Louvre Panoramic

This is a the panoramic picture of the Louvre that I was trying to post yesterday. If you click on you click on the picture it'll open a somewhat larger version.  I'll have more panoramics up in the future.

France - Part the Second

In addition to spending a half day at the Louvre, we spent a day or so just walking around seeing the city and sights. There is much to see and we had precious little time. The first thing on our list was to go to the Eiffel Tower.


As will become a theme in future posts, there were many monuments/sights that I wasn't too excited about seeing. I wasn't against seeing them, but they just seemed overly-touristy. The Eiffel Tower was one of them. However, it kinda blew me away. It is a very visible part of the city even from far away. But it's very physically imposing up close. Much more impressive than I anticipated.


We managed to find one of the "bagillion" tourists walking by to take a family picture for us. Ended up being a pretty good group picture.


Near the tower there is a little park where a lot of people just kinda hang out. This is a candid shot of my mom in said park.


The other main thing I really wanted to do while in Paris was walk the Champs-Elysées. It starts at the Louvre and ends at the Arc de Triomphe. So we went back to the Louvre (it was the only place we could find with open parking) and walked from the Louvre to the Arc. Here's my mother and I standing in front of the iconic Louvre pyramid.


This is what the first part of the walk down the Champs-Elysées looks like. It was really beautiful and full of runners. I really wished that I could have had a nice run through the park. My parents are wearing jackets here because it was already chilly in the beginning of September.


View from the park looking down toward the Arc.


My parents and I got a kick out of this statue since it looks like he's covering his head in shame from the bird nestled cozily on his head.


Getting closer to the Arc. It was pretty amazing to walk this strip of road when you think about the amazing history that had past through this one street. I had to brave the traffic to get this shot.


Here I am in front of the Arc de Triomphe.


Very wide shot of the front of the Arc de Triomphe. Very neat.


Bonus Picture: This is a picture of the single smallest hotel room I've ever stayed in. It was a "budget" hotel room in Paris that we stayed at one night. It was good for sleeping in and nothing else. Thankfully that's all we needed it for. I got the top bunk.

I wanted to include a panoramic of the front of the Louvre with this post, but I can't get photoshop to do the layering properly. If I get it working, I'll post it later.

Europe in Pictures - Louvre

So, here I am. I'm finally back and ready to post pictures on my blog from the trip. I've been back in the Middle East for nearly a month, but I've been hesitant to post on my blog. Partly because I have so many pictures from the trip that it's kinda daunting to try to decide where to start. I took over 2000 pictures, so I'll do my best to only put up the best. That said, be prepared for many, many pictures over the next few weeks.

Today's group shows the first day or so in Paris. My parents and I started with the Louvre and spent half the day there. Here we go:

This first picture comes from the first night in Paris. We decided to drive around the city just to check it out. We get lost. Alot. But the experience was good. We found this cathedral and just walked around this section of the city for a while. This was the first picture I took of the trip.



The next day, we went to the Louvre. More than anything else, I really wanted to see the Winged Victory of Samothrace. Luckily for us it was literally the first thing we stumbled upon. Entirely by accident. It was impressive.



The first thing you notice about the Louvre is its immense size. It's intimidating from the outside, but the inside even more so. There's so much are to look at inside that it's hard to know where to begin. This is one section of one floor of one hall of one of the buildings. Crazy, I know.




One of the coolest pieces I saw in the Louvre was actually a double sided painting. It depicted David cutting off Goliath's head after defeating him. If you looked at one side you saw the front angle; if you looked at the reverse side you saw the back angle. Very neat.


We found the Mona Lisa room. But honestly, it was the painting on the opposite wall which really amazed me. I mean look at just how big this painting is! It was gigantic and incredibly detailed.



We also saw alot of sculpture. And I do mean alot. Just look at how full this room is. It was just one room. My dad loved the sculpture whereas I more preferred the paintings.



This is my mom "admiring" what I think is one of the Code of Hammurabi pillars. I can't remember. (I actually think she was yawning, but I like to think she was so amazed that her jaw is dropping.)

Very Big Head. Need I say more?


This statue of a naked green man killing a nasty snake was interesting. Don't you think?



Here I am posing near the Egyptian art section.



While in the Egypt section we had to check out a tomb that had been transported in entirety from Egypt to the Louvre. It was very neat. Here you can see my parents pretending to be mummies.



The last picture is the of Venus DeMilo. This statue is probably one of the most if not the famous statue in the Louvre. It didn't fail to impress. I can't even imagine making something like this out of something like play doh, let alone solid stone.

So that's it for today. More to come.