Sorry it’s been so long. I got distracted, and these take a LOT of time to write. But I’m going to try to get the next few done over the next week.
For the first three weeks we were here, we were taking a French class every afternoon through the Brown in France program. As part of this, we had to research and present on a series of historic places in France. This is the first day’s series.
First on the list was St. Germain, one of the oldest churches in Paris. We couldn’t go inside because there was some sort of funeral starting up just as we got there, but I hear it’s beautiful.
The main tower of the church.
The front of the church. You can see the hearse and the mourners gathering in front.
The detail over the front door. I can’t tell if the white stripes are bird droppings or stained stone, but I think it looks pretty cool. (Now go to http://www.googlism.com/ and type in “White Stripes”. Hee. I am subtly manipulating the music industry!)
We also, in this neighborhood, saw two of the hugely famous cafes which the literati and artists (Camus, Hemingway, Sartre) would come to: Les Deux Magots (named for the two Chinaman statues that frame the front door) and Le Flore. We also passed the boutiques which I will never be able to afford: Armani, Chanel, etc. (It’s sad. The displays were lovely.) This, of course, was all on our way to another church: St. Sulpice!
Part of the fountain in front of the church. I like the way the sheets of water came out in this one.
Have I mentioned yet that I LOVE taking pictures of pigeons on statues’ heads? I don’t know why, but I think it’s awesome and hilarious. Maybe because the statues always look so dignified and yet they have absolutely no control over whether or not a pigeon is sitting on their head.
More of the fountain, yay!
Half of the church is under construction. You can’t see it here, but the two towers don’t match. We thought this meant one was HUGE and one was tiny, or one was vertical and the other horizontal, or something like that. Nope. One’s round, and the other’s an octagon. It’s hard to notice. It’s disappointing.
A terrible picture of the organ in the church, which is HUGE. (Here's a good one.)
I like this one, too. My pictures of crucifixes always come out interestingly lit.
The Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, in a kind of fake-rock alcove. I don’t know. It looked cool, and there was a spotlight on her. Unfortunately, the rest of the church was too dark for any of my pictures to be even halfway decent, and eventually I gave up.
So we moved on to the Luxembourg Gardens.
Here’s a sort of overview of the place…
…and here’s a close-up of the pool. There were little kids playing with boats behind that bush.
Giant head! There was a lot of modern art mixed in with the ancient statues: some of it awesome (like this), some of it cool (like the one with a sign warning people not to climb it – is it really art if it’s basically a jungle gym?), and some of it horrifying (like the giant flowerpot with legs growing upside-down out of it, which a French man actually spit on in passing. We’re not sure if he did it intentionally, or if he just didn’t want to spit on us).
There’s more modern art to come next time, when we visit the Centre Pompidou (which is literally across the street from my apartment), but to leave off, the Luxembourg Palace:
For the first three weeks we were here, we were taking a French class every afternoon through the Brown in France program. As part of this, we had to research and present on a series of historic places in France. This is the first day’s series.
First on the list was St. Germain, one of the oldest churches in Paris. We couldn’t go inside because there was some sort of funeral starting up just as we got there, but I hear it’s beautiful.
The main tower of the church.
The front of the church. You can see the hearse and the mourners gathering in front.
The detail over the front door. I can’t tell if the white stripes are bird droppings or stained stone, but I think it looks pretty cool. (Now go to http://www.googlism.com/ and type in “White Stripes”. Hee. I am subtly manipulating the music industry!)
We also, in this neighborhood, saw two of the hugely famous cafes which the literati and artists (Camus, Hemingway, Sartre) would come to: Les Deux Magots (named for the two Chinaman statues that frame the front door) and Le Flore. We also passed the boutiques which I will never be able to afford: Armani, Chanel, etc. (It’s sad. The displays were lovely.) This, of course, was all on our way to another church: St. Sulpice!
Part of the fountain in front of the church. I like the way the sheets of water came out in this one.
Have I mentioned yet that I LOVE taking pictures of pigeons on statues’ heads? I don’t know why, but I think it’s awesome and hilarious. Maybe because the statues always look so dignified and yet they have absolutely no control over whether or not a pigeon is sitting on their head.
More of the fountain, yay!
Half of the church is under construction. You can’t see it here, but the two towers don’t match. We thought this meant one was HUGE and one was tiny, or one was vertical and the other horizontal, or something like that. Nope. One’s round, and the other’s an octagon. It’s hard to notice. It’s disappointing.
A terrible picture of the organ in the church, which is HUGE. (Here's a good one.)
I like this one, too. My pictures of crucifixes always come out interestingly lit.
The Virgin Mary with the infant Jesus, in a kind of fake-rock alcove. I don’t know. It looked cool, and there was a spotlight on her. Unfortunately, the rest of the church was too dark for any of my pictures to be even halfway decent, and eventually I gave up.
So we moved on to the Luxembourg Gardens.
Here’s a sort of overview of the place…
…and here’s a close-up of the pool. There were little kids playing with boats behind that bush.
Giant head! There was a lot of modern art mixed in with the ancient statues: some of it awesome (like this), some of it cool (like the one with a sign warning people not to climb it – is it really art if it’s basically a jungle gym?), and some of it horrifying (like the giant flowerpot with legs growing upside-down out of it, which a French man actually spit on in passing. We’re not sure if he did it intentionally, or if he just didn’t want to spit on us).
There’s more modern art to come next time, when we visit the Centre Pompidou (which is literally across the street from my apartment), but to leave off, the Luxembourg Palace:
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