggage so we took turns.  Even without extras the lift is intimate for 2 people and we both thought that we would hate to get stuck in it.  Our apartment is just what we wanted, quiet and cosy with everything supplied.  Highlight is a view of the top of the Eiffel tower.


Going to the supermarket on Boulevard Des Italiens (Monprix) allowed us to stock up.  Fruit and veges were from all over  the EU but , in general were dearer and lower quality than Adelaide though it is the middle of winter.  The bread however was something else.

Maureen crashed and slept for 14 hrs and I went on an exploratory trip around the neighbourhood.  Across the road is an entrance to a passage way Galerie des Varietes which links to the famous Galerie des Panorama.  This closed passageway was the first in Paris dating from 1799.  Although middle-eastern bazaars and Arabic marketplaces etc had similar structures this was the first in he west and hence is a forerunner to current shopping malls.  It was the first to have glazed roofing to let the light in and later gas lamps for lighting, The area was rich in the 18th-18h century and was a centre for stock brokers,money changing and philatelic (stamp) shops and there are several still in the passageway plus lots of eateries.  

The Bourse

The location of the money changers is close to The Bourse - old Paris stock exchange now a conference centre.  It is also known as  the  Palais Brongniart which is just down the street.  This is a neoclassical design with Corinthian columns.  Apparently the French were averse to risk and disdained paper currency so were late in capitalising on the profits to be made from trading in the new world compared to the Dutch and English.  History buffs will know that the French financial system was complex and disorganised and that the parlous financial state of the country was a contributing factor to the French Revolution.







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